Amy J. Davidoff, PhD, on Racial Disparities in Time to Cancer Treatment: The Effect of Medicaid Expansion
2019 ASCO Annual Meeting
Amy J. Davidoff, PhD, of Yale University School of Public Health, discusses study findings on how expanding access to Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) reduced racial disparities among patients with advanced cancer. Before the ACA was implemented in 2014, black patients with cancer were less likely than white patients to receive timely treatment, but in states that did not adopt Medicaid expansion, racial disparities persist (Abstract LBA1).
Manmeet S. Ahluwalia, MD, of the Taussig Center Institute, Cleveland Clinic, discusses phase II findings on the efficacy and immunogenicity of SurVaxM, a novel cancer vaccine targeting the tumor-specific antigen survivin in newly diagnosed glioblastoma (Abstract 2016).
Hope S. Rugo, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, and Peter Schmid, MD, PhD, of Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, discuss an update of the IMpassion130 interim overall survival analysis of atezolizumab plus nab-paclitaxel in previously untreated locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (Abstract 1003).
Sagar Lonial, MD, of Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, discusses the potentially practice-changing phase III findings showing that lenalidomide substantially delayed progression of smoldering multiple myeloma to aggressive disease when compared with observation alone (Abstract 8001).
Kamran A. Ahmed, MD, of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, reports on a trial in progress that is investigating whether treatment with atezolizumab plus hypofractionated radiation therapy will improve the objective response rate compared with atezolizumab alone in patients with recurrent, persistent, or metastatic cervical cancer (Abstract TPS5596).
Alok A. Khorana, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, and Hedy L. Kindler, MD, of The University of Chicago, discuss phase III findings on olaparib as maintenance treatment following first-line platinum-based chemotherapy in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer and a germline BRCA mutation (Abstract LBA4).