David C. Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, on Chasing His Cure: A Physician Is Battling His Disease and Beating the Odds
ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program
David C. Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, of the University of Pennsylvania, who trained as an oncologist, summarizes his opening lecture, a dramatic story of his battle against Castleman, a disease of the lymph nodes, his multiple near-death experiences, and the path that led him to develop a cooperative research effort making a difference for him and other patients with this idiopathic orphan illness.
The ASCO Post Staff
Cynthia X. Ma, MD, PhD, of Washington University, discusses results from the ALTERNATE trial, which showed neither fulvestrant nor fulvestrant plus anastrozole significantly improved endocrine-sensitive disease rate compared with anastrozole alone in postmenopausal patients with locally advanced estrogen receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer (Abstract 504).
The ASCO Post Staff
Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, of the University of Michigan, and Narjust Duma, MD, of the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, discuss the state of diversity in the hematology-oncology workforce, mechanisms that lead to inequities, promising interventions, and where the field should go next (Abstract 11000).
The ASCO Post Staff
Sara A. Hurvitz, MD, of UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, summarizes four breast cancer studies: KATHERINE, on adjuvant trastuzumab vs trastuzumab in patients with residual invasive disease after neoadjuvant therapy for HER2-positive breast cancer; KAITLIN, on trastuzumab emtansine and pertuzumab vs trastuzumab, pertuzumab, and taxane after anthracyclines as adjuvant therapy for high-risk HER2-positive early breast cancer; TRAIN-2, on neoadjuvant chemotherapy with or without anthracyclines for HER2-positive disease; and PHERGain, on chemotherapy de-escalation using an FDG-PET/CT and pathologic response–adapted strategy in HER2-positive early breast cancer (Abstracts 500, 501, 502, and 503).
The ASCO Post Staff
Fatima Cardoso, MD, of Lisbon’s Champalimaud Cancer Center, discusses the long-term results of MINDACT, a large prospective trial showing the clinical utility of the 70-gene signature MammaPrint for adjuvant chemotherapy decision-making. The primary distant metastasis–free survival endpoint at 5 years continued to be met in chemotherapy-untreated women with clinical-high/genomic-low risk disease (Abstract 506).
The ASCO Post Staff
Paul G. Richardson, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses early results on a cereblon E3 ligase modulator agent combined with dexamethasone in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, with an overall response rate of 48%. The study is ongoing to further optimize dose and schedule (Abstract 8500).
