C. Jillian Tsai, MD, PhD, on Using Radiotherapy to Thwart Tumor Growth in Advanced Cancers
2021 ASTRO Annual Meeting
C. Jillian Tsai, MD, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses results from the first randomized trial of stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) to treat oligoprogressive, metastatic lung and breast cancers. The standard of care for patients with these types of tumors is to switch to a different systemic treatment. Adding local therapy such as SBRT may help treat drug-resistant lesions (Abstract LBA3).
The ASCO Post Staff
Robert A. Olson, MD, of the University of British Columbia, discusses phase II findings from the SABR-5 trial on stereotactic ablative radiotherapy for up to five oligometastases. Although toxicity of liver and adrenal metastases warrants caution, the trial seemed to show that this type of radiation treatment is relatively safe and should be studied further, given the long overall survival in this patient population (Abstract 6).
The ASCO Post Staff
David A. Palma, MD, PhD, of Ontario’s London Health Sciences Centre, discusses results of the ORATOR2 study, which compared two treatment options that could be de-escalated for patients with HPV-associated oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma: a lower-dose radiation approach (6 weeks instead of 7, often with chemotherapy) vs a transoral surgical approach (with low-dose radiation afterward, for 5 weeks) (Abstract LBA2).
The ASCO Post Staff
Karen M. Winkfield, MD, PhD, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who co-chaired a session (PS 02) on digital health, summarizes the talks, which included ways to reduce disparities with digital innovations and the importance of patient input, especially in the form of patient-reported outcomes and experience measures. Advancing digital health, which the FDA defines as including health information technology, telemedicine, and personalized medicine, can potentially improve cancer care.
The ASCO Post Staff
Matthew Manning, MD, of Cone Health Cancer Center, discusses findings that showed changes to the way cancer care is delivered may help eliminate racial disparities in survival among patients with early-stage lung and breast cancers. Identifying and addressing obstacles that kept patients from finishing radiation treatments for cancer were associated with improved 5-year survival rates for all patients (Abstract 53).
The ASCO Post Staff
Shauna Campbell, DO, of Cleveland Clinic, discusses results from her study that showed hypofractionated intensity-modulated radiation therapy (H-IMRT) in the definitive or postoperative treatment of head and neck cancers using ≥ 50 Gy in 20 fractions appears to be safe and well tolerated with modest toxicity. Dr. Campbell suggests that prospective studies comparing the safety and efficacy of H-IMRT with those of conventionally fractionated IMRT are warranted (Abstract 2313).
