Taofeek Kunle Owonikoko, MD, PhD, of Emory University, discusses the findings of his phase II study, which assessed the efficacy of combined immune checkpoint inhibitors with or without radiation in relapsed small cell lung cancer (Abstract 8515).
Danny Rischin, MD, of Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, discusses phase III results that support pembrolizumab with and without platinum-based chemotherapy plus fluorouracil as new first-line standards of care for recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (Abstract 6000).
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).
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.
Don S. Dizon, MD, of the Lifespan Cancer Institute, and Richard T. Penson, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, discuss phase III study findings on the PARP inhibitor olaparib, which showed a significantly higher objective response rate vs nonplatinum chemotherapy for patients with ovarian cancer who relapsed, are platinum-sensitive, and have BRCA-mutant disease (Abstract 5506).
Sara A. Hurvitz, MD, of the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, discusses 3-year outcomes from the first phase III study to test a non-conventional regimen for the neoadjuvant and adjuvant treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer (Abstract 500).
