Latest Conference Articles

David R. Penberthy, MD, MBA, is medical director, Radiation Oncology, Bon Secours-Southside Medical Center in Petersburg, Virginia, and president of the Association of Community Cancer Centers for the 2022-2023 term.

TROPiCS-02, a phase 3 study, was presented during a session on breast cancer at the 2022 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Kashyap Patel, MD, CEO of Carolina Blood and Cancer Care Associates, current president of the Community Oncology Alliance, and associate editor of Evidence-Based Oncology™, discusses his partnership with Sema4 and LabCorp and their joint goal to advance whole-exome sequencing (WES) for targeted oncology treatment.

Enrique Ocio, MD, PhD, hematology department head, Marqués de Valdecilla University Hospital, Santander, Spain, discusses phase 1b trial results for subcutaneous (sub-Q) vs intravenous isatuximab, both formulations administered in combination with pomalidomide and dexamethasone for relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM).

The collaboration, put in place through a Memorandum of Understanding, was presented Saturday in a keynote address by WHO Cancer Control Officer André Ilbawi, MD, during the presidential symposium at the 2022 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting taking place in Chicago.

Data presented at ASCO show that after 6 years, patients with advanced Hodgkin lymphoma who were treated with a combination of brentuximab vedotin and chemotherapy had a sharply reduced risk of death and a reduced risk of a secondary cancer.

Findings from the phase 3 SHINE trial could make ibrutinib the standard treatment option for older patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), who often cannot tolerate chemotherapy or transplant strategies, according to study authors.

For the second year, the meeting will focus on health equity, as American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) President Everett Vokes, MD, FASCO, has selected the theme “Advancing Equitable Cancer Care Through Innovation.”

Randall A. Oyer, MD, medical director, oncology, and medical director, Cancer Risk Evaluation Program, Lancaster General Health, and clinical professor of cancer biology at Penn Medicine, discusses the recent American Society of Clinical Oncology/Association of Community Cancer Centers recommendations for improving diversity in clinical trials.

Susan Redline, MD, MPH, professor of sleep medicine and epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, gives a preview of her SLEEP 2022 keynote and discusses her 30 years of sleep epidemiology advocacy.

From discussions on policies of time change to the neurobiology of narcolepsy, sessions at the SLEEP 2022 conference taking place June 4-8 will span a broad range of topics.

The organizations that can take on 2-sided risk are usually bigger and that’s not always better for health care, said Jayson Slotnik, partner, Health Policy Strategies, Inc.

Alignment of incentives in the United States do not always support the use of biosimilars or other lower-cost alternatives, said Sonia T. Oskouei, PharmD, BCMAS, DPLA, vice president of biosimilars at Cardinal Health.

Data to be presented next week during the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting show that for every 10% increase in public welfare spending, there was a 4.55% narrowing of the 5-year overall survival (OS) disparity between Black and White patients with cancer.

Jessica Brooks, MPM, president and chief executive officer, Pittsburgh Business Group on Health, spoke on the core themes of her keynote address related to diversity, equity, and inclusion at the 2022 Greater Philadelphia Business Coalition on Health annual conference.

Abstracts presented at Digestive Disease Week 2022 showed that RBX2660, an investigational microbiota-based drug, was more likely to reduce the recurrence of Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) compared with placebo.

At Digestive Disease Week 2022, John M. DeWitt, MD, professor of medicine, Indiana University Health, explains his findings on the diagnosis and management of achalasia in 2022 and how the COVID-19 pandemic affected these trends.

During a State-of-the-Art Lecture at Digestive Disease Week 2022, Jessica L. Mellinger, MD, MSc, explained how the COVID-19 pandemic has driven increases in rates of alcohol use and associated liver disease, as well as what can be done at the clinic, societal, and policy levels to address these trends.

At Digestive Disease Week 2022, Sravanthi Parasa, MD, gastroenterologist at Swedish Gastroenterology, talks about how artificial intelligence (AI) is used in gastroenterology and what challenges it may pose for clinicians.

Investigational microbiota-based live therapeutic RBX2660 was found to be safe and effective at reducing Clostridioides difficile (C difficile) recurrence, said Paul Feuerstadt, MD, assistant clinical professor at Yale University School of Medicine, gastroenterologist at PACT Gastroenterology Center, at Digestive Disease Week 2022.

Evidence shows that weight loss achieved through bariatric and endoscopic surgery can help treat and reverse nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), but optimal procedure selection and timing vary by patient factors, according to speakers at Digestive Disease Week 2022.

Outcomes were worse for patients hospitalized once for Clostridioides difficile infection compared with alternative reasons for hospitalization, but the risk of adverse outcomes did not seem to increase with recurrent admissions for C difficile, explained Preethi Venkat, MD, second-year internal medicine resident at University of California, San Diego, at Digestive Disease Week 2022.

A pair of posters presented at Digestive Disease Week 2022 showed the efficacy of an investigational biotherapeutic in preventing Clostridioides difficile infection recurrence and restoring the microbiome.

Speakers at Digestive Disease Week 2022 presented research on how health disparities and socioeconomic factors can contribute to changes in the gut microbiome that have implications for cancer risk, immune health, and overall well-being.

Because symptoms are similar to those of gastroesophageal reflux disease, achalasia is often misdiagnosed, explained Eric Low, MD, MPH, gastroenterology fellow at University of California, San Diego at Digestive Disease Week 2022.

The accumulation of screening and treatment disparities are contributing to colorectal cancer incidence and mortality disparities, said Folasade (Fola) May, MD, PhD, gastroenterologist, health services researcher at University of California, Los Angeles, at Digestive Disease Week 2022.

As artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the gastrointestinal field continues to advance, speakers at Digestive Disease Week 2022 discussed how these tools can be put into practice to improve efficiency, reduce physician burnout, and reap cost savings.

Latha Alaparthi, MD, gastroenterologist at Gastroenterology Center of Connecticut, talks about lessons she has learned from being a woman in a medical leadership position and what she hopes to teach others at the Women in GI Luncheon at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2022.