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).
Josep Tabernero, MD, PhD, of the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, discusses phase III findings of the KEYNOTE-062 study showing that, for some patients with advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancer, pembrolizumab may improve survival and may be an effective alternative to chemotherapy, with fewer side effects (Abstract LBA4007).
Adam Brufsky, MD, PhD, of Magee-Womens Hospital and the Hillman Cancer Center at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, discusses phase III study findings on neratinib plus capecitabine vs lapatinib plus capecitabine in patients previously treated for HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer (Abstract 1002).
Toni K. Choueiri, MD, and Sarah Abou Alaiwi, MD, both of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discuss the association of polybromo-associated BAF-type mutations with overall survival in patients with different solid tumors treated with checkpoint inhibitors (Abstract 103).
Gilberto Lopes, MD, MBA, of the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami, offers commentary on phase III findings from the RELAY study, which showed that erlotinib plus ramucirumab led to superior progression-free survival in previously untreated patients with EGFR mutant–positive NSCLC (Abstract 9000).
Ahmad A. Tarhini, MD, PhD, of Emory University and Winship Cancer Institute, discusses phase III findings from the U.S. Intergroup E1609 trial, which showed survival benefits for patients with resected high-risk melanoma—for the first time in the history of melanoma adjuvant therapy (Abstract 9504).
