Specialty Editors Research Articles

Times are changing and so is Surgery

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced numerous changes on all of us. Serendipitously, some of these changes have been good for patients and surgeons. For example, telemedicine has been extensively integrated into patient care visits, to the benefit of both the patients and the care providers. At Surgery, we, too, are undergoing significant change with the retirement of our long-time editor, Michael G. Sarr, MD. As we have previously noted, Steven D. Wexner, MD, PhD, has joined us as one of the editors-in-chief, and, in this issue, we highlight organizational changes in the journal, including several new internationally renowned specialty editors.

COVID‐19: looking forward

There cannot be many people on earth who do not know what COVID-19 means, both virologically and to all of us personally and professionally. This unprecedented global pandemic event has altered everything that is considered normal, including medical publishing. The Internal Medicine Journal (IMJ) has sought for decades to be one vehicle for the dissemination of Australian medical research in our covered fields. Our process of specialty editor allocation, peer review, revision, resubmission and final proofing and typesetting for balanced monthly issues may not be entirely fit for the torrent of publications related to COVID-19 so far, as well as those predicted to be generated over the coming months. These submissions include clinical observations, clinical trials, case series, position statements, clinical guidelines, meta-analyses and – possibly – types of papers that we cannot quite yet anticipate. Nevertheless, we have a duty to assist in this global effort and to help disseminate rapidly evolving science-based data on this infection and its consequence. Accordingly, you will see new types of papers, as well as unusual lengths, possibly crossing into disciplines not normally covered in IMJ. We will endeavour to turn these important contributions around as quickly as possible. If we make some mistakes, let us know by correspondence. If you wish to submit in a timely fashion, prewarn the editorial office. All of this is, of course, occurring during a period when the ability to produce a print version of this and other publications is severely curtailed, so I do hope that everyone who needs to see this new and important content is able to do so. There is some excitement surrounding all of this, tempered by anxiety for ourselves, our families, our patients and – in some cases – our careers. Nevertheless, we hope to assist in the effort to get us to ‘the other side’ of COVID-19 when business is unlikely ever again to be as usual but should return to a new normality. I welcome all feedback from readers.

Editorial introductions

Editorial introductions

Incoming Editor-in-Chief Note

I am honored to be the new editor-in-chief of ASCE’s Journal of Management in Engineering (JME). I would like to thank the search committee for entrusting me with this opportunity. A special thanks goes to the outgoing editor-in-chief, Professor Makarand Hastak at Purdue University, who has demonstrated great leadership for the last seven years to achieve significant milestones for JME. I have been a faculty member at George Washington University School of Business in Washington, DC, since 1999. I joined the JME editorial board in 2008 upon invitation from Professor Irtishad Ahmad at Florida International University, who was the editor-in-chief at the time. During the last couple of years, I have served as an associate editor for JME. In addition to JME, I serve as a specialty editor for the case studies section of ASCE’s Journal of Construction Engineering and Management. I also serve on the editorial boards of IEEE’s Transactions on Engineering Management and International Journal of Project Management, the leading journals in engineering management and project management. Therefore, I am very familiar with the recent research trends in our field. JME has its competitive advantages as one of the few management in engineering journals that are recognized by the community of scholars. It receives a respectable impact factor from the Thomson Reuters journal-citation reports, is listed as a wellregarded journal in the United Kingdom’s Association of Business Schools (ABS) academic journal guide for business and management academics, and was ranked an A* journal by the Australian Research Council’s Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA), just to name a few. I believe that there is room for improvement to raise the visibility and reputation of JME by attracting new readers and contributors who conduct management in engineering research that incorporates economics, technology, innovation, decision sciences, psychology, social and behavioral sciences, leadership, organizational theory, etc., into civil engineering, construction, infrastructure, and the built environment. I am committed to bringing JME to the next level, as the management in engineering field is maturing into an interdisciplinary, vibrant, and dynamic discipline. Exposing JME to various disciplines will bring new insight and great appreciation to the growing field, and I would like to be a facilitator to introduce the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities. My ultimate goal is to see JME become a preferred journal by researchers and practitioners to acquire and disseminate essential ideas, theories, knowledge, and practices in management in engineering. I will work closely with associate editors, editorial board members, and the ASCE journal publications staff to make this possible. Most importantly, I will seek your continued interest, support, and commitment. I look forward to working with all of you to receive high-quality papers as an author and constructive feedback as a reviewer. If you have any suggestions or comments regarding JME, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you very much.

Updates to JCEM Editorial Board

On behalf of ASCE Journal Publications and the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management (JCEM) Editorial Board, I would like to thank Dr. Xiangyu Wang from Curtin University in Australia for his steady, tireless, and unselfish service to this journal as an Assistant Specialty Editor in the Project Planning and Design Area. We look forward to his continued participation as an author and reviewer. I take great pleasure in announcing the appointment of three new Assistant Specialty Editors in the Project Planning and Design Area led by Dr. SangHyun Lee. We welcome you to the JCEM Editorial Board and look forward to your many contributions! Dr. Changbum Ahn is an Assistant Professor in the Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where he leads the Smart and Sustainable Construction Research Group. He earned his B.S. and M.S. in architectural engineering from Seoul National University in South Korea and his M.S. in earth and environmental engineering from Columbia University. He received his Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign in 2012. His main research interest is to investigate and develop data-driven techniques for transforming traditional project delivery processes into integrated, sustainable practices. He is particularly interested in utilizing smart sensing technologies— small-sized and low-cost sensors that can be easily employed in today’s construction environment—to capture activity-assessment and operational-assessment information in order to contribute to project planning, design, and control. By reappropriating widespread technologies to investigate opportunities for improved environmental, economic, and social sustainability, his research seeks to facilitate the immediate implementation of improved construction practices. Dr. Ahn has been actively involved in several academic and professional organizations, including three committees of the ASCE Technical Council on Computing and Information Technology and the ASCE Construction Research Council. He also serves as a peer reviewer in various journals. Dr. Fei Dai is currently an Assistant Professor of Construction Engineering and Management in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of West Virginia University, where he is leading the development of the construction program and the Integrated Construction Informatics Laboratory. Prior to joining West Virginia University in August 2012, he received his postdoctoral training at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He earned his Ph.D. in civil engineering from Hong Kong Polytechnic University and M.S. in civil engineering from Tsinghua University, China. He also holds a B.Eng. degree in transportation and civil engineering from Hefei University of Technology, China. His research primarily involves development and application of advanced sensing and computing techniques in the areas of construction planning, control and automation, and automated jobsite safety and health monitoring. He is particularly interested in integrating visual sensing, discrete-event simulation, and evolutionary optimization techniques to enhance the productivity, safety, and efficiency of construction processes. Dr. Carol C. Menassa is an Assistant Professor and a John L. Tishman Faculty Scholar in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan. Prior to joining the faculty at UM, she was the M. A. Mortenson Company Assistant Professor of Construction Engineering and Management at the University of Wisconsin–Madison for four years. She received her Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering and M.S. in finance from the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign and her M.S. and B.E. in civil and environmental engineering from the American University of Beirut. Carol directs the Intelligent and Sustainable Civil Infrastructure Systems Laboratory at UM. Her current research focuses on sustainability of building infrastructure systems. She is using building automation systems and other sensor devices to understand and model the impact of occupant energy use characteristics on energy consumption in buildings and develop cost-effective solutions to achieve energy efficiency and conservation. She is also involved in several research projects focused on international construction, integrated project delivery, and quantitative assessment of project manager competencies. Her research is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Construction Industry Institute, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, and the Wisconsin Energy Research Consortium. Carol has more than eight years of industry experience as a project engineer with Dar Al-Handasah (Shair and Partners), a leading consulting firm, working on large-scale projects across the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. She also was a summer associate with CRA International in their Boston, Massachusetts, office for three years, where she worked with their capital projects group. Carol is an active member of the Construction Research Congress (CRC) and the Academic Committee of the Construction Industry Institute (CII), and is a member of the ASCE Technical Council on Computing and Information Technology (TCCIT), the Visualization, Information Modeling, and Simulation (VIMS) Committee, the Data Sensing and Analysis Committee, and the Education Committee.

The beginning of a new journey

I take over the chief editorship of the Singapore Medical Journal (SMJ) in 2014 with much anticipation and a strong sense of responsibility. Professor Teo Eng Kiong had been preparing me for this role since June last year, enabling the ‘handover of the baton’ to occur seamlessly. For this, and for his immense contribution to the Journal, I am grateful to Prof Teo. An appropriate Chinese idiom that describes what we all need to do every now and then is “饮水思源” (yĭn shuĭ sī yuan), which literally means “when drinking, one should think of the water source”. Prof Teo has been instrumental in bringing many important changes to the Journal during his four-year tenure as Editor-in-chief. He spearheaded a revamp in the Journal's cover design and page layout, and introduced new article types, including the summary of the Ministry of Health's Clinical Practice Guidelines. He also appointed specialty editors and assigned new roles to the editorial board members, which helped to significantly improve the processing time of submitted manuscripts. For the first time, the Journal acquired an impact factor, which was awarded in 2011. Also for the first time, the Journal introduced an article processing charge in 2013, as part of a viable economic model to support the administration of peer-review. It is clear that under Prof Teo's leadership, the editorial board has expanded, and the Journal has become leaner and more impactful, yet maintaining its unique flavour. Prof Teo has also demonstrated highly effective leadership, an efficient working style and generosity to his staff. Although I had hopes that he would remain as Editor-in-chief for many more terms, I am immensely gratified that he has accepted my invitation to serve as an advisor to help chart the Journal's future. I am also grateful to the specialty editors who are staying on to assist in making important decisions for the Journal, as well as the many reviewers who have spent many hours critiquing papers and improving the quality of the Journal. Ultimately, the Journal depends on good submissions from authors around the world – local, regional and international. We are also very fortunate to have a hardworking editorial team that handles all the processing of articles, and spots major and minor issues that surface intermittently. Together, we seek to increase the impact factor of the Journal while bearing in mind the overarching objective of serving our readers. In addition to reducing the processing time of submitted manuscripts, we hope to further reduce the time from first submission to eventual publication. Rapid decisions can be made to accept or reject some papers in order to improve turnaround time. While we will still publish continuous medical education (CME) articles, we hope to have more reviews and mini reviews incorporating CME, which will serve the dual purpose of education and citation. Although many new journals, including open-accessed ones, have sprouted in recent years, I believe SMJ will continue to surge ahead and stay on top, owing to a strong history behind us. I look forward with excitement to working with all of you in the next few years to make SMJ the general medical journal of choice in the region.

Special Bilingual Issue on Engineering in the Americas

As the ASCE’s first bilingual peer-reviewed technical journal publication, this special issue on engineering in the Americas represents a new era for ASCE publications. ASCE is a global organization with 15 international sections, 16 international groups, and thousands of international members. Through the publication of this bilingual issue, ASCE is developing a platform to collect and disseminate work on a global basis inmultiple languages. The hope is that this effort will pave the way for ASCE to develop other bilingual technical journal special issues and, eventually, journals dedicated to publishing in this format. This publication is a collaborative effort between many dedicated members of the civil engineering community. The ASCE International Activities Committee proposed the idea and made financial resources available for translations from the bequest of Robert B. Lea to support the “foreign relations activities” of the society. ASCE then partnered with the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile and their journal, Revista Ingenieria de Construccion (RIC), to turn the idea into reality. The Journal of Construction Engineering and Management (JCEM) and RIC editorial staffs took on additional work to pursue this endeavor. The JCEM provided an exceptional stage for this bilingual issue test case. Civil and construction engineers throughout the Americas are dealing with similar challenges in design, construction, operations, and maintenance of capital facilities, as will be discussed this October when ASCE conducts its 144th Annual Conference in Panama. Similarly, construction researchers in North and South America are addressing these challenges with a variety of unique approaches. By breaking down the language barriers that can inhibit publication opportunities and hinder the dissemination of research, the JCEM has opened new doors for authors to publish their work. As the Department of Construction Engineering and Management of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile’s first collaborative peer-reviewed journal publication, this special issue represents a milestone in internationalization. Published since 1986 by the Department of Construction Engineering and Management of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, RIC was the ideal platform for carrying out this effort because it has earned important international recognition, particularly among Latin American researchers. The collaboration agreement was the start, and the process then required a large number of peer reviewers from North and South America. This project became a reality only through this collaborative effort. To maintain the rigorous standards of the JCEM and RIC, a dual peer review process was undertaken through which authors from multiple countries were allowed to submit their work in their native language. Authors originally submitted papers in their native language for peer review. Accepted papers were then translated and reviewed again in the second language. Authors were required to address comments from both sets of reviewers. The papers were accepted for publication in this special issue only after being reviewed and approved by this dual review process. This special issue contains 14 pairs of papers that address a wide variety of research on engineering in the Americas. The articles cover an impressive scope of topics that are unified by their importance to the Americas. The issue publishes articles on earthquakes and the resulting structural responses, and others addressing knowledge management and sustainability. Construction design and methods, performance modeling, and reflections on how to improve engineering education are also included in this issue. We would like to thank Charles T. Jahren, who as Editor of JCEM in 2009, wholeheartedly supports this endeavored with the concurrence of Associate Editor (at the time) Jesus de la Garza and Senior Specialty Editor Carl Haas. The support of these individuals made this special issue possible. We would like to further thank Angela Cochran and Jennifer Parresol at ASCE journals, who worked tirelessly to overcome many obstacles in shepherding these first bilingual manuscripts through the peer review and publication process. We also thank Ximena Araya at RIC journals, who managed the Spanish peer review and translation process. As guest editors of this special issue, we hope that this journal breaks down barriers to publishing in multiple languages. We anticipate that this JCEM example will serve as a model of new avenues for authors to internationally disseminate their innovative research.

The next lap

To all my dear colleagues who have contributed to the Singapore Medical Journal (SMJ) as either a reader, author, reviewer or specialty editor, this is my note of thanks for the immense support you have given me over the last four years. Yes, it has indeed been four years since I stepped into the very ‘big pair of shoes’ that Prof Wilfred Peh passed on to me. I must thank him, once again, for all the guidance and for introducing me to many friends in the medical and scientific publication circle. They have been a great help to me and will undoubtedly remain firm friends beyond my involvement in the Journal. Over the last four years, the goal was to move SMJ toward being the general medical journal of not just Singapore, but also the region. One of our key thrusts was to attract articles that are of high scientific value yet impactful to the daily practice of the clinician. This set in place multiple stresses to our manuscript review system. The gears in the system included the secretariat team, authors, specialty editors and reviewers. These gears were rapidly set in motion, but as with all systems, there have been occasional lapses and times when expectations have fallen short. For that, I offer my sincere apologies. However, I am encouraged that the team was able to considerably reduce the processing time for articles submitted to SMJ and this has been sustained for the last four years. With the increasing quality of our articles, application for an ISI journal impact factor was made in 2009. It was indeed heartening when SMJ was awarded an initial impact factor of 0.73 in 2011. I am certain that with your continued contributions and support, the impact of the Journal will continue to increase. I believe this will consequently attract articles of higher quality, which will in turn enhance the experience of our readers. While the Editorial Board is cognizant of the value of the impact factor and will strive to increase the Journal's impact through the publishing of quality articles, we hope to do so without significantly changing its flavour. Our approach in providing medical information is a holistic one – we hope our readers will enjoy and benefit as much from reading a research article with direct relevance to clinical practice as they would reading articles on medical education (PILL series and Pictorial Essay) or pioneers of medicine (Medicine in Stamps). Although some of these articles do not attract significant citations, they maintain SMJ's flavour and will remain a treasured part of the Journal. This note will not be complete without the introduction of the next Editor-in-Chief – A/Prof Poh Kian Keong is currently a senior consultant at the National University Heart Centre, Singapore, and an Associate Professor at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore. He has been a reviewer, specialty editor and deputy editor of SMJ for the last decade, and is also a regular contributor to the ECG series that many of our readers enjoy. Over the years, Kian Keong has contributed many ideas that have resulted in excellent outcomes for the Journal. As the old Chinese saying goes, 长江后浪推前浪 – and so the next generation will succeed and surpass the previous; I am confident that Kian Keong will bring SMJ to a much higher level. As all good things must come to an end, I now pass on the responsibility of charting the direction of SMJ into the capable hands of its next Editor-in-Chief.

Updates to Journal of Construction Engineering and Management Editorial Board

On behalf of the ASCE Journal Publications and the JCEM Editorial Board, I would like to thank Dr. Carl Haas from the University of Waterloo for his steady, tireless, and unselfish service to this journal as the Senior Specialty Editor. We look forward to his continued participation as an author and reviewer. I take great pleasure in announcing the appointment of four new Assistant Specialty Editors in three different Specialty Areas. We welcome you to the JCEM Editorial Board and look forward to your many contributions!

In Memoriam: Professor Fang Zhao: The Computing in Civil Engineering Community Loses a Great Friend

With sadness, we inform readers that Professor Fang Zhao passed away on December 7, 2010. At Florida International University, Fang was the interim chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering and deputy director of the Lehman Center for Transportation Research. She was also an active and valuable specialty editor of the ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering in the transportation engineering area. Fang graduated from the Beijing Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture in China, and then she moved to the United States in the mid-1980s and received her master’s and doctorate degrees in civil engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1987 and 1991, respectively, under the direction of Professor Mary Lou Maher. She joined Florida International University in 1992 as an assistant professor and spent the remainder of her career at FIU. She specialized in computer applications to civil engineering problems, with a specific focus on transportation. Her research covered a wide range of computing topics. FIU Dean Amir Mirmiran stated, “She was a nationally recognized expert on GIS-T, especially on temporal GIS applications in transportation. For the last three years she led the department so ably as the interim chair, not only maintaining its operations, but also significantly enhancing its enrollment, degrees awarded, and research funding, as well as obtaining ABET accreditation of its two programs—civil and environmental.” Fang was an amazing person who will be sorely missed by our community. In honor of her life and her dedication to helping this journal increase its publications in the transportation area, we dedicate this issue of the Journal to our friend and colleague, Professor Fang Zhao. We will miss you, Fang.

Editorial: Change and stability

As the New Year starts, we would like to set out for you, the readers, how the Annals will develop over the next few years. Since the new team took over in August, we have taken some time to get to know the people involved, and how the process of publication all fits together. We have begun to address some of the obvious problems. Colin Johnson, Editor-in-Chief Authors had been waiting too long for publication of their research. In 2008, average time from submission to publication was 440 days, and from acceptance to publication 284 days. Irving Taylor, former Editor-in-Chief, had established additional issues (now 8 per year) to help reduce this waiting time. In addition he had already begun to publish on FastTrack a selection of papers, which appear online in advance of the print publication. During the last 6 months of 2009, we have kept up this pressure to reduce the time from acceptance to print publication, which now stands at 187 days. Importantly, all research papers are now published online within one month of acceptance. It is paramount that authors receive a good service from the Annals. There are still delays in our system for reviewing submitted articles, because this has not been updated for many years. The majority of scientific journals now use electronic submission and manuscript handling systems and we are delighted to be able to inform you that the Annals will join them in the near future. We have set up and are testing our system using OJS software; this should be live for manuscript submissions and referees to use by the second quarter of 2010. Authors, referees and the Editorial Board will see much more efficient working with the new OJS system. There will be easy online access for submission of papers, and for peer review. Automatic reminders will help to focus the referees on their task, and we will correct a longstanding deficit by automatic communication of Editor's decisions to the referees. The Annals remains a journal for clinical research, of interest to all surgical disciplines. However, we can only publish what is submitted to us. If you feel your specialty is under represented, the solution lies with you, as a potential author. Papers from smaller specialties will be especially welcome. To promote better communication with all specialty groups, the Editorial Board is to be restructured, with defined roles for specialty editors, who will have a remit to stimulate contributions, as well as handle manuscripts from their specialty. The new Board will be announced in the March issue. We have just finished a Readership Survey. Preliminary assessment shows that the clinically relevant content of the Annals is highly valued. Some content, such as Case Reports and Meeting Abstracts, will be published online only in future. If you missed the opportunity to contribute to the Readership Survey, but would still like to share your views, please write to us or post a contribution on our new Readers Pages. To streamline publication of Correspondence arising from Annals content, or related to other aspects of the Annals, we now have open-access Readers Pages on our website at . Authors can thus respond immediately if their paper is discussed. The Editor-in-Chief will select certain items for print publication from contributions to these pages. It is not all change. Many current features are valued by the readership, and will continue. Reviews and Controversial Topics, reports from CORESS and NICE, and Technical Notes and Tips may be relevant across specialties. The Annals is uniquely placed to ensure that all surgeons have access to this material. We are grateful to Professor Irving Taylor who handed over the Annals in such good shape, and who has been an invaluable source of advice and encouragement, and to the staff who work so hard to produce each issue of the Annals: Adam Brownsell, Matthew Whitaker (who has now moved on) and Jon Hackett. Ed Cornick is the new man at the front door keyboard, and is settling in well. The Annals is a clinical research journal, relevant to and interesting for all Fellows and Members, and the wider surgical community. Our aim is to continue to improve this tradition, and to provide a quick, efficient service to our readers and authors in the coming years.

Games with(out) Frontiers: toward an integrated science of human cognition

Starting up a new journal is an excellent occasion to reflect not only on the directions into which the targeted field is currently heading but also on the remaining challenges to be met and the shortcomings to be overcome. We will do so by putting research on human cognition (the field that we as the new specialty editors of Frontiers in Cognition represent) into a broader perspective and consider, among other things, the central role this research plays, or at least has the potential to play, in connecting other scientific areas and disciplines, as well as the social and infrastructural changes that will be necessary to successfully tackle the challenges that remain on our way to a truly integrative science of human cognition.

Clinical Cancer Advances 2007: Major Research Advances in Cancer Treatment, Prevention, and Screening—A Report From the American Society of Clinical Oncology

A MESSAGE FROM ASCO'S PRESIDENT: For the third year, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is publishing Clinical Cancer Advances: Major Research Advances in Cancer Treatment, Prevention, and Screening, an annual review of the most significant cancer research presented or published over the past year. ASCO publishes this report to demonstrate the important progress being made on the front lines of clinical cancer research today. The report is intended to give all those with an interest in cancer care-the general public, cancer patients and organizations, policymakers, oncologists, and other medical professionals-an accessible summary of the year's most important cancer research advances. These pages report on the use of magnetic resonance imaging for breast cancer screening, the association between hormone replacement therapy and breast cancer incidence, the link between human papillomavirus and head and neck cancers, and the use of radiation therapy to prevent lung cancer from spreading. They also report on effective new targeted therapies for cancers that have been historically difficult to treat, such as liver cancer and kidney cancer, among many others. A total of 24 advances are featured in this year's report. These advances and many more over the past several years show that the nation's long-term investment in cancer research is paying off. But there are disturbing signs that progress could slow. We are now in the midst of the longest sustained period of flat government funding for cancer research in history. The budgets for the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) have been unchanged for four years. When adjusted for inflation, cancer research funding has actually declined 12% since 2004. These budget constraints limit the NCI's ability to fund promising cancer research. In the past several years the number of grants that the NCI has been able to fund has significantly decreased; this year, in response to just the threat of a 10% budget cut, the nation's Clinical Trials Cooperative Groups reduced the number of patients participating in clinical trials by almost 2,000 and senior researchers report that many of the brightest young minds no longer see the promise of a career in science, choosing other careers instead. It's time to renew the nation's commitment to cancer research. Without additional support, the opportunity to build on the extraordinary progress to date will be lost or delayed. This report demonstrates the essential role that clinical cancer research plays in finding new and better ways to care for the more than 1.4 million people expected to be diagnosed with cancer this year. I want to thank the Editorial Board members, the Specialty Editors, and the ASCO Cancer Communications Committee for their dedicated work to develop this report. I hope you find it useful. Sincerely, Nancy E. Davidson, MD President American Society of Clinical Oncology.

The Journal in 2006

The Journal in 2006

Clinical Cancer Advances 2006: Major Research Advances in Cancer Treatment, Prevention, and Screening—A Report From the American Society of Clinical Oncology

A MESSAGE FROM ASCO's PRESIDENT For the second consecutive year, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is publishing Clinical Cancer Advances: Major Research Advances in Cancer Treatment, Prevention, and Screening, an annual review of the most significant cancer research presented or published over the past year. ASCO developed this report to demonstrate the enormous progress being made on the front lines of cancer research today. The report is intended to give all those with an interest in cancer care-the general public, cancer patients and physicians, policymakers, oncologists, and other medical professionals-an accessible summary of the year's most important cancer research advances. These pages report on new targeted therapies that are improving survival and response rates in hard-to-treat cancers such as kidney cancer, HER-2-positive breast cancer, head and neck cancer, and chronic myelogenous leukemia; the FDA's approval of the world's first preventive vaccine for human papillomavirus (HPV), which has the potential to dramatically reduce the global burden of cervical cancer; and advances in the fast-growing field of personalized medicine, including a new lung cancer test that could help physicians better target treatments and predict prognosis. These advances are only part of the landscape. Survival rates are on the rise, the number of cancer deaths in the United States began declining for the first time since 1930, and new research is showing that the rates of certain common cancers, such as those of the breast and colon, have stabilized, and may have even begun to decline. However, cancer research still faces a number of major obstacles. At a time of extraordinary scientific potential, declining federal funding of cancer research threatens to stall or even reverse recent progress. Such funding cuts have already led to fewer clinical trials, fewer talented young physicians entering the field, and a growing bottleneck of basic science discoveries waiting to be "translated" into useful therapies and diagnostics. In addition to highlighting the major research advances over the past year, this report also identifies key barriers to accelerating the pace of cancer research and outlines ASCO's recommendations for overcoming them. Despite these and other challenges, there is much good news on the front lines of cancer research. This report demonstrates the essential role of clinical cancer research in finding new and better ways to treat, diagnose, and prevent a group of diseases that strike half of men and one-third of women in the United States.

Clinical Cancer Advances 2005: Major Research Advances in Cancer Treatment, Prevention, and Screening—A Report From the American Society of Clinical Oncology

This year, for the first time, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is publishing Clinical Cancer Advances 2005: Major Research Advances in Cancer Treatment, Prevention, and Screening, an annual review of the most significant clinical research presented or published over the past year across all cancer types. ASCO embarked on this project to provide the public, patients, policymakers, and physicians with an accessible summary of the year's most important research advances. While not intended to serve as a comprehensive review, this report provides a year-end snapshot of research that will have the greatest impact on patient care. As you will read, there is much good news from the front lines of cancer research. These pages report on new chemotherapy regimens that sharply reduce the risk of recurrence for very common cancers; the "coming of age" of targeted cancer therapies; promising studies of drugs to prevent cancer; and improvements in quality of life for people living with the disease, among many other advances. Survival rates for cancer are on the rise, increasing from 50% to 64% over the last 30 years. Cancer still exacts an enormous toll, however. Nearly 1.4 million Americans will be diagnosed this year, and some 570,000 will die of the disease. Clearly, more research is needed to find effective therapies for the most stubborn cancer types and stages. We need to know more about the long-term effects of newer, more targeted cancer therapies, some of which need to be taken over long periods of time. And we need to devote far greater attention to tracking and improving the care of the nearly 10 million cancer survivors in the United States today. Despite these and other challenges, the message of this report is one of hope. Through the dedicated, persistent pursuit of clinical research and participation in clinical trials by people with cancer, we steadily uncover new and better ways of treating, diagnosing, and preventing a disease that touches the lives of so many. I want to thank the Editorial Board members, the Specialty Editors, and the ASCO Cancer Communications Committee for their dedicated work to develop this report, and I hope you find it useful.