The Beacon

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Drs. Hossein Borghaei and host Jack West discuss long term outcomes in lung cancer with immunotherapy, potential utility of IO combinations, and when we can consider patients doing well on immunotherapy as cured if doing well beyond 5 years.

Dr. Hossein Borghaei sits with Dr. Jack West and traces his difficult journey from war-torn Iran to Germary and then the US, which he made alone as a 16 year-old before having the opportunity to pursue medicine & his career in thoracic oncology.

Dr. West questions Dr. Gideon Blumenthal of the FDA about how he and his team there struggle to provide timely access to emerging cancer treatments, while also debating questions of the proper thresholds for efficacy and safety.

Drs. Gideon Blumenthal & Jack West discuss his early career interests and trajectory from medical oncology training at the NIH to joining the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate oncology drugs.

Dr. Jack West provides a brief summary of key findings & limitations of two new papers just out in JAMA Oncology (Theelen et al & Bauml et al.) that evaluate the potential benefit of preceding immunotherapy with radiation in patients with advanced NSCLC.

Dr. Jack West speaks with Dr. Sandip Patel about how molecular oncology has changed outcomes in cancer care, but also how we face great difficulty in getting the knowledge & practice patterns out to communities.

Drs. Sandip Patel & host Jack West track his early interest in medicine and even oncology & the importance of good communication & value of effective use of language when working with patients with cancer.

Dr. West speaks with Dr. Suzanne Dahlberg about her path into biostatistics, leadership in shaping trials with ECOG & Dana Farber Cancer Institute, & changing endpoints & trial designs in an era of molecular oncology.

Host Dr. Jack West questions Dr. Puneeth Iyengar, radiation oncologist at UT-Southwestern, about proton beam radiation therapy, risks & benefits of cranial irradiation, & local ablative therapy for local consolidation therapy for oligometastatic disease.