Leonard J. Appleman, MD, PhD, of UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, discusses phase III trial findings that showed a trend toward worse survival with pazopanib in patients with metastatic kidney cancer who exhibited no evidence of disease following metastasectomy (Abstract 4502).
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).
Neeraj Agarwal, MD, of Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah Health Care, and Thomas W. Flaig, MD, of the University of Colorado, discuss phase II findings on a novel predictive biomarker of response to the two accepted neoadjuvant regimens for muscle-invasive bladder cancer: methotrexate/vinblastine/doxorubicin/cisplatin and gemcitabine/cisplatin (Abstract 4506).
Miriam Knoll, MD, and Zachery Reichert, MD, PhD, discuss the FORCE trial, which is examining whether radiation can create a more durable response to systemic therapy, and whether using newer, more sensitive imaging technologies can improve outcomes (Abstract TPS5096).
William D. Tap, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses negative study findings on doxorubicin plus olaratumab vs doxorubicin plus placebo, which showed no difference in overall survival between the two treatments in patients with advanced soft-tissue sarcomas. The manufacturer is currently withdrawing olaratumab from the global market (Abstract LBA3).
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).
