Youssef Zeidan, MD, PhD, on HER2-Positive Breast Cancer: Deintensifying Radiation Therapy
2020 ASTRO Annual Meeting
Youssef Zeidan, MD, PhD, of the American University of Beirut Medical Center, discusses study findings showing that breast-conserving surgery, whole-breast irradiation, and trastuzumab offer effective local tumor control for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer. An additional radiation boost does not seem to further improve outcomes (Abstract 52).
The ASCO Post Staff
Cynthia Menard, MD, of the University of Montreal, discusses a study on the use of prostate-specific membrane antigen PET and CT to guide treatment. The scans led to high rates of new lesion detection and therefore intensification of radiotherapy for patients with prostate cancer, without an increase in side effects (Abstract 34).
Juliane Hörner-Rieber, MD, of Heidelberg University Hospital, discusses phase III results of the MINT trial, which showed that conventionally fractionated intensity-modulated radiotherapy with a simultaneous integrated boost was noninferior to three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy followed by a sequential boost for both local control and cosmesis in patients with breast cancer (Abstract 19).
The ASCO Post Staff
Neha Vapiwala, MD, of the University of Pennsylvania, who served as a discussant for LBA1, summarizes her review of this study of patients with prostate cancer who had biochemical recurrence in the post-prostatectomy setting, who were candidates for salvage radiotherapy, and who received either conventional imaging or PET scans to help determine the course of treatment.
The ASCO Post Staff
Alphonse G. Taghian, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, reviews the 10-year follow-up of a dose-escalation trial studying accelerated partial-breast irradiation and discusses the optimal dose, adverse effects, and cosmetic outcomes (Abstract 25).
The ASCO Post Staff
Jing Li, MD, PhD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses phase III results showing the use of stereotactic radiosurgery in patients with 4 to 15 brain metastases, compared with whole-brain radiotherapy, may better preserve cognitive function and minimize the interruption of systemic therapy without compromising overall survival (Abstract 41).
