Brian C. Baumann, MD, on Locally Advanced Cancer: Proton vs Photon Therapy
2019 ASCO Annual Meeting
Brian C. Baumann, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine, discusses study findings that showed, for adults with locally advanced cancer across five different disease sites, proton chemoradiotherapy was associated with significantly reduced acute adverse events, with no difference in disease-free or overall survival (Abstract 6521).
Lee S. Schwartzberg, MD, of the West Cancer Center, reports on this past year’s progress of the ACCC initiative to speed adoption of immunotherapeutics in community practices.
Neeraj Agarwal, MD, of Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah Health Care, and Thomas Powles, MD, PhD, of Queen Mary University of London, discuss phase III study findings on outcomes with combination therapy for intermediate/poor-risk and sarcomatoid subgroups of renal cell carcinoma (Abstract 4500).
Justin F. Gainor, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses updated findings from the ARROW study in which BLU-667, a selective RET inhibitor, demonstrated clinical activity and tolerability in patients with advanced RET fusion–positive non–small cell lung cancer (Abstract 9008).
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).
Matteo Lambertini, MD, PhD, of the University of Genova and Policlinico San Martino Hospital, and Hope S. Rugo, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, discuss findings from the SOPHIA trial on margetuximab plus chemotherapy vs trastuzumab plus chemotherapy in patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer after prior anti-HER2 therapies (Abstract 1000).