Applied Radiation Oncology's latest blogs covering today's issues in radiation oncology.
Despite advances in cancer treatment, cervical cancer, particularly locally advanced disease, remains a challenging entity with a poor prognosis. For patients with persistent, recurrent, or metastatic cervical cancer, pembrolizumab has…
January 15, 2025
As summer fades into fall, we have yet another ASTRO Annual Meeting in the books. With an overarching theme of provider wellness, we experienced moving keynote addresses discussing how to navigate the changing landscape of medicine…
October 29, 2024
The world of cancer treatment is a rapidly evolving creature, and rectal cancer is no exception. In particular, locally advanced rectal cancer has a number of valid treatment options. While it’s traditionally a surgical disease, in some…
August 15, 2024
It’s no surprise there’s a paucity of data for primary salivary gland cancers — they comprise only about 5% of all head and neck cancers, with roughly 2500 cases per year.1 The standard of care as it stands is surgical resection for…
June 10, 2024
Durvalumab has changed the game for stage III non-small cell lung cancer; pembrolizumab is potentially sparing MSI-high rectal cancer patients surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy; and trastuzumab is standard of care for all HER-2…
April 11, 2024
In many ways, health inequity—differences in health care access and outcomes—and climate change—long-term shifts in temperature and weather patterns—are two sides of the same coin. Both most acutely impact populations vulnerable to…
March 25, 2024
The enigma cloaking a bunch of malignant cells known as a sarcoma has existed since before the first radiation therapy treatment in 1896. And it seems like the more molecular and histologic details we learn as technology and research…
February 14, 2024
Health disparities work has highlighted inequities in cancer screening, access to therapies, and financial toxicities, among other areas. With an understanding of the current problems, work now focuses on identifying root causes on the…
January 1, 2024 · Sara Beltrán Ponce, MD
It has become well known that we are more disconnected as a species than ever, despite having countless ways to connect. On top of incessant exposure to social media, the ease of multi-tasking while on tumor board or in chart rounds is…
December 1, 2023
Imagine you are a physician on call. Emergency after emergency keeps happening; one minute, a patient who was previously well is now in respiratory distress. The next minute, you’re explaining to another patient and their family that…
December 1, 2023
We are always climbing the ladder. In medicine, it’s easy to see. In other professions, it can be more obscure. But it seems like the human experience is always to think, “I just need to get through this next month, this next year, this…
October 1, 2023
Every year, the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) hosts one of the largest meetings in the world for radiation oncologists. The theme for this year’s annual meeting is “Pay It Forward: Partnering With Our Patients,”…
September 1, 2023
Most radiation oncology residents don’t jump at the idea of becoming a brachytherapist. A few out there are passionate about the semi-surgical nature of it and the populations whom it commonly serves, but if you asked a handful of…
August 1, 2023
Many years ago, when immersed in the role of program coordinator for the University of Pennsylvania’s Radiation Oncology Residency Program, Cordelia (Cordy) Baffic began hatching a plan: design an organization that would elevate…
August 1, 2023
The idea of delayed gratification is a common adage encountered in medicine. Medical students and residents are told time and again to just suck it up, keep going, and don’t whine because “this is just the way things are.” The ultimate…
July 1, 2023
Two million patients will be diagnosed with cancer this year, 2 in 5 Americans. Over half of these patients will require radiation for cure. Annual Medicare costs for all radiation therapy treatments account for less than the annual…
June 1, 2023
The “infodemic” that stalks the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic might be the most prominent recent example of the harmful impact of health misinformation, but it is in no way a unique phenomenon—or, for that matter, a new one.1 Complex and…
May 1, 2022
Communication skills are well-recognized as an essential competency in practicing medicine, with increased acknowledgment of the need for formal training in this domain in both undergraduate and graduate medical education over the last…
March 1, 2022
There has been a progressive shift toward adopting an integrated residency program structure among many specialties that had traditionally required a separate internship year;1 however, this element of the radiation oncology training…
November 1, 2021
