The 46th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology (ASTRO), taking place in Atlanta, October 3-7, looks to be shaping up as one of our best. With more abstracts being presented than in previous years, the outstanding science will cover quite a range of topics. At this year’s meeting, we also will have more exhibitors demonstrating the latest technologies in cancer treatments.
We are very much looking forward to this year’s Presidential Course, a full day of discussions and presentations that runs on October 3. This session is traditionally one of the most highly attended sessions at the meeting and one that we think will be of great interest to the attendees. Featuring a high-level, multidisciplinary faculty, this course emphasizes the important role of all oncologic disciplines in curing, prolonging life, and improving the quality of life for patients with metastases.
The morning segment starts with Samuel Hellman, MD, from the University of Chicago, who will speak on oligometastases, examining the nature of oligometastases either de novo or as a consequence of systematic therapy. He also will discuss the therapeutic opportunities for meaningful palliation and cure of oligometastases afforded by comprehensive therapy directed at the lesions.
Following Hellman’s discussion, C. Clifford Ling, PhD, from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (New York) will cover methods for improving the detection of oligometastases and improvements for treatments.
After a brief question-and-answer period, we will move on to brain metastases with presentations by Raymond Sawaya, MD, from the MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston); Edward G. Shaw, MD, from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine (Winston-Salem, NC); Minesh P. Mehta, MD, from the University of Wisconsin Hospital Medical School (Madison); and Christina A. Meyers, PhD, from the MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Sawaya will be speaking on the surgical management of brain metastases, discussing the selection criteria of surgical patients, the role of technological advances in improving the feasibility and the outcome of surgery, and evaluating the overall outcome of surgery.
Shaw will follow with a discussion of the role of stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) in the management of brain metastases. Topics covered in his presentation will include the identifying indications of SRS, examining the efficacy and toxicity of SRS, and reviewing ongoing and future clinical trials.
Mehta’s discussion about chemical modifiers of the radiation response to brain metastases will cover exploring the rationale for using chemical modifiers with radiotherapy for brain metastases. The presentation also will review the clinical trial results with chemical modifiers of the radiation response and will provide an overview of developing clinical trials with chemical modifiers for brain metastases.
Finally, Meyers will present on neurocognitive effects of therapeutic radiation, with discussions on the effects of radiation therapy for brain function, assessment issues, and the determination of change in cognitive function over time as well as how to identify potential strategies for improving radiation-induced cognitive dysfunction.
The afternoon kicks off with a discussion on liver metastases by Robert S. Warren, MD, from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), on new surgical therapies for liver metastases. Warren will be followed by Alan P. Venook, MD, also from UCSF, and his presentation on improving outcome for colorectal liver metastases with systematic therapy. Venook will touch on the role of various treatments in the management of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer of the liver and will help attendees become familiar with the subsets of patients with metastatic liver disease who stand to benefit from aggressive multimodality interventions.
Randall K. Ten Haken, PhD, and Edgar Ben-Josef, MD, both from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), will discuss dose-volume-response relationships for liver irradiation. They will help attendees be aware of the large volume effect for liver irradiation, understand how it has been modeled, and comprehend its impact on partial liver treatments. This presentation also will assist attendees in appreciating the consequences of patient breathing on quantifying liver volume and delivered dose.
The Presidential Course will end with a session on bone metastases. Alexander J.B. McEwan, MB, from the University of Alberta (Edmonton), will open the session by speaking on current practice in bone pain palliation with radioisotope therapy. He will review the principles of bone pain palliation, describe the characteristics and current literature supporting the use of strontium-89 and samarium-153-EDTMP, explain the requirements for the successful use of radiopharmaceuticals, and help attendees be able to assess the current needs in research in this area.
Peter Hoskin, MD, from Mount Vernon Hospital (Northwood, Middlesex, United Kingdom), will follow with his presentation, “Radiotherapy for Bone Metastases: Philosophy and Fact,” which covers the dose response for bone pain, a review of the pathophysiology of radiation-induced pain relief, and the role of radiation therapy in multimodality management of bone metastases.
James R. Berenson, MD, from the Institute of Myeloma and Bone Cancer Research (Los Angeles), will wrap up the afternoon with a lecture on biophosphates. His review of the pathophysiology of bone metastases will help attendees become familiar with the role biophosphates play in treating and preventing bone metastases.
We hope that you find our meeting in Atlanta to be one of our best. I look forward to seeing you there!
Theodore Lawrence, MD, PhD, is the president of ASTRO (Fairfax, Va) and the Isadore Lampe professor and chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor).
