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).
Claus Garbe, MD, of the University of Tuebingen, discusses the survival of sentinel lymph node biopsy–positive melanoma patients with and without complete lymph node dissection (Abstract LBA9002).
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).
Chloe Evelyn Atreya, MD, PhD, of the University of California, San Francisco, talks with Axel Grothey, MD, of the Mayo Clinic, about new data on trametinib, dabrafenib, and panitumumab in patients with the BRAF V600E mutation and vemurafenib plus irinotecan and cetuximab in BRAF-mutated metastatic colorectal cancer (Abstracts 103 and 3511).
Patrick Schöffski, MD, of the University Hospital Leuven, discusses a phase III study in which he and his colleagues found, for the first time in soft-tissue sarcomas, a significant overall survival benefit of a single agent compared to a standard treatment (Abstract LBA10502).
Leonard Saltz, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses how the cost of care affects behavior and decision-making on the part of patients and oncologists.
