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.
Anita Mahajan, MD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center, summarizes results from three clinical trials on radiation therapy for ependymoma, locally advanced thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, and meningioma (Abstracts 31, 1, 7).
Roy Decker, MD, PhD, of Yale University School of Medicine, discusses a National Cancer Database analysis that showed elderly patients with limited-stage small cell lung cancer can benefit from adding concurrent radiation to chemotherapy (Abstract 1010).
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).
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.
Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, of the University of Michigan Health System, discusses this multicenter phase 1 study of veliparib given concurrently with chest wall and nodal radiation therapy in patients with inflammatory or locoregionally recurrent breast cancer (Abstract 312).
