2021    MASCC President Elect and Board Member Maryam Lustberg, MD, MPH, has been appointed Director of The Breast Center at Smilow Cancer Hospital and Chief of Breast Medical Oncology at Yale Cancer Center. She will also join the faculty at Yale Cancer Center as an Associate Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology).

2021    MASCC Career Opportunities and Fellowship Listings

2021    MASCC has a wonderful tradition of awarding prizes to recognize the best research and contributions of both MASCC members and the supportive cancer care community. This month, we’d like to share the details on how these awards and the committee that manages these awards. The committee is made up of a Chair and members, who discuss all applications and rank winners.

2021    MASCC/ISOO members invited to submit MRONJ research to Frontiers in Oral Health and Oral Surgery
Guest Editors: Josiah Eyeson, Vinod Patel, and Ourania Nicolatou-Galitis

2021    

MASCC is proud to announce that the Jules Bordet Institute in Brussels, Belgium has been recognized as a MASCC-Designated Center of Excellence in Supportive Care in Cancer. The hospital is a research institute of the Université libre de Bruxelles and specializes in oncology. The Institute hosts various multi-professional teams for supportive care, including a Pain and other symptoms Management Team, a Psycho-oncology Unit, a Nursing and palliative Care Unit, and a Physiotherapy Unit. Occupational therapy and end-of-life care are offered in the Institute. The application was organized by MASCC Member, Dominique Lossignol, MD, Head of the Supportive Care Unit at the Institute. Lossignol is responsible for clinical and administrative supervision of the unit.

2021    Due to the 2021 Annual Meeting being an entirely virtual event, we have decided to replace the "traditional" three days of workshops with several hour-long sessions running throughout the program, including a live question and answer element. Stay tuned for specific details in upcoming newsletters, on our website, and through our social media channels. Our event platform will also incorporate a state-of-the-art networking facility where delegates with similar fields of interest will be able to easily connect online, either in groups or individually. 

2021    Leslie Johnson will be departing MASCC, her last day will be February 19, 2021. As of February 20, 2021, please direct any questions related to Study Groups and Sponsorship to Melissa Chin at [email protected] until we are able to secure a replacement. We appreciate your patience during this transitionary period. 

Leslie has conveyed her enjoyment in working with MASCC and our members. We thank Leslie for her contributions to MASCC to-date and wish her the best of success in all future endeavors.

2021    Over several newsletter editions, MASCC will feature one of the winners of the 2020 Young Investigators Award (YIA).  Every year, MASCC presents the YIA to recognize outstanding new-to-the-field investigators’ research accomplishments. The award is open to all junior investigators who have submitted an abstract to an upcoming MASCC annual meeting. YIAs are awarded to the first authors of the five abstracts with the highest scores. These abstracts are chosen from the top 10 percent of all abstracts submitted to the annual meeting.  For more information on recent award recipients, click here. 

2021    Over several newsletter editions, MASCC will feature one of the winners of the 2020 Annual Meeting Travel Scholarships.  MASCC’s annual travel scholarships are part of our organization’s commitment to increasing the attendance of oncology healthcare professionals from low-income countries at our annual meetings. MASCC provides travel scholarships for this purpose in cases where attendance would not be possible without financial assistance. For more information on recent award recipients, click here.

2021    The COVID-19 pandemic forced us to postpone the MASCC/ISOO 2020 Annual Meeting, and it has forced us to convert the 2021 Annual Meeting into a totally virtual event. The dates of the Annual meeting are unchanged (June 24-26, 2021), and each day will have a “live” program timed to specific time zones (i.e., Day 1 – British Summer Time; Day 2 – Eastern Daylight Time; Day 3 – Australian Central Standard Time). In addition, there will also be many more pre-recorded sessions (e.g., “parallel sessions”, “meet the expert sessions”), and all of the live / pre-recorded sessions will be accessible during and after the Annual Meeting. The e-poster sessions will now be e-video sessions (see below). Obviously, the social events will now be virtual, but we hope just as entertaining as in previous years!

2021    Over several newsletter editions, MASCC will feature one of the winners of the 2020 Young Investigators Award (YIA).  Every year, MASCC presents the YIA to recognize outstanding new-to-the-field investigators’ research accomplishments. The award is open to all junior investigators who have submitted an abstract to an upcoming MASCC annual meeting. YIAs are awarded to the first authors of the five abstracts with the highest scores. These abstracts are chosen from the top 10 percent of all abstracts submitted to the annual meeting.  For more information on recent award recipients, click here. 

2021    Throughout the year, we will share articles from the MASCC journal Supportive Care in Cancer. The “Editor’s Pick” section, chosen by the journal’s Editor-In-Chief, Dr. Fred Ashbury, PhD, will cover a variety of topics to meet the many interests of our membership.

2021    The recent first annual OncoAlert Colloquium featured the biggest findings and changes in clinical practice in 2020. Video presentations from the 5-day event are now available online and include the following sessions:

2021    Breakthrough cancer pain (BTcP) is a common phenomenon, with a reported overall prevalence of 60 percent in patients with cancer pain. It has a significant impact on quality of life, which relates not only to the pain itself, but also to the associated physical, psychological, and social problems. Equally, it has a significant impact on health systems (due to the increased use of healthcare resources). BTcP is often undiagnosed (or misdiagnosed), and, even if correctly diagnosed, is managed with suboptimal interventions (e.g., oral opioids).

2021    Over several newsletter editions, MASCC will feature one of the winners of the 2020 Annual Meeting Travel Scholarships.  MASCC’s annual travel scholarships are part of our organization’s commitment to increasing the attendance of oncology healthcare professionals from low-income countries at our annual meetings. MASCC provides travel scholarships for this purpose in cases where attendance would not be possible without financial assistance. For more information on recent award recipients, click here.

2020     MASCC/ISOO members are invited to assist our journal’s editorial board by reviewing articles in their areas of expertise.  Log in to sign up through the “Become a Reviewer” form. You will be able to choose among 28 categories. Please select from this list the papers you feel you would be interested in reviewing. To log in and sign up, click here. 

2020    Over several newsletter editions, MASCC will feature one of the winners of the 2020 Young Investigators Award (YIA).  Every year, MASCC presents the YIA to recognize outstanding new-to-the-field investigators’ research accomplishments. The award is open to all junior investigators who have submitted an abstract to an upcoming MASCC annual meeting. YIAs are awarded to the first authors of the five abstracts with the highest scores. These abstracts are chosen from the top 10 percent of all abstracts submitted to the annual meeting.  For more information on recent award recipients, click here. 

2020    Over several newsletter editions, MASCC will feature one of the winners of the 2020 Annual Meeting Travel Scholarships.  MASCC’s annual travel scholarships are part of our organization’s commitment to increasing the attendance of oncology healthcare professionals from low-income countries at our annual meetings. MASCC provides travel scholarships for this purpose in cases where attendance would not be possible without financial assistance. For more information on recent award recipients, click here.

2020    MASCC announces the launch of its newly formed Consumer Engagement Committee, chaired by long standing MASCC member and consumer engagement champion, Anna Boltong, PhD. Reporting to the MASCC Board, the committee was established to build a framework for meaningful consumer engagement that aligns with MASCC’s current and future strategies. The ethos of the committee is to provide a platform through which the lived experience of cancer can be leveraged to inform best practice activity and to optimize benefits to current and future MASCC community members. 

2020    The Russian Society of Supportive Care in Oncology (RASSC) recently held the Best of MASCC on October 9.  The conference, based in Moscow, was held online, and welcomed more than 500 attendees.  The international virtual event focused on issues in supportive cancer care including anemia, cardiotoxicity, hepatotoxicity, nutritional support, psychological and psychiatric care, preservation of fertility in young patients, and concomitant therapy in the era of COVID-19.