Patricia A. Ganz, MD, of NRG Oncology and Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA, discusses the NRG/NSABP phase III findings, which showed that partial-breast irradiation was more convenient and resulted in less fatigue but slightly poorer cosmesis at 36 months in patients who did not receive chemotherapy (Abstract 508).
Hani M. Babiker, MD, of the The University of Arizona, discusses an emerging treatment that inhibits the mitotic spindle and disrupts tumor cell growth. The method has been approved by the FDA to treat some cancers and data show improved progression-free and overall survival (Abstracts 2055, 8551, e14658, e14668, e15653, e20069, e15766).
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).
Angela Lamarca, MD, PhD, of The Christie NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Manchester, discusses phase III findings from a multicenter study of active symptom control alone or active symptom control with oxaliplatin and fluorouracil for patients with locally advanced or metastatic biliary tract cancers previously treated with cisplatin and gemcitabine (Abstract 4003).
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).
Don S. Dizon, MD, of the Lifespan Cancer Institute, and Matthew A. Powell, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine, discuss phase III findings on paclitaxel plus carboplatin vs paclitaxel plus ifosfamide in chemotherapy-naive patients with stages I to IV, persistent or recurrent carcinosarcoma of the uterus or ovaries (Abstract 5500).
