RO Corner: ASTRO’s 62nd Annual Meeting Recap

By Edina Wang, MD, radiation oncology resident at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and ACR RFS RO Representative

Woman on video meeting For 2020, we had the opportunity to experience the ASTRO Annual Meeting through the virtual doors of the Miami Convention Center. This year’s theme was on Global Oncology: Radiation Therapy in a Changing World. The Annual Meeting program included many interesting presentations. There were also new educational offerings such as the Master Classes and Storytelling.

There were exciting keynote addresses. Felicia Marie Knaul, PhD presented her thoughts on reducing global disparities in both cancer and health care more broadly. Ibram Kendi, PhD discussed issues related to racial inequity and its relation to health care. Other special speakers included Anthony Fauci, MD who provided a prerecorded session on COVID-19 and answered questions.

Across four days, ARRO also provided useful and pertinent programming for residents including sessions on job search, mentorship, and becoming an effective leader. There was also a discussion of variation of educational resources in radiation oncology, a session on financial planning for the new physician radiation oncology economics, as well as presentations by leaders of radiation oncology global health and discussion of diversity, equity and inclusion. image of auditorium with stage and presentation

The Plenary session highlighted three presentations:

Jeff Michalski, MD, MBA presented “Impact of Molecular Subgroups on Outcomes Following Radiation Treatment Randomizations for Average Risk Medulloblastoma: A Planned Analysis of Children’s Oncology group (COG) ACNS0331”
Ashesh Jani, MD presented “Initial Report of a Randomized Trial Comparing Conventional- vs Conventional plus Fluciclovine (18F) PET/CT Imaging-Guided Post-Prostatectomy Radiotherapy for Prostate Cancer”
Arjun Sahgal, MD presented “A Randomized Phase II/III Study Comparing 24Gy in 2 Stereotactic Body Radiotherapy (SBRT) Fractions Versus 20Gy in 5 Conventional Palliative Radiotherapy (CRT) Fractions for Patients with Painful Spinal Metastases”

There were multiple excellent scientific presentations, educational programs, joint sessions, international sessions, posters, and more. To learn more, check out the 2020 ASTRO daily news summaries.