Latest Conference Articles

Geoffrey R. Oxnard, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, discusses how to define resistance to EGFR-inhibitors in lung cancer.

Roman Perez-Soler, MD, expanded on the importance of PD-1 inhibitors for all patients and the role of biomarker testing.

Patience is a virtue when it comes to deciding whether to switch therapies for individuals with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer who appear to be progressing on an EGFR-targeting regimen.

Multiple options currently exist for patients with EGFR-positive non–small cell lung cancer, with additional therapies on the horizon, making upfront treatment selection an increasingly difficult endeavor.

Benjamin P. Levy, MD, attending physician, Department of Medicine, Mount Sinai Beth Israel and Mount Sinai St. Luke's Roosevelt, Mount Sinai Health System, discusses EGFR TKIs for the treatment of patients with lung cancer.

Philip J. Buffington, MD, chief medical officer at The Urology Group, discusses administering degarelix (Firmagon) and determining which patients to treat with the hormonal therapy.buffington-thumb.jpg

The latest FDA approval for nivolumab in non–small cell lung cancer means that the drug potentially can be administered to any patient in the second-line setting, regardless of tumor histology or PD-L1 expression level.

Treatment of patients with non–small cell lung cancer should be based on the identification of rare molecular targets such as BRAF, RET, ROS1, and MET versus clinical characteristics.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors have demonstrated encouraging results for patients with small cell lung cancer and mesothelioma, which are two aggressive thoracic malignancies with few options.

Chandra P. Belani, MD, deputy director, Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute, Miriam Beckner Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Penn State Hershey College of Medicine, discusses results seen with anti–PD-1/PD-L1 treatments in lung cancer.

Dr. Renato G. Martins talks about the impact of nivolumab, an anti–PD-1, and ipilimumab, an anti CTLA-4, in the treatment of lung cancer.

With the emergence of the novel treatments abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) and enzalutamide (Xtandi), urology groups are beginning to offer in-office dispensing to their metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer patients.

The keynote address at the 2015 LUGPA Annual Meeting urged physicians to band together and create an offensive strategy when it comes to the nation's healthcare system.

Deepak A. Kapoor, MD, chairman and CEO of Integrated Medical Professionals and Large Urology Group Practice Association's (LUGPA's) chairman of health policy, discusses LUGPA's legislative advocacy efforts.

Hormone therapies for prostate cancer aimed at reducing serum androgens are trained on the wrong target: the testes and the adrenal glands. Rather, they should attack the prostate cancer cells themselves.

Raoul S. Concepcion, MD, FACS, director of Advanced Therapeutics at Urology Associates, PC, discusses healthcare's movement away from fee-for-service reimbursements.

Thomas E. Keane, MD, ChB, discussed combination approaches in treatment-resistant mCRPC at the 2015 LUGPA Annual Meeting.

Adding the MEK inhibitor trametinib to the BRAF inhibitor dabrafenib significantly improves long-term outcomes while lowering certain adverse events associated with either agent alone for patients with BRAF-mutated metastatic melanoma.

E. David Crawford, MD, discussed issues with FDA standards for ADT agents and current treatment approaches to androgen deprivation in prostate cancer at the 2015 LUGPA Annual Meeting.

Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD, deputy director, Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center, co-director of its Melanoma Program and Head of Experimental Therapeutics, NYU Langone Medical Center, discusses the significance of the FDA approval of the combination of dabrafenib and trametinib for patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma who harbor a BRAF V600E or V600K mutation.

Kimberly L. Blackwell, MD, medical oncologist, Duke Cancer Institute, discusses emerging therapies for patients with triple-negative breast cancer.

Tony Philip, MD, medical oncologist, Monter Cancer Center of the North Shore-LIJ Cancer Institute, assistant professor of Medicine, Hofstra-North Shore LIJ School of Medicine and NYIT College of Osteopathic Medicine, discusses approved and emerging agents for soft tissue sarcomas.

Evan R. Goldfischer, MD, MBA, FACS, director of the Research Department at Premier Medical Group of the Hudson Valley, discusses the benefits of integrated medical groups.

The kinase inhibitors sorafenib and lenvatinib have significantly altered the treatment paradigm for patients with advanced radioactive iodine-refractory differentiated thyroid cancer in both older and younger populations.

Patrick I. Borgen, MD, chair, Department of Surgery, head, Brooklyn Cancer Center, Maimonides Medical Center, compares the efficacy of surgical versus medical treatment of patients with breast cancer.

While the prognosis remains good for individuals with HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancers, the incidence of these cancers continues to rise, and researchers are currently seeking less intense treatment options that are equally effective but not as toxic for patients.

The use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in advanced ovarian cancer continues to increase, even though the practice has not been shown to improve survival versus primary cytoreduction.

Franco Muggia, MD, professor of Medicine, NYU Langone Medical Center, discusses the current status of intraperitoneal therapy for patients with gynecologic malignancies.

Early promising responses seen with immune checkpoint inhibitors for patients with ovarian cancer still need to be validated in larger randomized trials before a conclusion is made regarding their true efficacy.

Jennifer Wu, MD, assistant professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine, Perlmutter Cancer Center, NYU Langone Medical Center, discusses the efficacy of regorafenib and TAS-102 for the treatment of patients with colorectal cancer.