By Jyoti Patel, MD, and Heather A. Wakelee, MD
Posted: December 2017
The IASLC 2017 Chicago Multidisciplinary Symposium in Thoracic Oncology was held September 14-16, 2017 and brought together nearly 400 participants to discuss important topics in lung cancer prevention, detection, and care.
The multidisciplinary nature of the meeting was most apparent in the initial session, which included talks on tobacco control, barriers to screening, updates in pulmonary medicine, pathology perspective on sample utilization, “liquid biopsies,” access to care and health disparities and a trimodality discussion on oligmetastatic disease. Key controversies in immunotherapy were highlighted in the keynote addresses. The patient perspective was highlighted in a dynamic talk by Janet Freeman-Daly.
Specific presentations of note and impact included:
Treatment disparities:
Dr. Paul Walker presented results of an intervention to reduce black-white treatment disparities in early-stage NSCLC, which demonstrated significant impact of cancer care navigation.
Screening:
Dr. Alexander Carlson discussed the attrition rate in community-based lung cancer screening in a “real-world” view of screening practices.
Basic science/mesothelioma:
Dr. Michele Carbone provided an overview of the role of BAPI in modulating the gene-environment interaction in development of mesothelioma.
Pulmonary medicine:
Dr. Lyssa Friedman presented study results that analyzed blood-based markers as an aid in the identification of malignant versus benign pulmonary nodules.
Radiation oncology:
Dr. Matthew Farrell discussed novel radiation dose and fractionation data that highlight practice patterns in the US for management of limited stage small cell lung cancer.
Non-small cell lung cancer:
Dr. Leora Horn presented data on ensartinib given after second-generation ALK therapy, which showed significant activity in a pretreated population. Dr. Shahid Ahmed provided an overview of pneumonitis predictors associated with pembrolizumab.
The IASLC Chicago Multidisciplinary Symposium in Thoracic Oncology is a dynamic meeting with a long tradition and will continue to be held annually, except in years like 2018 when the IASLC World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) is held in North America. The conference is a fabulous opportunity to network across disciplines with other people with careers focused on thoracic malignancies and learn about the latest developments in prevention, detection and care with novel data presentations.✦
