(ASCO in Action) June 9, 2018 - From June 9 – 13, ASCO’s delegates will participate in the American Medical Association’s (AMA) Annual Meeting of the House of Delegates (HOD).

Thomas Marsland, MD (Posted: June 22, 2018)

Gee, I recognize a few of those names.....As you probably can guess from my responses, I tend to binge read my OBR reports....(binge my House of Card series too....). Anyway, some comments on the AMA meeting. AMA as always is a lot of fun. The house of delegates is so diverse with old white dudes like myself mixed with energetic ladies (go Barb...rock star), individuals of all political sides, young docs starting their journey, folks of all racial backgrounds, and people of all sexual identities. We get together and argue the profound and esoteric. The debates are always respectful and we all leave as friends. This year, gun control, opioid issues, physician assistance in dying were hotly debated on the floor. In addition there was the usual alphabet soup of resolutions on MOC, MACRA, and payment resolutions. Our ASCO delegation (EB, RP, SL, KN, MF, ES and yours truly) proposed 5 resolutions. Two were reaffirmed (cancer survivorship care plan, alcohol and cancer). The three in the article were accepted with some amendments. All in all, we were happy with the results. As you know 340B needs a lot of work, and PBMs need some over site too. The electronic transfer of prescribed opioids will make life better for patients and docs. With all this busy agenda we even had time to hit Buddy Guy's House of Blues....(thanks Ray...). So if anyone ever asks what AMA does, the answer is everything. They are a strong voice advocating for our patients and us.....

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(Myriad Genetics) June 21, 2018 - Decision follows recently updated medical guidelines for prostate cancer.

Tomasz M. Beer, MD, FACP (Posted: June 21, 2018)

Increasing availability of molecular tests to risk stratify patients is encouraging. With over-treatment of low risk disease a core challenge in prostate cancer, the use of such tests to increase the proportion of men opting for observation would mean progress. For this to happen, urologists, oncologists, and patients will need to be comfortable trusting the results and acting on them. The tests should only be used when the clinician is willing to act on the result.

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(NASDAQ) June 20, 2018 - To the Company's knowledge, the trial of ProscaVax is the first ever worldwide for a prostate cancer vaccine technology addressing the active surveillance patient population.

Tomasz M. Beer, MD, FACP (Posted: June 20, 2018)

With about half of the patients who initially choose active surveillance progressing to definitive therapy, there is an opportunity for low toxicity interventions to reduce the need for more aggressive therapies. While sipuleucel-T was successfully developed for prostate cancer, a number of other vaccine based immunotherapy strategies have not succeeded. This is the first one being deployed in the active surveillance setting.

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