William G. Wierda, MD, PhD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the TRANSCEND CLL 004 trial, which studied the use of an experimental CD19-directed CAR T-cell product in heavily pretreated patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia or small lymphocytic lymphoma (Abstract 7501).
David J. Kwiatkowski, MD, PhD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses an interim analysis and biomarker data from a multicenter study showing that 19% of patients with NSCLC had a major pathologic response to preoperative treatment with atezolizumab (Abstract 8503).
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).
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).
Alok A. Khorana, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, and Hedy L. Kindler, MD, of The University of Chicago, discuss phase III findings on olaparib as maintenance treatment following first-line platinum-based chemotherapy in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer and a germline BRCA mutation (Abstract LBA4).
Kamal Chamoun, MD, of University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center, discusses how better insurance coverage determines not only the ability of patients with multiple myeloma to afford high-priced oral medications, but their survival of the disease (Abstract LBA107).
