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.
Laurie Helen Sehn, MD, MPH, of the British Columbia Cancer Agency, discusses a first-ever finding on obinutuzumab and bendamustine in the setting of rituximab-refractory indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (Abstract LBA8502).
John L. Marshall, MD, of Georgetown University, discusses how the cost of care affects behavior and decision-making on the part of patients and oncologists.
Jan C. Buckner, MD, of the Mayo Clinic discusses adjuvant whole-brain radiotherapy and the need for initial treatment with radiosurgery and close monitoring to preserve cognitive function in patients with brain metastases (Abstract LBA4).
Dung T. Le, MD, of Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University, and Axel Grothey, MD, of the Mayo Clinic, discuss how mismatch repair status predicts clinical benefit of immune checkpoint blockade with pembrolizumab (Abstract LBA100).
Eric Roeland, MD, FAAHPM, of the University of California, San Diego Moores Cancer Center, and Areej El-Jawahri, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, discuss two important studies on early palliative care and the use of anamorelin in advanced NSCLC with cachexia.
