Do you have a prescription dog? Day 4 of ASCO12

Chris Adams at FightCRC Call-on Congress 2012

Chris Adams, PhD shares his final day at ASCO. Thank YOU Chris!

After 4 days of meetings everyone is a little battle weary, probably more so after the great food and drinks at the ASCO Presidential Reception at Soldier Field the previous night.

This morning was the general colon cancer poster sessions. This is about 80 research projects lined up row after row. The nice thing about the posters is that you can actually talk one on one with the researcher. I spoke to some very interesting scientists including one at Georgetown Lombardi, an Australian medical oncologist, a medical oncologist from Japan and a medical oncologist from Ontario. The researcher from Canada presented some interesting statistics on the increase in the number of liver resections for patients with metastatic disease and the greater success of such treatments over the last 10 years. The work at Lombardi looked at the efficacy of a drug previously approved for kidney cancer that has never been tested in late stage colon cancer patients. Early results seemed promising enough to move into the next stage of the testing process.

My time at ASCO ended with a session covering my own situation, that of chemo and other therapy for early stage colorectal cancer. It is always strange reading research on your own situation. Unfortunately there is not much new to report. There is some ongoing work looking at reducing the amount of time patients need to be on chemo. Other than that, aspirin, vitamin D, exercise and eating well seem to be standard prescriptions.

My own doctor prescribed a dog, which was very upsetting to my wife and cat. I’m looking forward to getting home and taking my prescription dog for a long walk.

Thanks for the opportunity of attending ASCO this year – Chris Adams, PhD

Note: Chris is an economist at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission shares some notes and his personal insight of his experience at the 2012 American Society of Clinical Oncology’s (ASCO) Annual Meeting in Chicago.