Professor Lourdes Gil Deza, of the Instituto Oncológico Henry Moore, Buenos Aires, discusses her findings on the shortcomings of medical training when it comes to treating transgender patients, and the need to deepen clinical and communication skills to assist this population (Abstract 11002).
Douglas B. Johnson, MD, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, discusses three important melanoma abstracts: the need for more than two doses of nivolumab plus ipilimumab in combination immunotherapy; antitumor activity for low-dose ipilimumab with pembrolizumab after disease progression on PD-1 antibodies; and ipilimumab alone or in combination with anti–PD-1 therapy for metastatic disease resistant to PD-1 monotherapy (Abstracts 10003, 10004, and 10005).
Nikhil C. Munshi, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses initial results from the KarMMa tria, showing that idecabtagene vicleucel, a B-cell maturation antigen-targeted CAR T-cell therapy, demonstrated deep and durable responses in patients with heavily pretreated relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. Efficacy and safety data support a favorable clinical benefit-risk profile across the target dose range (Abstract 8503).
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).
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).
Tingyan Shi, MD, PhD, of Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, discusses study results that showed secondary cytoreductive surgery in selected patients extended progression-free survival and might contribute to long-term survival (Abstract 6001).
