Turning point for cancer management
With the advent of technology, we are now at a turning point in the history of cancer management. The aim of the Hong Kong International Oncology Symposium is to bring those innovations likely to have an important impact on cancer management to the professional community. Our theme for this year’s symposium is newer immunotherapeutic approaches, functional genomics and precision medicine, advances in precision radiotherapy, including proton therapy and updates on the management of lung and urogenital cancers.
It is a prestigious honor to host this focused issue, several papers providing the reviews of various clinical aspects have been gathered.
Prof. Patricia Tai and Dr. Joseph Siu-Kie Au provided an expert review on the clinical experience and recent updates of an uncommon skin tumor, Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC). Contemporary radiotherapy, systemic therapy and newly developed immunotherapy for MCC treatment have been covered.
Prof. Mitchell Liu and his colleagues reviewed the applications of stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) to treat lung, spine and oligometastatic disease, and gain durable local control. They further discussed the evolving role of SBRT in clinical practice and its recent developments. They particularly highlighted the challenges facing clinicians and the important areas for future research.
Prof. Roger KC Ngan comprehensively discussed the management of hormone-receptor positive (HR+) human epidermal receptor 2 negative (HER2−) advanced or metastatic breast cancers (A/MBC). He emphasized that selecting appropriate patients for different therapeutic options and harnessing the sequence of new therapies to treat HR+ HER2− A/MBC would be the key priorities for future clinical research.
The current practice focuses on one ‘actionable’ mutation at a time, but solid cancers typically possess many mutations that involve different cellular sub-populations within a tumor. Prof Raymond S Yeung used liver cancer as an example to review the strategies to overcome such challenges of precision oncology.
In addition, there were three inspirational interviews by the editorial staff to experts, including:
- Dr. Joseph Siu-Kie Au, a renowned oncologist keen on bioinformatics, translational research, as well as the clinical trials of new drugs and radiotherapy, he shared his view on the future and significances of immunotherapy;
- Dr. Cameron Turtle, an expert superintends the clinical trials of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-modified T cell therapies for patients with hematologic malignancies. He shared his exciting experience on targeting B cell malignancies with CD19 by CAR-T cells;
- Prof. Stephanie Huang, an expert in pharmacogenomics, she shared the role of pharmacogenomics in guiding anti-cancer drug treatment.
The issue ends with a news release announcing the symposium entitled “A pursuit of better treatment in oncology”. We look forward to the coming annual symposium and exciting advances in Oncology.
Acknowledgements
We would like to express our appreciation for the contributions of the authors, the hard work of the reviewers and the efforts of the helpful editorial staff.
