Podcast appearances and mentions of everett vokes

Dr. Monty Pal and Dr. Ari Rosenberg discuss the evolution of treatment strategies in head and neck cancers, including the challenges of treating both HPV-positive and HPV-negative disease and the emergence of blood-based biomarkers to advance personalized therapy across different subtypes. TRANSCRIPT Dr. Monty Pal: Hello and welcome to the ASCO Daily News Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Monty Pal. I'm a medical oncologist, professor, and vice chair of academic affairs at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in Los Angeles. Today, we're going to explore the evolving landscape of treatment strategies in head and neck cancer management, including locoregionally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, which happens to be on the rise in United States, in part due to spike in HPV-mediated oropharyngeal cancers. We're also going to discuss the emerging strategies of using blood-based biomarkers to really advance personalized therapy. Joining me for this discussion is Dr. Ari Rosenberg. He's a medical oncologist focused on head and neck cancer, and he's an associate professor – congratulations on the recent promotion – at the University of Chicago. The University of Chicago has really produced luminaries in this field, Dr. Rosenberg included. I've had the pleasure of getting to know Dr. Ezra Cohen over the years, who really had his grounding there, and of course Everett Vokes, former ASCO President. I'm really looking forward to this conversation, Ari. Thanks so much for joining us. Dr. Ari Rosenberg: Thanks, Monty. Thanks for the invitation. Dr. Monty Pal: You got it. And just a quick note for our listeners, our full disclosures are going to be in the transcript at the end of this episode. So let's start with the basics, if you don't mind. So, head and neck cancers are very diverse and they're challenging, right? In the sense that they're near vital organs, the treatments, you know, as we all saw during fellowship, if not now in clinical practice. They can really have such a major impact on vital organ function, speech, swallowing, et cetera. Can you just comment on head and neck cancers that are on the rise in the U.S.? I alluded to this briefly. Particularly, we've heard this in the context of colorectal cancer and so forth. Are you actually seeing younger adults being affected by this? Dr. Ari Rosenberg: Yeah, thanks for that. The vast majority of head and neck cancers are head and neck squamous cell carcinomas, as I'm sure many of the listeners recall as well from fellowship or their current training. And as you alluded to, the organ function, long-term and functional quality of life outcomes are quite important, particularly in the context that these develop in high value real estate, parts of our head and neck area that we use for speaking, swallowing, all sorts of other essential functions as well. As you also alluded to, we think of this in two different particular subtypes of head and neck cancer. The historical head and neck cancer from 50, 60 years ago was almost exclusively related to carcinogen exposure, tobacco, alcohol use, and that subtype of carcinogen-induced head and neck cancer has been slowly declining. However, over the last now several decades, we've been seeing an increase in primary oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma, mostly tonsil, base of tongue. These are attributable to HPV, human papillomavirus exposure. And that's now the majority of the head and neck cancers that we tend to see in our clinic. As you also alluded to, these have very different prognoses as well. HPV-related head and neck cancer has a much more favorable prognosis where much of the interest has been in can we de-intensify to optimize long-term function? But then the non-HPV-related head and neck cancer, or what we call HPV-negative head and neck cancer, continue to be very, very challenging. We only managed to cure about half of these folks, with many of these patients developing the current disease. These patients, in addition to being difficult to treat, also have major impacts both in terms of the treatments they undergo as well as their disease that can impact their function and quality of life. And you hinted at this a little bit, but we have been seeing an increase in younger patients with HPV-negative head and neck cancer as well, which is quite concerning. Younger patients, oftentimes never smokers, never drinkers, who are developing non-HPV-negative head and neck cancer. And that's been a little bit of a more recent trend that we've been seeing as well. So, definitely a lot of work to be done to optimize and improve outcomes across all of these different head and neck cancer subtypes. Dr. Monty Pal: I mean, I'm just curious, you know, in the context of colorectal cancer, one of the things that we talk about is the potential role of the microbiome driving some of these young-onset cancers with, you know, perhaps there being an impact on, for instance, inflammation and the gut and what have you. Tell me about head and neck cancer. Is this anything known as to why younger patients might be getting diagnosed with non-HPV type cancers? It's odd to me. Dr. Ari Rosenberg: Yeah, it's a great question. A lot of people are working on it. I think we folks have hypotheses, but it hasn't totally panned out exactly what's going on there. It does have a little bit more of a tendency towards women, whereas historically head and neck cancer is much more common in men than it is in women. But lots of people working on that, whether it's related to chronic inflammation, whether it's related to the microbiome. Whether it's related to dental exposure, dental work. So, a lot of folks trying to parse that out because I agree with you, it needs to be identified alongside improving treatment paradigms for these patients, the young ones and the older patients as well. Dr. Monty Pal: Interesting, interesting. You know, one of the phenomena that was sort of coming around when I was in training 25 years ago was this role of sort of induction therapy for head and neck cancers. And of course, it's really come full circle now to include checkpoint inhibitors and so forth. Tell me a little bit about this and how you apply it, maybe in an HPV-mediated context, maybe in a non-HPV context. Dr. Ari Rosenberg: Yeah, absolutely. Induction chemotherapy, as you alluded to, or neoadjuvant chemotherapy, depending on what the locoregional treatment approach is. Similar to other cancer types where systemic control early on has many potential advantages in this setting. Now, in head and neck cancer, even though induction chemotherapy is quite active in head and neck cancer, both HPV-positive and HPV-negative with pretty good response rates. A survival advantage for all comers with local regionally advanced disease remains unproven. There's been two randomized trials, both underpowered, but essentially did not show a survival advantage, showing that induction chemotherapy for all patients with locoregionally advanced and neck cancer can't be justified for a survival advantage. That being said though, there remains a number of potential advantages of giving induction or neoadjuvant chemotherapy, of course, improving systemic control and debulking the disease early on has potential advantages, and predicting the responsiveness to subsequent radiation treatment. We know for some time in head and neck cancer that the percentage of shrinkage or the response to induction chemotherapy actually predicts outcome related to radiation as a dynamic biomarker where response can be used to select patients, for example, for de-escalated radiation has been an area of active investigation, active research. And it also remains a key opportunity to evaluate predictive biomarkers and understanding pre and post treatment to better understand the biology. I'll just add to your question that recently over this past year, we also saw phase 3 data for neoadjuvant immunotherapy for a subset of head and neck cancer that is surgically resectable. And so that's reintroducing the potential benefit in the immunotherapy era of incorporating immunotherapy in the neoadjuvant or the induction setting as part of the evolving treatment paradigm for these diseases. Dr. Monty Pal: That's really interesting. And you kind of alluded to already several topics that I plan to hit on, you know, for instance, the role of immune checkpoint inhibitors, induction, chemotherapy, and so forth. And you started to touch on biomarkers. And of course, I think that's something near and dear to many of us in academic oncology. One thing that we've started talking a lot about in the context of colorectal cancer is circulating tumor DNA. How do you think this might fit in the context of head and neck cancer? Can you give us a flavor for that? Dr. Ari Rosenberg: Yeah, absolutely. In head and neck cancer, the current landscape is most developed for circulating tumor DNA for HPV-related head and neck cancer. The advantage of HPV-related head neck cancer is that you have a distinctive HPV DNA that does tend to spill out into the peripheral blood and can be detected using various different blood-based assays. And because of that advantage as a tissue agnostic approach, it turns out that a number of HPV DNA plasma assays are actually quite sensitive and quite specific. And a number of them have indeed been commercialized. Of course, not only for detecting a baseline, but also grading responsiveness during treatment and probably most importantly in the post-treatment surveillance setting, the detection of HPV DNA in the plasma remains a very important and substantial predictor of developing recurrent disease. There's been a number of trials that have been emerging looking at ctDNA and HPV-related head and neck cancer, using it, for example, as a strategy to deescalate patients. That was something we saw this past ASCO from the Dana-Farber group, and also using it to early detect recurrence and potentially intervene earlier for patients with minimal residual disease positivity. So, that remains evolving and as many folks are, I think, already using it in the clinic. But ctDNA also has a lot of potential for HPV-negative head and neck cancer. This is actually a bit more challenging to develop because you don't have that HPV DNA that you can track predictably because the tumor is an HPV- negative disease are much more heterogeneous, but there are a number of data that are coming out both for personalized assays such as Signatera or some of the other assays that require tumor. Unlike colon cancer, which you referenced, where most patients get surgery upfront, in head and neck cancer, many of the patients receive non-surgical pre-chemoradiation. So sometimes the amount of tumor available to generate a personalized assay is more limited and can be one of the challenges that we see in head neck cancer. But certainly that also seems to be emerging. And there's also further assays that are being developed for HPV-negative head neck cancers, such as methylomic signatures and others that may be tissue informed or tissue agnostic. And these are also emerging, particularly in the post-treatment surveillance setting as strong predictors of recurrent disease. So while we're certainly behind some of these other more common tumor types, colon cancer, lung cancer, we're right there with them and more and more trials are going report out, including a number of trials in our upcoming [University of Chicago] Head and Neck Cancer Symposium where I'll be presenting some data and others in the field will be presenting some data looking at ctDNA both for HPV-positive and for HPV- negative to try to improve outcomes for these patients. Dr. Monty Pal: That's so interesting. I've got to tell you that in kidney cancer, what I deal with day to day is a very low shedding disease, right? So techniques as opposed to ctDNA looking for tumor-informed information, that might be less preferred to something like methylomics where you might not necessarily be so contingent on what's happening in the primary tumor. I'm really interested in you mentioning that. Just a point of clarification, this is something I'm trying to wrap my head around. You'd mentioned circulating tumor HPV DNA, right? I assume this is markedly different from just looking for HPV titers in the patient, right? So is this actually incorporated elements of HPV within, you know, essentially host genome, if you will? Dr. Ari Rosenberg: Yeah, correct. This is circulating tumor HPV DNA. And we think of it biologically as a plasma-based tumor DNA biomarker that's specific for HPV-related head and neck cancers. Dr. Monty Pal: Got it, got it. It makes me wonder whether or not this might be applicable to diseases like cervical cancer and so forth where there's also extensively, you know, biology driven by HPV. Is that fair? Dr. Ari Rosenberg: Yes, definitely. And in the head and neck cancer field, much of this ctDNA actually was derived from a different viral mediated head neck cancer, is less common in the U.S., but nasopharyngeal cancer, which is oftentimes associated with EBV. That has been a biomarker for quite some time in nasopharyngeal cancer. Of course, in places where EBV-associated nasopharyngeal cancer, is endemic, such as East Asia, this has been around for quite some time, but we've been using that in the U.S., and there's been trials that have used EBV DNA plasma to predict recurrence and stratify for adjuvant treatment, for example. And so now with HPV, it's much more applicable to our US population because the vast majority of our head and neck cancer patients that we see in the US that are viral mediated in the US tend to be HPV-related. So having assays that we can use to improve outcomes for that biological subset remains of particular interest for us. Dr. Monty Pal: Yeah, that's fascinating. By the way, for the fellows listening, there's tons of boards pearls here that Dr. Rosenberg shared, EBV-associated cancers, the role of HPV and treatment association. So if you're recertifying anytime soon, I definitely think there's notes to take from this conversation indeed. I wanted to shift gears a little bit. And obviously, you're a prolific researcher. I don't think anyone goes through their fellowship in medical oncology without recounting these experiences of our head and neck patients really suffering from treatment-related toxicities. It's a real challenge. And I'm just wondering, I know a big body of work that you're focused on is really using multimodality treatment paradigms to perhaps reduce the cumulative treatment burden of patients with head and neck cancers. Can you talk about that a little bit? Dr. Ari Rosenberg: Yeah, definitely. Thanks for the question. And before I start going into some of the strategies, I'll just say that head and neck cancer, this is particularly for the fellows that are listening as well, just in reference to your prior comment, that this is really a multidisciplinary disease. At our center, all head and neck cancer patients are seen upfront at that first visit by all three specialties, med onc, rad onc, and surgery, because the choice and sequencing of modalities to optimize not only survival, but also functional quality of life outcome is so critical. And I think that's probably the biggest takeaway for anyone who treats a lot of head and neck cancer or will be treating a lot of head and neck cancer in the clinic. But in terms of more specific attempts at trying to optimize some of those parameters that you described, we really think about these separately in terms of HPV-positive and HPV-negative head and neck cancer. For HPV-positive head and neck cancer, the cure rates are quite high with chemo radiation, although not for everyone. There's still about 15, 10 to 15 % of folks that will develop a recurrence. But for the vast majority of patients, standard chemoradiation is quite a cure to therapy, but the toxicity associated with that can be quite substantial. And so there's been a number of attempts to try to deescalate treatment. It turns out that deescalating everyone with locoregionally advanced HPV-positive head and neck cancer is not a good strategy because it's not able to select out the patients that really do need full dose treatment. And we have seen some negative trials that show inferior outcomes when everyone is deescalated. But what does remain promising is again, trying to select out who the best candidates are for deescalated treatment. The folks at MSK have hypoxia imaging that they're using in trials that looks quite promising to select for the more favorable deescalatable biology. At our center, we've been interested in using induction chemotherapy to stratify response and select patients for deescalated treatment with excellent survival outcomes and reduce toxicity with deescalated treatment. And more recently, ctDNA that us and other groups, such as the Dana-Farber group, is using. And that also looks quite promising. Again, how do you select the patient who will do well with less radiation versus the ones that really need the full doses and volumes of radiation? And then for HPV-negative head and neck cancer, this is a much trickier disease because already the survival outcomes are not like we want it to be. Trying to figure out how to improve survival outcomes remains an important thing. Using immunotherapy seems to be one of the key cornerstones to that. But these are patients that also suffer from a lot of toxicity related to their treatment. We completed a trial not too long ago that we published this past year where we, in HPV-negative head and neck cancer patients, de-intensified the radiation for responders to neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy. And those patients did similar, if not even a little bit better, than the non-responders who got full dose treatment. So something that does warrant further investigation as well. How do we not only improve survival for those patients, but also reduce some of the long-term toxicities? Dr. Monty Pal: This is brilliant. I'm taking so many notes as you were mentioning these items. There are so many areas where I think the research crosses over. I already mentioned, know, ctDNA, for instance, and metabolomics and the places where that might apply to kidney cancer. The hypoxia imaging really caught my ear too. Obviously, kidney cancer is disease highly predicated on hypoxia. So thank you for all of this. We've got about a minute or so. So, I'm going to ask you for a really tall task here. Can you tell us what you foresee being some of the biggest challenges that sort of lie ahead and head and neck cancer. You've already kind of alluded to it with ongoing research, but if you had to pick maybe 2, 3 problems, the very most that we really need to get to and head and neck cancer, what would that be? Dr. Ari Rosenberg: Yeah, that's a great question. Obviously, lots of things to be done, but if I'm going to limit it to just a couple, I would say number one is really trying to improve the survival for HPV negative local regionally advanced head and neck cancer. We talked early on about how we are seeing, you know, of course we see many of these people that were smokers and drinkers, but also seeing these in younger patients, in patients without a history of tobacco use. Some of these are very biologically aggressive and we need better treatments beyond surgery, beyond chemo radiation, beyond immunotherapy to improve outcomes for these patients and cure more of them. So, I would say that's one big area. And the other is, which we didn't speak about so much in this talk, but remains one of the biggest challenges that we see in the clinic is the recurrent metastatic head and neck cancer patients. This is an incredibly challenging disease to treat, not only with poor survival, but also with substantial impacts on quality of life and function. mean, these are bad recurrences that cause a lot of pain, functional deficits, really impacts quality of life as well. So developing novel therapies, many of which are currently in clinical trials and many of which are currently continuing to be developed, remains so critical. How do we develop better systemic therapies, better targeted therapies, better biomarkers for recurrent metastatic head neck cancer to improve their survival and quality of life and functional outcomes. Those are the two big areas that require the most work at this time within the head and neck cancer field. Dr. Monty Pal: That's brilliant. I mean, I have to tell you I could probably talk to you all day about this, such a fascinating topic. It's a very exciting time in the field. Thank you, Dr. Rosenberg, for all your incredible contributions and thanks for sharing with us your insights on the ASCO Daily News Podcast. Dr. Ari Rosenberg: Yeah, and thanks for the introduction. Hope to do it again soon. Dr. Monty Pal: And many thanks to our listeners for your time today. If you value the insights that you hear from the ASCO Daily News Podcast, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. More on today's speakers:      Dr. Monty Pal   @montypal  Dr. Ari Rosenberg @AriRosenbergMD Follow ASCO on social media:           ASCO on X     ASCO on Bluesky          ASCO on Facebook           ASCO on LinkedIn           Disclosures:        Dr. Monty Pal:       Speakers' Bureau: MJH Life Sciences, IntrisiQ, Peerview      Research Funding (Inst.): Exelixis, Merck, Osel, Genentech, Crispr Therapeutics, Adicet Bio, ArsenalBio, Xencor, Miyarsian Pharmaceutical      Travel, Accommodations, Expenses: Crispr Therapeutics, Ipsen, Exelixis  Dr. Ari Rosenberg:     Stock and Other Ownership Interests: Privo Technologies Consulting or Advisory Role: Nanobiotix, EMD Serono, Vaccitech, Novartis, Eisai, Astellas Pharma, Regeneron, RAPT Therapeutics, Geovax Labs, Janssen, Summit Therapeutics Speakers' Bureau: Coherus Biosciences Research Funding (Inst.): Hookipa Biotech, EMD Serono, Purple Biotech, Bristol-Myers Squibb/Celgene, BeiGene, Abbvie, Astellas Pharma, Pfizer, Janux Therapeutics

Dr. Sonali Smith, of University of Chicago Medicine, highlights dynamic sessions and hot topics that will be featured in the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting Scientific Program, including practice-changing advances in breast cancer, colorectal cancer, sarcoma, and myeloma.     Transcript  ASCO Daily News: Hello and welcome to the ASCO Daily News podcast. I'm Geraldine Carroll, a reporter for the ASCO Daily News. I'm delighted to welcome Dr. Sonali Smith, professor and chief of the hematology-oncology section at University of Chicago Medicine.  Dr. Smith is also the Chair of the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting Scientific Program and joins me to discuss the hot topics and must-see sessions that will be featured at the meeting.  Her full disclosures are available in the show notes and disclosures relating to all guests on the podcast can be found on our transcripts at asco.org/podcasts.  Dr. Smith, it's great to have you on the podcast today.  Dr. Sonali Smith: Thank you, Geraldine. It's a pleasure to be here.  ASCO Daily News: Well, thousands of abstracts were submitted for consideration this year and more than 2,900 were selected for presentation. We'll talk about some of the must-see sessions. First, can you tell us about the areas that have shown tremendous advances this year—the practice-changing abstracts that will make the headlines?  Dr. Sonali Smith: Yes, that's right. There were over 6,000 abstracts submitted for consideration this year and more than 2,900 abstracts were selected for presentation with over 250 oral presentations. We had 2,200 that were online publication only. And given the hybrid nature of ASCO [Annual Meeting] this year, we will have 86 sessions that will be livestreamed, including all of our abstracts that are oral.  I'm really excited about the Plenary. In particular, there are going to be some practice-changing abstracts involving breast cancer, colon cancer, sarcoma, and myeloma. We are really thrilled with the quality and the excitement around the data and I do think this is going to be very important for people who are in practice.  When we think about the different abstracts that have been submitted for the Plenary, they will focus on front-line colon cancer, the approach to Ewing sarcoma in pediatric patients, and the use of antibody-drug conjugates for breast cancer in a very specific subset. And then also some discussion about, or presentation about, the use of maintenance therapy in patients with myeloma.  ASCO Daily News: Excellent. Well, the Clinical Science Symposia are quite popular among participants. Can you tell us about some of the topics that will be featured this year?  Dr. Sonali Smith: Yes. So, the Clinical Science Symposia (CSS) were really a lot of fun to pull together. As this audience knows well, this is an opportunity for us to take a look at all of the abstracts submitted and look for cross-cutting themes between all of the different cancers that we take care of. They can focus on new technology. They can focus on new approaches to therapy. And after looking at all of the submitted data, we have 3 really outstanding special Clinical Science Symposia for which I'm really excited.  One is going to focus on circulating tumor DNA, “ctDNA: Dawn of a New Era,” and I really do believe in that title and encourage everybody to come and hear how this could be applied in practice.  The second special CSS will be on Bispecifics. Really asking the investigators as well as the discussants. “Bispecifics: Are Two Better Than One?” And then the third special Clinical Science Symposium will be called, “Is There a Ghost in the Machine? Putting Artificial Intelligence to Work.” And as many of us know, machine learning is finally finding its way into oncology. And I'm just thrilled at the abstracts that have been submitted.  I also just wanted to say that we've had a really outstanding speaker lineup and it's incredibly diverse with international perspectives brought to the table.  ASCO Daily News: Absolutely. And so, what are some of the other sessions that will be on your own list this year?  Dr. Sonali Smith: Well, I'm really excited about the opening session, which will be at 9:30 in the morning on Saturday, June 4th. We will have our president, Dr. Everett Vokes, speaking on his theme, Advancing Equitable Cancer Care Through Innovation.  We also have our FASCO presentations, and we have 2 special speakers. One will be Ned Sharpless, who is the head of the National Cancer Institute. And then we will also have Dr. Andre Ilbawi, who is the lead of cancer programs at the World Health Organization. He has had an incredible impact on improving access for children with cancer on a global level. And I think this series of speakers really fits with our theme this year.  Another session I'm really looking forward to is the [David A.] Karnofsky [Award and] lecture by this year's widely respected speaker, Dr. Jedd Wolchock. This is anticipated to be an incredibly thought-provoking and clinically relevant presentation, and I hope all of you will join us.  ASCO Daily News: In following up then on the theme of the meeting this year, it is, of course, Advancing Equitable Cancer Care Through Innovation, can you comment on how important it is that this theme is represented in as many of these programs, as many of these sessions as possible at meetings such as the [2022] ASCO Annual Meeting and other symposia?  Dr. Sonali Smith: A global approach and a global mentality when we are developing therapies, preventive approaches, are really incredibly important. In the United States, at least, the survival for patients with cancer has doubled, and I think it is really important to remember that we are a global organization and there are many people around the world who can benefit. And if we can put innovation into this, hopefully, it can be done better and faster.  ASCO Daily News: Absolutely! Well, thank you so much, Dr. Smith, for taking the time to be on the podcast today and for sharing some of these highlights. And a big thank you for your efforts to create a really robust scientific program for the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting.  Dr. Sonali Smith: Thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure.  ASCO Daily News: And thank you to our listeners for your time today. If you're enjoying the content on the ASCO Daily News podcast, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.      Disclosures:   Dr. Sonali Smith has been paid for any consulting or advisory role by ADC Therapeutics , Adaptive Biotechnologies , Gilead Sciences, Bristol Myers Squibb, MorphoSys, Janssen, Bantam Pharmaceutical, and Karyopharm Therapeutics, currently or during the past 2 years. Dr. Smith has received research funding from Portola Pharmaceuticals, Genentech, Acerta Pharma, Pharmacyclics, Celgene, Curis, Bristol Myers Squibb, TGTX, Merck, Forty Seven, and Novartis, currently or within the past 2 years.   Disclaimer:   The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions.  Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. Guest statements on the podcast do not express the opinions of ASCO. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement.   

Dr. Jhanelle Gray, of the Moffitt Cancer Center and chair of the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting Education Program, highlights must-see sessions that explore strategies to advance equity, innovation, and impact across the global cancer community.  Transcript: ASCO Daily News: Hello and welcome to the ASCO Daily News Podcast. I'm Geraldine Carroll, a reporter for ASCO Daily News. Today I'm delighted to welcome Dr. Jhanelle Gray. She is the department chair of thoracic oncology and co-leader of the Molecular Medicine Program at the Moffitt Cancer Center. She's also a professor at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine and chair of the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting Education Program. Dr. Gray will tell us about the hot topics and must-see educational sessions at this year's [ASCO] Annual Meeting. Dr. Gray's full disclosures are available in the show notes and disclosures of all guests on the podcast can be found on our transcripts at asco.org/podcasts. Dr. Gray, it's great to have you on the podcast today. Dr. Jhanelle Gray: Thank you for having me. I am excited to be here with you today and for the opportunity to chat with you about the upcoming 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting and the educational sessions. ASCO Daily News: Well, the theme of the Annual Meeting is advancing equitable cancer care through innovation. Can you tell us how equity and innovation are reflected in the Education Program? And what would you say are the must-see sessions in this year's program? Dr. Jhanelle Gray: I am excited about sharing and hearing the latest advances in our field so we can move toward impact innovation and equity across our global cancer care community. [In] many of the sessions that we have, the attendees will join us either online or in person, and really will help us come together with a common goal of reducing the cancer burden. The presidential theme from Dr. Everett Vokes has really helped us to formulate what these sessions are. A few of them that I think really align with where we want to go for this 2022 ASCO [Annual] Meeting are things such as looking at strategies to advance cancer equity in our cancer clinical trials. We also have sessions such as “Artificial Intelligence in Oncology: The Current Field and Where It Is Headed,” and this touches on our innovation piece. We also have some really great keynote speakers such as a session—our ASCO Town Hall, moderated by Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, a past ASCO president and she'll be talking to us about the future of the conduct of clinical trials after COVID-19. I hope this gives you a sense of the exciting topics we have as we work to identify and address the challenges in this global cancer care field. ASCO Daily News: Thanks. Well, a couple of other sessions that are really trying to address these challenges are 2 joint sessions. So, I'd like to ask you about those. The first one involves ASCO and the American Association for Cancer Research, or AACR. And the second one features ASCO and the European Cancer Organization (ECO). Can you tell us about the topics of these sessions and why you think it's important for participants to see these particular sessions? Dr. Jhanelle Gray: Thank you. That's a great question. And thank you to AACR and ECO for their engagement and collaboration in planning and designing these sessions. We work to ensure that both organization's priorities and expertise are truly represented. The ASCO-AACR joint session is titled, “ASCO/American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Joint Session: The Promise of DNA Damage Response and Repair in Cancer,” and the ASCO-ECO joint session is on HPV vaccination prevention and treatment. These sessions include hot topics in oncology and were planned intentionally with a common approach that is across DNA damage repair and HPV vaccines. I really want the audience to hear: What is the existent data from which we can learn? How do we work to expand upon these gains across various tumor types? What are those key opportunities to expand platforms, and they should include diagnostics and therapeutics across global populations? Overall, I think both of these sessions will help the audience to understand not only what present-day data is, but also learn where these fields are heading in the future. ASCO Daily News: Thank you. Well, the ASCO Voices session is a favorite of the ASCO Annual Meeting. The speakers this year from Nigeria, Ireland, Germany, and the United States will share personal stories focused on equity, global health, and innovation. I've had a chance to interview the speakers and their stories really capture the human spirit and convey a true desire to find innovative ways to improve the lives of patients and survivors. Is this session 1 of your favorites at the [ASCO] Annual Meeting? Dr. Jhanelle Gray: Absolutely. The ASCO Voices is truly a compelling session. It helps to highlight where we should focus in what can seem like a very busy meeting. It helps all of us, including health care professionals, industry partners, caregivers, to take that breath and recenter. Our focus is ultimately the patient, and these personal stories help to crosscut that oncology continuum. We have, of course, chosen those that helped to showcase and support the importance of the presidential theme. And you'll see that many of those have topics focused on issues that are most relevant to global health, innovation, and/or cancer equity. So, congratulations, and looking forward to all of the speakers in this session [and] hearing their talks. ASCO Daily News: Thank you, Dr. Gray. Is there anything else you'd like to add? Before we wrap up the podcast? Do you want to mention maybe some of the sessions that are on top of your list to attend? Dr. Jhanelle Gray: Absolutely. We have also, in addition to the educational session, you'll hear from others throughout these podcasts on the scientific sessions, also obviously looking very much forward to the plenary, looking forward to the award ceremony also. It's just been an absolute pleasure to be working with Dr. Sonali on scientific sessions, as well as obviously Dr. Everett Vokes, our current president. ASCO Daily News: Well, thank you very much, Dr. Gray, for being on the podcast today. And thank you for your work as chair of the 2022 ASCO Annual Meeting Education Program. Dr. Jhanelle Gray: It's been an absolute pleasure to spend time with you today. If I can also take a moment to thank the ASCO staff, just what a phenomenal team and so those that are listening, I look forward to seeing you hopefully some of you at least in person at the meeting. ASCO Daily News: Wonderful! Thanks to our listeners for your time today. If you're enjoying the content on the podcast, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Disclosure: Dr. Jhanelle Gray: Honoraria: Merck Sharp & Dohme, Axiom HC Strategies, Inivata Consulting or Advisory Role: Novartis, AstraZeneca, Blueprint Medicines, Bristol Myers Squibb, EMD Serono, Lilly, AstraZeneca, Sanofi, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Janssen Scientific Affairs, AstraZeneca/MedImmune, Loxo, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Janssen Research Funding (Institution): Array BioPharma, Merck, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, Genentech/Roche, G1 Therapeutics, Novartis, Pfizer, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research Travel, Accommodations, Expenses: Merck Sharp & Dohme, Inivata, Merck, EMD Serono, Novartis Disclaimer: The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions. Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience, and conclusions. Guest statements on the podcast do not express the opinions of ASCO. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity, or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement.  

CME credits: 0.25 Valid until: 29-04-2021 Claim your CME credit at https://reachmd.com/programs/cme/the-changing-landscape-of-nsclc-met-inhibitors/11312/ Approximately 3 to 4 percent of the non-small cell lung cancer patient population as a whole harbors MET exon 14 skipping mutations that result in increased MET kinase protein levels and a constitutively active pathway. There is increasing excitement that these mutations, as well as MET gene amplification, can be specifically targeted with MET-directed approaches. Join us as Drs. Everett Vokes and Ross Camidge discuss both the dysregulation of the MET pathway in non-small cell lung cancer and the therapeutic potential of small molecule MET kinase inhibitors.

An Interview with Dr. Raph Cipriani and Dr. Everett Vokes discussing COVID-19 and the current status of incidence, treatment, and the "new normal".

CME credits: 0.25 Valid until: 29-04-2021 Claim your CME credit at https://reachmd.com/programs/cme/the-changing-landscape-of-nsclc-met-inhibitors/11312/ Approximately 3 to 4 percent of the non-small cell lung cancer patient population as a whole harbors MET exon 14 skipping mutations that result in increased MET kinase protein levels and a constitutively active pathway. There is increasing excitement that these mutations, as well as MET gene amplification, can be specifically targeted with MET-directed approaches. Join us as Drs. Everett Vokes and Ross Camidge discuss both the dysregulation of the MET pathway in non-small cell lung cancer and the therapeutic potential of small molecule MET kinase inhibitors.

Many people undergoing treatment for cancer face challenges with eating and nutrition, but people facing head and neck cancer and its related treatments face some of the most daunting ones because of the location of their cancer. According to a recent study, up to 80% of patients with head and neck cancers are malnourished, some prior to even starting treatment because their tumors cause eating problems. Our guests share their experiences, insights and knowledge so that you can make the best, most informed decisions for you and your loved ones. We are joined by Jean Johnson who was diagnosed with Stage 4 laryngeal cancer, Dr. Everett Vokes, an international authority on the treatment of head and neck cancer, and Jill Bice, a Registered Dietitian at the University of Chicago Medicine with specialty certifications in both Oncology Nutrition and Nutrition Support.

GRACE is happy to present the 8th in our series ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing discussions from ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss promising early results for treatments targeting new mutations.

GRACE is happy to present the 8th in our series ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing discussions from ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss new trials of targeting therapies used to treat leptomeningeal carcinomatosis.

GRACE is happy to present the 8th in our series ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing discussions from ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss promising early results for treatments targeting new mutations.

GRACE is happy to present the 8th in our series ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing discussions from ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss promising early results for treatments targeting new mutations.

GRACE is happy to present the 8th in our series ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing discussions from ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss new trials of targeting therapies used to treat leptomeningeal carcinomatosis.

GRACE is happy to present the 8th in our series ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing discussions from ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss new trials of targeting therapies used to treat leptomeningeal carcinomatosis.

GRACE is happy to present the 6th in our series ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing discussions from ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss Immuno-oncology developments - combinations and use as first-Line therapy.

GRACE is happy to present the 6th in our series ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing discussions from ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss Immuno-oncology developments - combinations and use as first-Line therapy.

GRACE is happy to present the 6th in our series ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing discussions from ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss Immuno-oncology developments - combinations and use as first-Line therapy.

GRACE is happy to present the 5th in our series ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing discussions from ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss the J-Alex trial and whether Alecensa should replace Xalkori as First-Line ALK Therapy.

GRACE is happy to present the 6th video in our series ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing discussions from ASCO 2016.   Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss whether current evidence supports favoring proton beam radiation.

GRACE is happy to present the 6th video in our series ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing discussions from ASCO 2016.   Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss whether current evidence supports favoring proton beam radiation.

GRACE is happy to present the 5th in our series ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing discussions from ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss the J-Alex trial and whether Alecensa should replace Xalkori as First-Line ALK Therapy.

GRACE is happy to present the 5th in our series ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing discussions from ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss the J-Alex trial and whether Alecensa should replace Xalkori as First-Line ALK Therapy.

GRACE is happy to present the 6th video in our series ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing discussions from ASCO 2016.   Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss whether current evidence supports favoring proton beam radiation.

GRACE is happy to present the 4th in our series ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing discussions from ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss the subject of local consolidation therapies for oligomatastases.

GRACE is happy to present the 4th in our series ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing discussions from ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss the subject of local consolidation therapies for oligomatastases.

GRACE is happy to present the 4th in our series ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing discussions from ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss the subject of local consolidation therapies for oligomatastases.

GRACE is happy to present our ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable series, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing topics presented at ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss the subject of urine or blood testing instead of lung biopsy, showing promise for finding EGFR mutations.     

GRACE is happy to present our ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable series, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing topics presented at ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss the subject of urine or blood testing instead of lung biopsy, showing promise for finding EGFR mutations.     

GRACE is happy to present our ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable series, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing topics presented at ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss the subject of urine or blood testing instead of lung biopsy, showing promise for finding EGFR mutations.     

GRACE is happy to present our ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable series, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing topics presented at ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss the subject of online patient groups and if they can help speed the development of new targeted therapies.  A subject quite important to online groups such as our own GRACE.

GRACE is happy to present our ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable series, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing topics presented at ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss the subject of online patient groups and if they can help speed the development of new targeted therapies.  A subject quite important to online groups such as our own GRACE.

GRACE is happy to present our ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable series, Highlights and New Approaches in Lung Cancer.  Featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD, this roundtable discussion, moderated by Dr. West, highlights the newest and most intriguing topics presented at ASCO 2016. Drs. West, Vokes and Ramalingam, along with patient advocate Janet Freeman-Daily, discuss the subject of online patient groups and if they can help speed the development of new targeted therapies.  A subject quite important to online groups such as our own GRACE.

1st Video in the GRACE ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable series, featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD.  Dr. West moderates this roundtable discussion highlighting studies presented at ASCO 2016.  For this video, Rova-T is presented as showing promise in Small Cell Lung Cancer. 

1st Video in the GRACE ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable series, featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD.  Dr. West moderates this roundtable discussion highlighting studies presented at ASCO 2016.  For this video, Rova-T is presented as showing promise in Small Cell Lung Cancer. 

1st Video in the GRACE ASCO 2016 Lung Cancer Roundtable series, featuring Jack West, MD, Janet Freeman-Daily, Everett Vokes, MD, and Suresh Ramalingam, MD.  Dr. West moderates this roundtable discussion highlighting studies presented at ASCO 2016.  For this video, Rova-T is presented as showing promise in Small Cell Lung Cancer. 

In this podcast, we discuss some of the research on head and neck cancers, including oropharyngeal cancer and cancers related to the human papilloma virus, or HPV, presented at ASCO’s 2013 Annual Meeting. Cancer Research News

In this podcast, we discuss some of the research on head and neck cancers presented at ASCO’s 2012 Annual Meeting. Cancer Research News

In this podcast, we discuss some of the research on head and neck cancers presented at ASCO's 2011 Annual Meeting. Cancer Research News