Matthew Manning, MD, on Resolving Racial Disparities in the Treatment of Breast and Lung Cancers 
    		2021 ASTRO Annual Meeting
    	
    	
    	
    
        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
		
		
        
		
		
		
		Aadel A. Chaudhuri, MD, PhD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, discusses circulating tumor DNA, which has the potential to better personalize treatment for patients with oligometastatic cancer and help clinicians determine whether to offer systemic therapy alone or curative-intent local consolidative therapy.
			
			
     	
    
       
       
    		The ASCO Post Staff
		
		
        
		
		
		
		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
		
		
        
		
		
		
		Erin Murphy, MD, of Cleveland Clinic, discusses new data that show no apparent difference in cognitive performance up to 2 years post-treatment among adults with low-grade glioma who were treated with concurrent radiotherapy and temozolomide (Abstract 3258).
			
			
     	
    
       
       
    		The ASCO Post Staff
		
		
        
		
		
		
		Daniel F. Hayes, MD, of the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center, discusses whether liquid biopsies can provide insight into the challenge of curing metastatic breast and possibly other cancers, how oligometastases are similar to a primary cancer, and why some kinds of local therapy for widespread disease might improve survival and lead to a cure.
			
			
     	
    
       
       
    		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).