ASCO Plenary Sessions: impact, legacy, future

The ASCO annual meeting draws a large crowd of physicians, cancer researchers, policy makers, and industry representatives. The crown jewel of the annual events is the Plenary session where impactful, influential and visible abstracts are selected for the largest audience. Plenary topics are frequently paired with concurrent New England Journal or Lancet publications.  Here, we review 9 years of ASCO plenary sessions.  Several themes emerge.  First, many of the topics selected have indeed been practice changing, such as the use of ALK inhibitors for ALK rearranged NSCLC, or checkpoint inhibitors in metastatic melanoma.  Second, although some plenary topics seemed destined to change practice, they ultimately falter, such as the use of Cetuximab in NSCLC, vaccine therapy for follicular lymphoma, and even Bevacizumab in metastatic renal cell cancer.

Source: Seminars in Oncology - May 11, 2016 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Andrae Vandross, Vinay Prasad, Sham Mailankody Source Type: research