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Interviews

Thierry Andre, MD, a professor of medical oncology at the University Pierre et Marie Curie, and Head of the Medical Oncology Department in St. Antoine Hospital, Assistance Publique Hôpitaux de Paris, discusses factors that a community oncologist should consider when choosing the right treatment for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

Susan M. Domchek, MD, director of the Basser Center for BRCA at Penn Medicine, discusses the role biomarkers have in the treatment of patients with breast cancer. Identifying biomarkers in patients early on, such as knowledge of estrogen receptor status, can lead to better treatment plans, Domchek says.

Fatima Cardoso, MD, medical oncologist at the Champalimaud Clinical Centre in Portugal, explains the biggest issue in treatment of male breast cancer is due to lack of education. Male patients are most commonly diagnosed in the advanced stages because of this and are commonly given the wrong treatments, says Cardoso.

Ajai Chari, MD, associate professor of medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, advises on the best way to choose treatment regimens for patients with multiple myeloma. Since 9 different drugs have been approved after many phase III trials, a community physician may be overwhelmed by this surplus of options, Chari says.

Anas Younes, MD, chief of the Lymphoma Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses current research for staging patients with follicular lymphoma. In order to design new clinical trials, researchers must have reliable predictors of overall survival and progression-free survival in patients.

Joaquim Bellmunt, MD, PhD, a medical oncologist at the Bladder Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the updated results of the phase III KEYNOTE-045 trial after 2 years of follow-up. These updated results confirmed the primary findings of the study, which compared pembrolizumab (Keytruda) with investigator's choice of chemotherapy in patients with recurrent, advanced urothelial carcinoma.

Hossein Borghaei, DO, MS, chief of the Division of Thoracic Medical Oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center, discusses biomarkers that may help identify patients with lung cancer who can benefit from immunotherapy agents. Since the introduction of these agents, PD-L1 has been used as a potential biomarker for selecting patients that may benefit from treatment. As PD-L1 is not completely reliable, there is interest in developing additional biomarkers.

Lisa A. Carey, MD, professor, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the CALGB 40502/NCCTG N063H trial in patients with triple-negative breast cancer, a randomized phase III trial of paclitaxel compared with nab-paclitaxel or ixabepilone with bevacizumab as first-line chemotherapy for locally recurrent or metastatic breast cancer.<br /> &nbsp;

Anna Sureda, MD, PhD,&nbsp;Head of the Clinical Hematology Service at the Institut Catal&agrave; d&#39;Oncologia &ndash; Hospitalet de Llobregat in Barcelona, discusses the phase III ECHELON-1 study exploring brentuximab vedotin plus doxorubicin, vinblastine, dacarbazine (A+AVD) versus ABVD in patients with previously untreated stage III or IV Hodgkin lymphoma.&nbsp;

Tanios Bekaii-Saab, MD, professor of medicine, Mayo Clinic, discusses a randomized phase II trial to evaluate dosing strategies for regorafenib (Stivarga) in patients with refractory metastatic colorectal cancer.