Joseph Aisner, MD

HemOnc Today recently convened its well-respected Section Editors to present on ‘hot’ or controversial topics they deemed important to their subspecialty area. Presented here is Joseph Aisner, MD’s, discussion of his hit list of topics that he believed fulfilled this qualification. HemOnc Today will continue to follow and expand coverage of these topics in the ensuing months. We hope you find these executive overviews informative.

The American Cancer Society estimates that there will be 217,000 new cases of lung cancer in the United States in 2007, and there were more than 1.2 million cases worldwide in 2004.

The recent U.S. Surgeon General report about secondhand smoke helped us to focus our attention again on the health implications and the growing intolerance, finally, to tobacco smoke exposure in a progressively more informed population. We know this both by the decreased incidence of smoking in some segments of the population, and the decreased number of visible smokers who stand outside of buildings to partake of their addiction. Yet we walk passively by the clouds of smoke, and we tolerate this secondhand exposure in many settings where innocent bystanders are affected.