Patrick Hwu, MD, and Mary Dean, JD, CAE, on What’s Ahead for Cancer Immunology and SITC
SITC 2021
Patrick Hwu, MD, of Moffitt Cancer Center and President of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC), and Mary Dean, JD, CAE, SITC Executive Director, discuss the organization’s mission, strides made in cancer immunology, meeting the challenge of immunoresistance, and the new SITC app for clinical practice guidelines. This app places a useful tool in the hands of health-care providers, one that can be continually updated as the science evolves.
The ASCO Post Staff
Stephanie T. Schmidt, PhD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the first integrated examination of the immunomodulatory effects of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, nivolumab, and nivolumab plus chemotherapy in resected non–small cell lung cancer (Abstract 962).
The ASCO Post Staff
Lynda Chin, MD, of the University of Texas, Austin Dell Medical School and Apricity Health, discusses precision medicine, barriers to its progress, and the challenges that must be met to facilitate better outcomes for patients. Building evidence and trust is key, Dr. Chin explains, as is developing an infrastructure that allows more clinicians to take part in the process.
The ASCO Post Staff
Jeffrey Weber, MD, PhD, of NYU Langone Medical Center, offers his perspective on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on oncology care and cancer clinical trials, as clinicians strive to provide optimal treatment to patients while reducing their risk of contracting the coronavirus. The steep decline in trial enrollment has recovered, with many of the changes in how research was conducted as a result of the pandemic still in place and improving the process going forward.
The ASCO Post Staff
Yevgeniy R. Semenov, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, discusses new findings suggesting cutaneous adverse events such as vitiligo, lichenoid dermatitis, and psoriasis—which often occur in patients with cancer who receive immune checkpoint inhibitors—may be strongly associated with response to therapy and a 22% reduction in mortality (Abstract 814).
The ASCO Post Staff
Emily Z. Keung, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the complex interactions of immune infiltrates and neoadjuvant immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) in patients with resectable soft-tissue sarcoma. These interactions may hold the key to understanding pathologic response to ICB and ICB resistance (Abstract 379).
