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Much study has been done on how to promote the most important attribute physicians must have in order to fulfill their sworn duty: that of professionalism. For practicing physicians such frustrations as the insurance bureaucracy and the pressure to generate visits can erode that duty.

In this interview we discuss what patients expect from their cancer treatment with Deborah Schrag, MD, MPH, associate professor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Schrag recently published a study that aimed to discover how patients with advanced cancer understand the purpose of their chemotherapy treatment.

As is nearly always the case with international travel, and especially in a place so different from what we are accustomed to in the United States, the whole experience was delightfully eye-opening, both for those dimensions of medical care and education that struck me as remarkably similar, as well as those that seemed wholly foreign.

Find out how your compensation, bonuses, and benefits compare to your peers. Data exclusive to Cancer Network.

The Come Home project will demonstrate that community oncology practices can aggressively manage the symptoms and complications of cancer and its treatment-and at the same time can save money by limiting the use of expensive sites of service like hospitals and emergency departments.

Initiating discussions about end-of-life care with patients with incurable cancers early in their disease was associated with a decrease in late-stage aggressive cancer treatments such as chemotherapy or acute care, and with an increase in the use of hospice care at the end of life.

A phase II study indicates that cabozantinib has strong antitumor activity in advanced castration-resistant prostate cancer and improves bone scan lesions.

Final results of a cohort from a phase II monotherapy trial of quizartinib in acute myeloid leukemia patients showed that more than half of patients 60 years of age and older who harbored an internal tandem duplication in the FMS-like tyrosine kinase 3 had a composite complete remission.

Giving patients at the end of life regular parenteral hydration of 1 L of saline per day did not improve symptoms associated with hydration, quality of life, or survival, according to a randomized, placebo controlled study.

An observational study has found that patients with chronic liver disease (CLD) who used aspirin or another NSAID had a reduced risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma and a reduced risk of dying from CLD.

Although the number of metastatic cancer patients receiving radiation in the last year of life did not significantly change from 2000 to 2007, a new study has found a shift in radiation use from the simplest radiation treatments to more advanced treatment.

I see a time in the not too distant future when we’ll define tumors this way. What will our subspecialties be? Rather than a breast clinic or a lung clinic, will we perhaps be attending a “HER2 clinic” or an “mTOR clinic” instead?

Real healthcare reform would address these socioeconomic realities. Instead, the US is waging a regulatory “war” on exaggerated measures of waste, one that shows little promise of reducing costs or increasing quality but will assuredly crush “needed innovation by practicing physicians, who best understand the delivery of care.”

Including the entire course of care in the efforts to improve quality and contain costs will make the short-term implementation more complex and perhaps controversial. However it will reflect the way that contemporary oncology care is delivered, and will allow for holistic care management and an optimization of cost.

In Part II, I focus on ideas and specific programs that may slow the growth of spending while, it is hoped, minimizing the impact on what we all want: sustainable access to high-quality therapy and continued innovation. Finally, I will consider another fundamental question: Is current spending worth it?

This review will discuss the pathophysiology associated with the del(17p13.1) interphase cytogenetic abnormality, the current generally poor outcomes in affected patients, currently approved therapeutic agents, and new agents now undergoing investigation.

As I walked into my office last Monday I found my nurses giving me a peculiar look, one that I usually reserve for incidents like watching someone back into another’s car. The explanation for their solicitude was soon revealed by a stack of charts lying on my desk. During my weekend off, seven of our patients died.

Cancer Network presents exclusive coverage from the American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting. We'll bring you onsite reports as we cover the latest research, trials, scientific advances, and controversies that are changing the way hematologic malignancies are managed and treated.Check back here daily during the meeting and watch your inbox for our exciting reports from the ASH 2012 meeting.

In this Stump the Professor video, two fellows test Dr. Marshall's diagnostic skills with a unique case study involving an 80-year-old patient who presents with abdominal pain, bilateral edema, weight loss, and dark, tarry stools.

A new study in the United Kingdom has found an increasing trend in opioid prescribing by general practitioners for cancer pain during a patient’s last 3 months of life. However, data also revealed that older patients had a significantly lower chance of receiving opioids to address cancer pain compared with patients aged 50 years or younger.

In this video, Dr. Yu discusses why he went into radiation oncology and what he has learned during his time in practice.

In this podcast we discuss integrating palliative care into standard oncology care with Thomas J. Smith, director of palliative medicine at Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center.

A significant portion of patients with incurable lung cancer believe that palliative radiation therapy will cure the disease or at least help them live longer, according to a new study. Only about one-third of patients acknowledged that the treatment was not at all likely to cure their cancer.

A large study of older doctors shows that those who took a daily multivitamin had an 8% lower risk of cancer compared to those who took a placebo pill.

Controlling healthcare spending has been, and appears destined to remain, at the center of the public policy debate at each level of government, given that much of the healthcare bill is paid by taxpayers.

The current system rations care in an irrational way. This irrational rationing is going to worsen, for the costs of the current system are simply not sustainable nor are they justifiable by almost any metric used.

Thymomas are uncommon neoplasms that have generated considerable controversy among pathologists. The following questions can be used to evaluate the evidence supporting current concepts about the pathology of thymomas and the clinical applicability of those concepts.

In Part I of this article, I will focus on our current understanding of drivers of cost for oncology care and the effect of the high cost on patients, as well as on how patients value treatment.