The ASCO Tumor Boards deliver just what every oncologist needs when recommending treatment for a specific carcinoma: information on the latest advances in that field, straight talk from experts about the controversies surrounding certain treatments, and relevant reports from the literature. ASCO University®, the home for online oncology education, features the Tumor Boards as one of its free learning modules.

Topic Choice Based on Biggest Changes in Oncology

"When choosing the topics to be presented, we consider where the field is changing the most," says Robert Mennel, MD, of Texas Oncology in Dallas. Dr. Mennel works with Bhoomi Mehrotra, MB, of Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York, to plan the educational series. "We look at which issues oncologist want to know about-what has the newest matter that is important to practice," Dr. Mennel adds.

The topic addressed in the Tumor Boards changes every month. On March 24, the new topic posted on Tumor Boards will be triple-negative breast cancer, presented by a medical oncologist and a molecular pathologist.

Users Can Ask Questions, Receive Faculty Response

To facilitate dialogue among participants and faculty, the Tumor Boards include an open discussion forum, offering users the opportunity to post questions and exchange comments with others. The discussion board is open for the first month after a module is online. Individuals can enter comments or questions, and the faculty or other users can respond. The questions and comments remain a part of that module and can be read by users accessing the module later.

A list of all topics presented so far appears in the box. These educational modules, with a transcript of comments are still available for users to access, although the discussion period has closed.

Presentations Offer Practical Information

Narrating slides that the user can advance at will, the presenters discuss very practical aspects of diagnosis and treatment, as exemplified by this list of questions addressed in the sarcoma module:

• What is the proper clinical workup of a sarcoma?
• Should a sarcoma be diagnosed with a core needle biopsy or an open biopsy?
• What is the proper pathology workup?
• When should radiation therapy be used-pre- or postoperatively?
• What is the appropriate role of chemotherapy?
• How do you handle a small pulmonary nodule?

Representatives from different areas of patient care present each topic. A surgeon and a medical oncologist discussed soft-tissue sarcoma, for example, while a radiation oncologist and a medical oncologist teamed up to present pancreatic cancer.

Related Articles Provided, Current Research Discussed

The slides include links to relevant articles that pop up as PDFs. "Having all the up-to-date material on a defined area within a specific disease is one of the best things about the program," Dr. Mennel points out. "It's a good way of building up a bibliography."

The modules also include new areas and treatments being investigated. For example, the module on pancreatic cancer, collaboratively developed with the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network®, discusses seven selected phase III clinical trials currently in progress and one that is pending activation.

"The presenters are people who are moving the field along," Dr. Mennel notes. "They have already thought about major areas that may change practice and distilled the problem to comment on the important issues."

To access ASCO Tumor Boards, hosted on ASCO University, visit http://university.asco.org/tumorboards. ■

© 2011. American Society of Clinical Oncology. All rights reserved.