CURE Talks Cancer

In this episode of the “CURE Talks Cancer” podcast, we spoke with r. Asher Chanan-Khan about current standards of care for Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia, also known as WM.  WM is a rare, incurable disease. Its current standards of care available consist of Rituxan (rituximab), Imbruvica (ibrutinib) combinations or monotherapy in the first- and second-line setting. However, there are no treatments currently approved for the third line. Chanan-Khan discussed these options, as well as a novel agent, CLR 131, that is being evaluated in a phase 2 study. 

This week on the “CURE® Talks Cancer” podcast, we spoke with renowned street artist James Cochran about one of his art projects that was commissioned to symbolize the creativity and commitment of those who work tirelessly to eradicate cancer. 

This week on the “CURE Talks Cancer” podcast, we discuss the power of community with The Breasties co-founders Brianna Majsiak and Allie Brudner Brumel and how their own breast cancers journey brought them together.

In this episode of the “CURE Talks Cancer” podcast, we spoke with a teenager who was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. We talked about her cancer journey, what it was like to receive treatment during the pandemic, and more.

In this week’s episode, sponsored by Regeneron and Sanofi Genzyme, we spoke with Dr. Ezra Cohen from UC San Diego Health, as well as two patients with advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma. To start, Cohen helped us to understand how common the disease is and what treatment options are available for patients. We also spoke with Josh, who was diagnosed in 2017 after having a spot on his forehead removed using MOH’s surgery. However, the growth returned, and after a second opinion in 2019, he was referred to The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Following his experience, Josh offered advice for other patients with advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma. Lastly, we talked to Bud, who was diagnosed previously with basal cell carcinoma and has also received a diagnosis of advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma. He now gets radiation and immunotherapy to treat his cancer and hopes that other patients will learn about their disease in order to advocate for themselves. 

Janice and Rex Cowden have been married for 41 years, and the couple have shared many life experiences together, including two bouts of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).

While Rex had just retired, and the couple was selling one house and moving into another, Janice was diagnosed with stage 1 TNBC in 2011. The couple placed their plans to travel on hold and tackled the disease together.

Five years later, Janice’s disease would return. She was diagnosed with stage 4 TNBC in the summer of 2016, and the couple continued to attack the disease as a team. 

In this week’s episode of the “CURE Talks Cancer” podcast, Janice and Rex Cowden discuss what it was like to be there for each other during those cancer journeys, offer advice to other couples who may find themselves in a similar situation, and more.

“Sometimes fear can produce emotions that … comes out as anger. I see a lot of relationships fail, marriages fail as a result of this diagnosis, some people simply can't handle it,” Janice said in an interview with CURE®. “I think getting therapy is a wonderful thing that you can do. And I also think it's important for you to learn as much as you can about your disease and to share that information with your caregiver ... because I think lack of knowledge makes us feel even more helpless and anxious.” 

Cancer treatments come with the possibility of a plethora of side effects, some of which are deemed more serious than others. 

While many patients are informed on countless occasions of what to be on the lookout for both during and after treatment, in certain situations, some side effects might not get as much attention as they should. 

“I think if somebody is in a setting where they're fortunate enough to have a dental team at their (treatment center), and that dental team has done a really good job of cross collaboration, then I think it's almost an immediate,” Dr. Samuel Zwetchkenbaum, dental director in the oral health program at the Rhode Island Department of Health, said in an interview with CURE®. 

“In my previous life, (when) I was at University of Michigan, we had a dental team and we attended tumor boards. We really tried to have a presence, but it's a little bit harder, especially in a community like Rhode Island, where we don't have the same presence. Then it requires these one on one relationships.”

In this week’s episode of the “CURE Talks Cancer” podcast, Zwetchkenbaum discussed some of the more common oral side effects patients may experience,  provided insight into how patients can go about preventing them from occurring, and more. 

Television journalist Katie Couric and Susan G. Komen CEO Paula Schneider share a common experience in their experiences with cancer: There is a lot of advice they would offer their former selves. One a caregiver and the other a patient, Katie and Paula have teamed up for Your Cancer Story – a platform designed to share patient stories to ensure an individual affected by a cancer diagnosis never feels alone.  “Keep your head up and keep walking forward. You never know where the path will take you,” Paula wrote in her letter to herself.  To help highlight breast cancer awareness month, Katie and Paula shared their stories and noted how the program can help raise awareness around breast cancer. Interested in sharing your cancer story? Visit yourcancerstory.com.

On October 15, CURE recognized five individuals for their contributions to the lung cancer space and raising awareness to end the stigma, inform, connect, and empower anyone who has been impacted by lung cancer. During the inaugural virtual event, four individuals — two physicians, a nurse and a patient turned advocate — were awarded for their contributions to the lung cancer community. The program also recognized one Lifetime Achievement award winner. In this episode of the “CURE Talks Cancer” podcast, we spoke with Bonnie J. Addario, Carolyn Baggett, Dr. Jennifer Garst, Dr. Fred Hirsh and Deborah Pickworth about their contributions and why bringing the lung cancer community is vital in raising awareness around the disease.

In this episode of the “CURE Talks Cancer” podcast, we spoke with Dr. Matthew Davids about the results of a clinical trial that assessed the addition of Copiktra (duvelisib) to fludarabine, cyclophosphamide and Rituxan (rituximab) in the frontline setting for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) aged 65 years and younger.

Davids, director of clinical research in the Lymphoma Program at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, also provides insight into the current CLL landscape and discusses what he refers to as a swing in the pendulum of CLL research over the last 10 years, and how that pendulum swing has created a slight gap for the assessment of younger patients with the disease. 

“As the novel agents have come of age here in the last decade, that as a field, we've gotten better at kind of shifting the studies into older patients,” Davids explained in an interview with CURE®. “… One kind of gap that I can see right now in the field is that because the pendulum has swung, I think appropriately toward the older population in terms of the trials, we actually do seem to have fewer trials kind of focused on the young fit patients compared to the old days. And so that is an area I think of interest for sure is the novel agent-based approaches in the young patients.”