Alysa M. Fairchild, MD, of the Cross Cancer Institute and the University of Alberta, discusses her study on the use of dexamethasone to reduce pain flare in patients receiving palliative radiotherapy for bone metastases (Abstract LBA6663).
Joel E. Tepper, MD, of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, discusses the ways in which SBRT has changed radiotherapy, as demonstrated in key studies presented at this year's meeting on stereotactic body radiotherapy for liver metastases and hepatocellular carcinoma, and borderline resectable and unresectable pancreatic tumors (Abstracts 253, 255, 351, 357).
Howard M. Sandler, MD, of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, discusses how adding 24 months of daily antiandrogen therapy during and after radiotherapy was shown to significantly improve long-term overall survival following prostate cancer recurrence after a radical prostatectomy (Abstract LBA5).
Vratislav Strnad, MD, PhD, of the University Hospital in Erlangen, discusses results from a European study comparing accelerated partial-breast irradiation using brachytherapy, to the standard treatment of whole-breast irradiation for women with low-risk breast cancer (Abstract LBA7).
Jay Harris, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, discusses the difficulty reconciling recent important trials on radiotherapy for breast cancer: The Z11 trial suggested that breast tangents are sufficient, while MA.20 and EORTC studies suggested that full nodal irradiation is beneficial.
Leonard Gunderson, MD, of the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, discusses PET/CT imaging in upper and lower gastrointestinal cancers, which can be of value as a baseline study prior to treatment, in determining the degree of response to treatment, and in helping decide whether there is a relapse after a complete response to treatment.
