James H. Doroshow, MD, of the National Cancer Institute, describes a new precision medicine initiative called the MATCH trial: Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice. In 2,400 NCI clinical trial sites, 3,000 patients will be screened and their tumors analyzed to determine whether they contain genetic abnormalities for which a targeted drug exists.
Thomas W. LeBlanc, MD, of Duke University Medical Center, and Eric Roeland, MD, FAAHPM, of the University of California, San Diego Moores Cancer Center, discuss the use of palliative and hospice care for patients with solid tumors vs hematologic cancers and clinicians’ attitudes (Abstracts e20554 and 9524).
James L. Mulshine, MD, of Rush University Medical Center, and Carolyn Jean Presley, MD, of Yale Cancer Center/Yale School of Medicine, discuss the burden on patients and the Medicare system as new lung cancer CT guidelines are put into effect and treatment of early-stage NSCLC increases (Abstract 7533).
Anil D’Cruz, MD, of Tata Memorial Hospital, discusses results from his study that seem to resolve a 50-year-long debate on performing elective neck dissection at the time of primary surgery––a potentially practice-changing finding (Abstract LBA3).
James O. Armitage, MD, of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and Asher Alban Akmal Chanan-Khan, MD, of the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, discuss an important treatment option that significantly improved overall response rate and reduced risk of progression or death by 80% (Abstract LBA7005).
Jame Abraham, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic discusses analyses of two trials for locally advanced, inflammatory, or early HER2-positive breast cancer using docetaxel, trastuzumab, pertuzumab, and neratinib (Abstracts 505 and 508).
