Samuel Chao, MD, of Cleveland Clinic, discusses the QMAP program and data-driven management, which offer ways to improve consistency and drive quality in radiation oncology departments (Abstract 39).
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.
Bruce Minsky, MD, of MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses two important papers: results from a prospective trial on quality-of-life outcomes for low-risk HPV-associated oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma, and a prostate cancer radiation therapy study (Abstracts 3, 4).
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).
Robert Kuske, MD, of Arizona Breast Cancer Specialists, discusses the evaluation of more than 1,300 patients with accelerated partial-breast irradiation via multicatheter interstitial brachytherapy, focusing on toxicity and cosmetic outcomes (Abstract 133).
