For a heavily pretreated multiple myeloma population, daratumumab as a monotherapy showed meaningful, durable activity with deep responses and a favorable safety profile. Saad Usmani, MD, of the Levine Cancer Institute, provides the highlights of this study on the first monoclonal antibody to show promise in multiple myeloma (Abstract LBA8512).
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.
Clifford A. Hudis, MD, and Andrew D. Seidman, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discuss the use of the decision support system Watson for Oncology and results of the iCanCare study on second opinions (Abstracts 566 and 6508).
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 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).
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).
