Thomas W. LeBlanc, MD, of Duke University Medical Center, and Eric Roeland, MD, FAAHPM, of the University of California, San Diego Moores Cancer Center, discuss the use of palliative and hospice care for patients with solid tumors vs hematologic cancers and clinicians’ attitudes (Abstracts e20554 and 9524).
Claus Garbe, MD, of the University of Tuebingen, discusses the survival of sentinel lymph node biopsy–positive melanoma patients with and without complete lymph node dissection (Abstract LBA9002).
John L. Marshall, MD, of Georgetown University, discusses how the cost of care affects behavior and decision-making on the part of patients and oncologists.
James H. Doroshow, MD, of the National Cancer Institute, describes a new precision medicine initiative called the MATCH trial: Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice. In 2,400 NCI clinical trial sites, 3,000 patients will be screened and their tumors analyzed to determine whether they contain genetic abnormalities for which a targeted drug exists.
James O. Armitage, MD, of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and Laurie H. Sehn, MD, MPH, of the British Columbia Cancer Agency, discuss a first-ever finding on obinutuzumab and bendamustine in the setting of rituximab-refractory indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (Abstract LBA8502).
Clifford A. Hudis, MD, and Maura N. Dickler, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discuss adding bevacizumab to letrozole as a first-line endocrine therapy for treatment of hormone receptor–positive advanced breast cancer (Abstract 501).
