Attending the upcoming meeting on genitourinary (GU) cancers is likely to change your practice. And that's the point. Clinicians from around the world and from multiple disciplines come to the 3-day Genitourinary Cancers Symposium to learn, and they take home new awareness and strategies that they can use in managing GU cancers.

'How My Practice Will Change'

The following are just a few of the dozens of comments from the participants in last year's symposium about how they expected to change their practice after the meeting:

• Increase cytoreductive nephrectomy
• Change our screening practice for prostate cancer
• Be more proactive about advocating partial nephrectomy
• Look for opportunities to use biomarkers in prostate cancer
• Use cabazitaxel [once available] in second-line chemotherapy for prostate cancer
• Re-treat with sunitinib (Sutent) in patients with renal cancer
• Biopsy small renal masses
• Use second-line mitoxantrone more often as palliative therapy in patients with prostate cancer
• Consider hypofractionation with stereotactic body radiation for prostate cancer

"The primary goal of the meeting is to present the state of the art-what's going on in genitourinary oncology today-and try to limit rehashing what's been done over the last few years," says Leonard G. Gomella, MD, Chair of the Urology Department at Thomas Jefferson University and the Kimmel Cancer Center in Philadelphia and Chair-elect of the symposium's Planning Committee. One of the ways the symposium will meet that goal is by having translational science sessions on prostate cancer, urothelial carcinomas, and renal cancer, the three broad areas addressed. "The translational science component is where people can learn about what's coming down the pike in the near term," Dr. Gomella notes.

In addition to translational science sessions, each cancer type has panel presentations, oral abstracts, and poster presentations. "Best of Journals" sessions are also offered for both prostate cancer and renal cancer.

Multidisciplinary Approach Important to Successful Treatment

The symposium emphasizes a multidisciplinary approach. "Our best clinical outcomes are when we approach cancer from an interdisciplinary aspect," Dr. Gomella says. "Over the past 10 years, we have recognized that we are not in silos in the management of genitourinary cancer. This meeting fits that bill perfectly."

The Planning Committee made changes based on feedback from the previous meeting's participants. For example, planning for the upcoming meeting will include input from imaging and interventional radiology specialists. The popularity of presentations using case studies also led to program enhancements. "Built into each tumor section, we have a series of clinical case studies that will be used as a stepping-off point for the discussion of very specific topics," Dr Gomella notes.

Since the first Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in 2005, the attendance has doubled. More than 2,000 professionals are expected at the 2011 event. ■

© 2010. American Society of Clinical Oncology. All Rights Reserved.