On this very special episode, Josh and Michael welcome Dr Adam Brufsky, a trailblazer in the world of breast cancer treatment and a titan in the frenetic development of breast cancer therapies since the mid-late 90s. Dr Brufsky is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Chief of the university's Division of Haematology and Oncology and co-director of its Comprehensive Cancer Centre. He received his MD and PhD from the University of Connecticut's School of Medicine in 1990 and has previously worked at Bringham and Women's Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer I ..read more

On today's blessedly brief episode, Josh and Michael give an overview of one of the greatest challenges for any practicing oncologist: the conundrum of cancer in young people. In recent decades, the number and proportion of young patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer has skyrocketed. This trend has been noted in news outlets across the world, reported in sources as disparate as the New York Times and the Australian Broadcasting Company. From the medical to the logistical and emotional, managing a young person with a cancer diagnosis is very difficult. While neither of our intrepid hosts ha ..read more

IN BREAKING NEWS... Or not really, as we are a bit late to the party. But in honour of liposomal irinotecan's recent approval by the Federal Drugs Administration, we thought we would take another look at the NAPOLI-3 trial. The first potentially practice-changing update to the treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer arguably in more than a decade, the combination of liposomal irinotecan with 5-fluorouracil and oxaliplatin proved itself superior (spoiler alert) to the established combination of gemcitabine and nab-paclitaxel. Will this practically change practice for our patients? The answer, f ..read more

It is a tale as old as time, as old as the stars, the heavens and human consciousness itself. Okay, we're exaggerating a bit, but for as long as pharmacology and capitalism have been joined at the hip, the question of "which drug is best" has been at or near the forefront of medical decision-making. With the development of standardised clinical trials and the difficulty of conducting direct head-to-head comparisons, this question has become more difficult to answer conclusively. Nowhere is this epitomised better than with the triptych of available CDK4/6 inhibitors: palbociclib, ribociclib and ..read more

In this episode, Michael and Josh welcome a very special guest: Michael's Labrador Beans. Beans is a world-renowned expert in eating snacks, but unfortunately, had very little to offer on their topic today: the treatment of progressive or recurrent cutaneous melanoma with primary and secondary resistance to immunotherapy. So, unfortunately, the discussion was left to your regular hosts. For approximately 50% of patients, this is fortunately not a question they need to worry about, as immunotherapy and BRAF/MEK inhibitors remain effective treatments. However, that still leaves half of all pati ..read more

While Josh and Michael enjoy a good rambling, meandering podcast as much as the next guy, we made a promise to keep our coverage of the ASCO GU 2024 conference short and sweet. So, as promised, here is the second - and final - episode of our miniseries. For a change of pace, one of our studies involves the adjuvant use of immunotherapy! Specifically, AMBASSADOR looks at pembrolizumab in patients with early urothelial cancer, a patient cohort that is crying out for more effective treatments for early-stage disease. Meanwhile, Josh tries to "BRCAAway" from our comfort zone by discussing the late ..read more

With Josh's Grand Adventure(TM) now in the books, he and Michael return to their usual programming, examining two studies presented at the not-so-recent ASCO GU conference in San Fransisco. While the conference took place in January of this year, as the old adage goes: better late than never. In this episode, our hosts examine two studies; the CONTACT-02 study examining a combination of immunotherapy + cabozantinib in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, and an update from the KEYNOTE-564 that examined whether pembrolizumab had any benefit in the adjuvant treatment of ..read more

In this episode, Josh interviews the man who helped make this grand adventure possible, his mentor, Professor Elgene Lim of the Kinghorn Cancer Centre in Sydney. Professor Lim is a medical oncologist specialising in breast cancer research. He has previously worked at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, completing his PhD under the mentorship of Dr Geoffrey Lindeman and Dr Jane Visvader with research focussed on identifying culprit cells in BRCA1 mutant gene carriers. He subsequently worked with Dr Eric Winer and Dr Myles Brown at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. As ..read more

In this episode, Josh interviews Dr Robert Mayer, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, former director of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute’s Oncology Fellowship Program for 36 years and an expert in gastrointestinal cancer. He founded the Centre for Gastrointestinal Oncology at Dana Farber and has previously chaired the Gastrointestinal Cancer Committee of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B. Dr Mayer has also been an associate editor for both the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of Clinical Oncology and is a former ASCO president. Bob is the recipient of ASCO’s Distingu ..read more

In this episode, Josh interviews Dr Harold Burstein. A graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Medical School, Dr Burstein’s initial PhD was in cellular immunology. After receiving his oncology fellowship at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, he joined the staff in 1999. Hal has a particular interest in breast cancer and has participated in national and international clinical trials while also working to develop treatment guidelines worldwide. A passionate educator, Dr. Burstein teaches medical students, residents and fellows at Harvard Medical School and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. T ..read more