Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD, of the University of California, Los Angeles, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, summarizes the opening plenary session that addressed epigenetics and early detection, how the aging microenvironment governs response to therapy, AI-driven precision medicine, reprogramming human T cells, and opportunities for the future.
Ramaswamy Govindan, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine, discusses sex differences in lung cancer, including variations in treatment response, and the state of research in the field (Session ED20).
Alfonso Bencomo Álvarez, PhD, of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, discusses his retrospective study of the incidence and survival for patients with hematologic malignancies residing at the United States/Mexico border. The analysis showed that 10-year survival rates for Hispanic patients with ALL, AML, and CML were significantly lower for those who lived in El Paso than for those who lived elsewhere in Texas (Abstract 4343).
Adam C. Palmer, PhD, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, discusses combining immune checkpoint inhibitors with other cancer therapies to provide patients with more chances of a response. In principle, similar benefits may result from sequential or biomarker-stratified treatments, which could be valuable in cases where toxicities may prevent full-dose combinations (Abstract 1047).
Silvia Formenti, MD, of Weill Cornell Medical College, discusses her continuing work, and the promising results emerging, in combining radiotherapy with immunotherapy to boost abscopal response rates. This combination therapy extends the use of radiotherapy to promote antitumor T-cell responses for both local and metastatic disease (Session ED37).
Elizabeth H. Stover, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses an analysis of genomic alterations in patients with relapsed ovarian cancer who were treated with nivolumab plus bevacizumab in a phase II clinical trial. The study was conducted to identify potential biomarkers of response (Abstract 1048).
