Interviews

Robert "Bo" Gamble, director of strategic practice initiatives at Community Oncology Alliance, shares his perspective on the 340B Drug Discount Program and the implications of the program for the oncology community. He also provides his thoughts on possible solutions for imbalances created by the program.

Manish A. Shah, MD, director of Gastrointestinal Oncology at Weill Cornell Medicine, discusses the need for targeted therapies beyond the second-line setting in esophageal cancer. While this is a deadly disease with most metastatic patients dying within a year, a recent clinical trial with pembrolizumab addresses an unmet need in the population, Shah says.

H. Jack West, MD, thoracic oncologist at the Swedish Cancer Institute of Swedish Medical Center, discusses the data with atezolizumab (Tecentriq) and pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). West says that the choice of treatment is likely best left to the judgement of the physician and patient. 

Todd Yezefski, MD, a senior fellow in the Clinical Research Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, discusses the results of a trial investigating cost and outcome differences in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer in the United States and Canada. Specifically, he looked at patients in Washington and British Columbia. This data was presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Julie R. Brahmer, MD, associate professor of oncology and co-director of the Upper Aerodigestive Department at the Bloomberg Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, John Hopkins Medicine, discusses the change in standard of care for patients with stage III non–small cell lung cancer. Durvalumab was recently approved by the FDA as a consolidation therapy for patients with stage III locally-advanced, unresectable NSCLC who had not progressed following standard chemoradiotherapy.

Benjamin G. Neel, MD, PhD, director of the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center at NYU Langone, discusses how his institution has changed vastly over the last few years, with an increasing number of clinical trials available for patients with lung cancer and other cancers. Clinical trials are often the best option for cancers where the outcomes with conventional treatments may be uncertain, Neel says.

Toni K. Choueiri, MD, a medical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses how clinical trials can help improve cancer treatments for patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma, a largely incurable and lethal disease. He also shares recent statistics on the low clinical enrollment numbers as well as how many could potentially be enrolling for newer treatments. 

Casey Cosgrove, MD, a fellow at the Ohio State Comprehensive Cancer Center, discussed a pilot trial that screened patients with endometrial cancers for Lynch syndrome.The potential impact of this study could lead to the prevention of endometrial, ovarian, and colorectal cancers in the future, Cosgrove said.