Letter from the Editor

Dear Reader,

It’s my pleasure and privilege to introduce you to our report of the 2024 ASCO Annual Conference.

Quite a dense program, including issues which deserved to be evidence-based, even though you already did them the right way (i.e. not performing systematic lymphadenectomy in advanced ovarian cancer; keeping radiotherapists away from your patients with resectable oesophageal or borderline resectable pancreas cancer) or which you’ll finally never do, though sometimes tempted to (i.e. debulking of metastatic colorectal cancer). If you like zombie movies: Metformin has again been buried as an active anti-cancer drug, though I’m sure it will wobble out of the grave anew.

What about the drugs? More consolidation on the right use at the right time, vaccines, conjugates… A targeting agent in ovarian cancer shows promise; this is long-awaited progress.

ctDNA seems to broaden its role as an important predictor of treatment efficacy – but clearly also needs careful validation (KEYNOTE-361).

Good news for visualists: providing “palliative care” seems to work on screen as well as face-to-face (of course, depending on your definition of palliative care).

Take your time, stroll through our articles – and maybe also through the ASCO website. However, there’s no study yet proving that strolling through ASCO Annual virtually is equivalent to being on-site.

Yours, sincerely,

Dr Stefan Rauh, FESMO

 

Biography

Dr Stefan Rauh is currently working as haemato-oncologist in the oncology department of Centre Hospitalier Emile Mayrisch, Esch, Luxembourg. He is mainly involved in clinical work but also in research and teaching activities and is interested in public policy and international cooperation projects in oncology. He is member of the ESMO Practicing Oncologist’s Working Group since 2011 (chair 2014-2018), member of the ESMO Public Policy Committee, and has been an ESMO Executive Board member in 2015-2016. He is coauthor of the 2017 ESMO European Cancer Patient Coalition (ECPC) Patient Survivorship Guide and an invited expert for the ECPC.

 

Conflict of Interest Statement: Nothing to declare.



Posted on 18 July 202418 July 2024