January 2020

Although groundbreaking research findings are met with much fanfare during large medical conferences, their practical application to the community oncology clinic may not always be immediately clear.

Integrating a geriatric assessment into the care of older adults who are receiving cancer treatment in communi­ty oncology practices improves patient and caregiver satisfaction and encourages commu­nication about aging-related concerns, accord­ing to results of a clinical trial that enrolled 541 patients with advanced cancer.

Alterations of the NRG1 gene that are present at low rates in certain solid tumors have emerged as potentially actionable oncogenic drivers, with targeted therapies making their way to early clinical studies and into some basket trials.

The standard of care for some patients with intermediate-stage hepa­tocellular carcinoma may include lenvatinib if investigators further explore results from a proof-of-concept obser­vational study. The recommended treatment for intermediate-stage hepatocellular carcinoma, transarterial chemo­embolization, is unsuitable in patients with high-tumor-burden hepatocellular carcinoma, leaving a signif­icant unmet need in clinical practice for this patient subgroup.

All patients with advanced renal cell car­cinoma assigned to nivolumab plus ipilimumab in the phase III CheckMate 214 trial had a longer treatment-free survival than patients treated with sunitinib. Furthermore, those patients assigned to the combination spent less time experiencing treatment-related adverse events.

The present and future benefits of telehealth in oncology can be observed through Tahoe For­est Cancer Center and its affiliation with the UC Davis Cancer Center, use of other remote clinics, and participation in virtual tumor boards. Even though there are roadblocks to telehealth reaching more locations and more patients, the potential benefit warrants the time needed to get over those hurdles.