Interviews

Ahmad Tarhini, MD, PhD, director of the Melanoma and Skin Cancer Program and Immune-Oncology Research at the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute, discusses 3 recent trials that are changing the adjuvant treatment landscape of melanoma. The treatments presented in these trials have less toxicities overall and less impact on the quality of life, according to Tarhini.

Neil E. Kay, MD, professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic, addresses the “Big 4” in salvage therapies for patients with relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia, including a newer therapy coming down the pipeline now.

Yelena Y. Janjigian, MD, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the importance of testing for microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) status in patients with gastric cancers.

Daniel P. Petrylak, MD, a professor of Medicine and Urology and co-director of the Signal Transduction Research Program at Yale School of Medicine, discussed results from the phase III RANGE trial for the combination of ramucirumab (Cyramza) and docetaxel in patients with urothelial carcinoma.

Alice Shaw, MD, PhD, director of Thoracic Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital, discussed the efficacy results from a recent trial investigating lorlatinib as treatment for patients with anaplastic lymphoma kinase-positive (ALK) non–small cell lung cancer that had failed other treatments prior, including crizotinib (Xalkori) and other multiple ALK tyrosine-kinase inhibitors.

Kathleen Essel, MD, a fellow at University of Oklahoma Health Science Center, discusses the findings from a recent trial investigating the safety of long-term treatment with bevacizumab in patients with ovarian cancer. 

Tiffany A. Traina, MD, a medical oncologist at Weill Cornell Medicine, discusses the current treatment landscape for patients with triple-negative breast cancer.

Brad McGregor, MD, a medical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the future of combination therapies in the treatment landscape of renal cell carcinoma. He highlights the positive results from a few combinations that have been tested in clinical trials. 

Rachel Grossman, MD, of Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, discusses the treatment landscape for patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma. She focuses on treatments utilizing tumor treating fields, an antimitotic treatment.

Selina Chen-Kiang, PhD, a professor of pathology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College, discusses the rationale of her phase I trial investigating the use of CDK4/6 inhibitors for the treatment of patients with mantle cell lymphoma.

Owen O’Connor, MD, PhD, director of the Center for Lymphoid Malignancies at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, discusses the possibility of using chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies for the treatment of patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL). This can be tricky for a number of reasons, but O’Connor is hopeful that there are treatment regimens for this patient population that can work.

Joshua R. Richter, MD, a hematologist/oncologist at John Theurer Cancer Center, discusses results from the Living with Cancer patient-reported outcomes (PROs) tool, which is a survey to record self-reported symptoms from patients. Richter used this tool to survey 239 patients with multiple myeloma on their symptoms and psychological distress.

Alan Skarbnik, MD, director of the Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia Program at John Theurer Cancer Center, discusses the possibility of triplet combinations for the treatment of hematologic malignances. The biggest challenge with this type of treatment regimen is the increased risk of adverse events.

Jacqueline C. Barrientos, MD, associate professor of the Karches Center for Oncology Research at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, discusses which types of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia are the best candidates for treatment with ibrutinib

Martin H. Voss, MD, an assistant attending at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses recent data supporting the use of neoadjuvant therapy in patients with locally advanced kidney cancer.

Jennifer Litton, MD, associate professor in the Department of Breast Medical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses her opinion on the use of PARP inhibitors in the field of breast cancer. 

Ghassan K. Abou-Alfa, MD, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses results of the CELESTIAL trial. The results were clinically and statistically significant, Abou-Alfa notes. 

Mark G. Kris, MD, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the recent FDA approval of durvalumab (Imfinzi) for the treatment of patients with locally advanced, unresectable stage III non–small cell lung cancer.

David M. Nanus, MD, chief of the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Weill Cornell Medicine, discusses the use of immunotherapy in the community setting. He also gives advice to community oncologists that are using these treatments in their practice.&nbsp;<br /> &nbsp;

Jennifer Litton, MD, associate professor in the Department of Breast Medical Oncology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the role of biosimilars in the treatment of breast cancer.

Robert &quot;Bo&quot; Gamble, director of Strategic Practice Initiatives, Community Oncology Alliance (COA), discusses some of the exciting topics that will be covered during the upcoming 2018 Community Oncology Conference.&nbsp;

Miguel-Angel Perales, MD, deputy chief of Adult Bone Marrow Transplant Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses what experts are expecting to change in the treatment landscape of non-Hodgkin&rsquo;s lymphoma in the next year. Perales says by the end of 2018, there may be 3 CAR T-cell therapies approved for the treatment of non-Hodgkin&rsquo;s lymphoma.

Jaron Mark, MD, gynecologic oncology fellow at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses findings from a restrictive protocol that limited the number of opioids prescribed after gynecologic surgeries. Patients looked at in this trial had undergone ambulatory or minimally invasive procedures.&nbsp;

Akihito Kawazoe, MD, discussed the safety and efficacy results of the phase I/II SCOOP trial of napabucasin plus pembrolizumab for treatment of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

Ira Winer, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at Wayne State University, discusses the outlook on immunotherapy in the treatment landscape of gynecologic cancers.&nbsp;

Ursula A. Matulonis, MD, director, Gynecologic Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, discusses initial safety and activity findings from a phase IB escalation study of&nbsp;mirvetuximab soravtansine, a folate receptor alpha-targeting antibody-drug conjugate,&nbsp;with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in patients with platinum-resistant epithelial ovarian cancer.

Tanios Bekaii-Saab, MD, professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic, discusses results of the ReDOS trial. In the trial, investigators compared 2 arms with different dosing strategies for regorafenib in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

Jason J. Luke, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the The University of Chicago Medicine, discusses the importance of conducting research into less common subsets of melanoma. After giving a talk on non-cutaneous melanoma, a rare subtype, Luke explained that not all cases of melanoma arise on the skin and shared why more research is necessary in the field.