Interview with Dr. Albert Lai, Assistant Clinical Professor, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California
S.B.: How does your protocol differ from the EORTC-NCIC[1] (“Stupp”) regimen?Dr A. L.: “The regimen used in the EORTC-NCIC study was temozolomide and radiation therapy, followed by temozolomide for 6 maintenance cycles. In our trial, this regimen was modified by adding bevacizumab from day 1, and continuing bevacizumab every 2 weeks thereafter. Another significant difference was
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Oncovideos - ECCOOncovideos is a series of videos demonstrating standard practical procedures related to the various oncology disciplines targeting young oncologists who need practice oriented training.
Each video features a leading expert from one of the 18 cancer teaching partner institutions, performing and explaining the particular process involved. Topics covered include surgical oncology, radiotherapy, medical oncology, paediatric oncology and neuro-oncology, and each video lasts a maximum of 30 minutes. Both the topics and experts involved were selected by the European societies representing each specific oncology discipline: EANO, ESMO, ESSO, ESTRO and SIOPE.
All videos are accredited by the Accreditation Council of Oncology in Europe (ACOE), allowing users to collect CME credit points.
Coordinated by ECCO – The European CanCer Organisation, the Oncovideos project has been funded with support from the European Commission and is freely available to all oncology healthcare professionals upon a simple registration process.
Launched in June 2011, the site will be updated on a regular basis so that 24 videos are made available by end 2011.
www.ecco-org.eu/oncovideos
Dr. Soffietti was interviewed about the recent work of the Italian Association of Neuro-Oncology (AINO) which was presented at the 2011 ASCO meeting. This ASCO presentation described the final results of the AINO phase II trial of bevacizumab with fotemustine in recurrent GBM.
Q. Can you explain a little bit about the background to this study?
A. Of course. This work was undertaken to answer the question of whether any cytotoxic compound adds anything, in terms of improved outcome, when used in combination with bevacizumab in recurrent GBM. We decided to use fotemustine because it is the standard
Dr. Gilbert was lead author of abstract 2006 presented at the 2011 ASCO meeting. The study, entitled ‘A randomized phase III trial comparing standard adjuvant temozolomide (TMZ) with a dose-dense (dd) schedule in newly diagnosed glioblastoma (GBM)’, was one of the most eagerly-anticipated neurooncology presentations at ASCO 2011. Dr. Gilbert spoke with EANO shortly after ASCO, to discuss the details of the study.Q. What would you say are the major implications of this study?
A. I think there are two separate implications from this study. One is that, despite increasing the overall dose of TMZ by more than two-fold we observed no significant survival benefit. This was surprising given that previous studies suggested better OS with dose-dense .......