The Next 25 Years

Abstract

During the last year, Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) celebrated its first 25 years of publication by reproducing articles from 1983, JCO’s first year of publication, with concurrent commentary by the original authors of those articles. With little editorial direction, all of the authors wrote pieces that inform the history of oncology. Each took a unique approach, giving each article a truly personal perspective on the evolution of our specialty. As a body of literature, they represent the history of oncology. As such, they should be required reading for all who care for patients with cancer, and most particularly for those who have trained recently and may not have known or interacted with the people who defined oncology as a discipline. For each article, at least one of the original authors wrote a commentary, with the exception of Charles (Chuck) G. Moertel’s “Treatment of the Carcinoid Tumor and the Malignant Carcinoid Syndrome.” This is one of the best examples of medical writing in JCO or in any other medical journal. Larry K. Kvols, who worked with Chuck Moertel at the Mayo Clinic for 18 years, was gracious enough to write the commentary for the original 1983 article. When Chuck died, we lost one of our best writers, teachers, and clinical researchers. For those unfortunate enough not to have heard his Karnofsky Memorial Lecture on the topic of gut neuroendocrine tumors, “An Odyssey in the Land of Small Tumors,” JCO published the text of his lecture in 1987. This is not the place to review the entire series of articles—we hope that you will read your print copy or go to www.jco.org and access these articles under “25th Anniversary Celebration” on the home page. Their breadth reflects the amazing job Joe Bertino, MD, JCO’s first Editor-in-Chief, did in attracting seminal papers in oncology. In his editorial published in the January 1, 2008, edition of the Journal, Joe Bertino reflected on what then seemed a daunting task: “...by begging and calling and twisting arms, we persuaded some outstanding investigators to send their ‘good stuff ’ to JCO. So the first issue had a number of seminal papers/reviews by Gianni Bonadonna, Saul Rosenberg, Ray Warrell and Joe Burchenal, and Ian Tannock and Kevin Murphy.” Joe Bertino certainly succeeded. The fledgling JCO published many outstanding articles that likely would have gone to more established journals, making my task of selecting articles to be reproduced throughout this anniversary year—save this last issue— really quite easy. The current editors of JCO will be interested to see whether future editors will recapitulate this series or the concept of it for JCO’s 50th Anniversary Celebration. More importantly, we hope that all of the current readers and editors have had or will have the same pleasure in reading the articles and commentaries as we did throughout 2008.