ASCO 2014 Reports
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Conference was held in Chicago this year from May 30 to June 3. This is the pre-eminent clinical cancer conference in the world with over 30,000 attendees, at least half of whom come from countries outside of the United States. ACKC’s reporter has been attending the ASCO general meeting for several years now and has found the conference to be an invaluable resource for a patient advocate to find out the status of the latest therapies for the treatment of kidney cancer plus an inkling to what is on the horizon. The conference is also an opportunity to network with the leading oncologists with experience in translational research to clear up any confusion with a presentation that needs explanation or even to gain some anecdotal insight into the efficacy or side effects of a certain therapy.
Attendance at the conference enables us to inform ACKC’s constituency, that is, kidney cancer patients and caregivers, of the efficacy and side effects of therapies, the availability of clinical trials, and knowledge of the leading cancer institutions that specialize in the treatment of metastatic kidney cancer.
The following reports were first posted by ACKC’s reporter on the cancer patient listserv called SmartPatients (which, for kidney cancer replaced ACOR as the leading cancer listserv), and now on ACKC’s website.
At ASCO 2014, the featured presentations were about the anti-PD-1 immunotherapy agents that have been successful in melanoma and which are now being tested in RCC. The last drug approved by the FDA for treatment of RCC was axitinib (Inlyta) in January 2012, close to three years ago, and there has been a movement by the drug companies and biotech firms towards development of immunotherapies. Therefore, we are concentrating our initial articles in this area.
If you have any questions, address them to us via info@ackc.org.
Reports
Day 1 at ASCO
Nivolumab in RCC Phase II Trial
Anti-PD-L1 Therapy in Multiple Cancers
Dendritic Cell Therapy in RCC
