Thomas J. George, MD, of NRG Oncology and The University of Florida Health Cancer Center, discusses the initial phase II results from a clinical trial using total neoadjuvant therapy (including veliparib and chemoradiation treatment) for locally advanced rectal cancer (Abstract 3505).
Jonathan E. Rosenberg, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses results from the phase III Alliance trial, which showed that adding bevacizumab to gemcitabine and cisplatin did not improve overall survival in patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma, but did improve progression-free survival (Abstract 4503).
Hope S. Rugo, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, and Peter Schmid, MD, PhD, of Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, discuss ongoing trials of immunotherapy for early triple-negative breast cancer; immunotherapy in other disease subtypes such as estrogen receptor–positive and HER2-positive; and checkpoint inhibition in PD-L1–negative disease.
Kerry A. Rogers, MD, of The Ohio State University, discusses a 3-year follow-up of phase Ib safety and efficacy findings with the selective BTK inhibitor acalabrutinib and the anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody obinutuzumab in patients with CLL (Abstract 7500).
Panagiotis A. Konstantinopoulos, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses his phase II study on the response to avelumab in microsatellite-stable and -instable recurrent or persistent endometrial cancer with a polymerase epsilon mutation (Abstract 5502).
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).
