Welcome to our special issue on highlights from the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s (ASCO) Annual Meeting held this past June in Chicago. Although the 5-day meeting always has dozens of worthy presentations to learn from, we’ve chosen to focus on some of the more relevant presentations to us as advanced practitioners, along with commentary from our own members who work in the respective fields featured in this issue.
As you know, ASCO’s Annual Meeting presents the latest data on cancer care, cutting-edge research, and information on the newest approaches to improve access to cancer care for our patients. It’s a huge meeting, somewhat daunting for the uninitiated, but if you’ve ever attended, you can’t help but be impressed by the sheer number of participants and energy of the presenters.
2019 Annual Meeting
This year’s meeting theme was “Caring for Every Patient, Learning From Every Patient,” reflecting the drive to ensure equal access to the highest quality care and the opportunity for every patient to participate in research. Attention was paid to the advances in precision medicine and many different cancers, including breast cancer, prostate cancer, and multiple myeloma. More than 2,400 abstracts were presented at the meeting, with many more accepted for online publication.
Also notable at the Annual Meeting was the research presented by community oncologists, which highlights the critical contributions of those individuals. As you know, over half of our patients are cared for in the community setting. Community oncologists presented over 60 studies, demonstrating the growing role of these individuals in clinical research across multiple cancer types.
New data on the role of a low-fat diet in postmenopausal women with breast cancer were presented at this year’s meeting as well—the results of nearly 20 years of research from the Women’s Health Initiative. This research demonstrated the importance of a balanced diet with daily servings of fruits, vegetables, and grains. Patients following the diet had a 21% lower risk of dying from breast cancer. Additional research on the effectiveness of a low-dose chemotherapy regimen in older and frail patients with a diagnosis of esophageal cancer was presented, showing that altering different dosages of chemotherapy can improve the quality of life in frail patients without inducing additional side effects from treatment.
Advanced Practitioner Perspective
Since this meeting is one of the most important meetings for oncology physicians, attendance is usually 30,000 participants or more. And because you as an advanced practitioner usually work with a group of oncology physicians, it’s more than likely that you are often left in charge of the practice while your attending participates in the meeting.
We try to include the most important cancer advances at our JADPRO Live meeting, and we try to educate the advanced practitioner in the way you actually practice, with a multidisciplinary team approach. But we know that many of you follow ASCO’s meeting closely. In this special issue of JADPRO, we’ve tried to bring some of the most important research presented at the meeting to you, helping to translate some of that research into strategies that will benefit your own practice.
Learning the latest research results is critical to practice, but as an advanced practitioner, you also bring the uniqueness of your role as a provider to your patients. By including commentary by advanced practitioners, we’re hoping you find additional value in this issue, for you and for your patients.