The approach of ASCO’s Annual Meeting—where we will celebrate the 50th year since our founding in 1964—brings excitement and anticipation. Your Cancer Education Committee, led by Dr. Gini Fleming, has been working hard and in collaboration with the Scientific Program Committee (led by Dr. Jedd Wolchok), the past Chairs (Drs. Antoinette Tan and Doug Yee respectively), the Chairs-Elect (Drs. John Cox and Alan Venook respectively), and many dedicated member-volunteers to design an enlightening, coordinated, and captivating program.

Of course, with a nod to our 50th year, there will be a number of strategically placed reviews that place today’s advances in historical context (see CancerProgress.Net for anniversary highlights). The temptation to pat ourselves on our collective backs for a job well done is ever present, but the serious challenges of human malignancy remain unconquered in too many cases. How, then, do we acknowledge our contributions and advances with deference and respect to the remaining and still formidable tasks ahead?

Clearly, our job is not done and our jobs are not obsolete. The opportunity to convert burgeoning scientific advances into meaningful clinical gains, including control and cure of heretofore recalcitrant diseases, seems clearer than ever. We will see practical gains from targeted manipulations of our native immunity. We will see new, but overall lesser toxicities, from narrowly targeted drugs that strike at some cancers’ specific vulnerabilities. We will be shown more functional imaging with implications for drug development to cost control, and we will see less-invasive diagnostics, treatment, and monitoring. All of this and much more is reason for optimism and enthusiasm.

At the same time, we are part of our larger global society and, indeed, the theme for this year’s meeting is “Science and Society.” Look for increasing acknowledgement that our membership will be required to lead all of society in thoughtful considerations of cost, benefit, and the definition of “value.” The advances that excite us and that offer such promise to our patients are sometimes expensive, and we need to develop transparent and flexible approaches to managing our resources so that innovation accelerates even as cost is controlled and the benefits of our progress are distributed broadly.

This is not easy and certainly not formulaic, but we should both expect that the educational (and scientific) program speakers will acknowledge this (cost), and we should ask about it when appropriate. Even now, in the depths of a very cold winter, we are convening a first-ever meeting of stakeholders to begin a serious conversation about value in cancer care, and I expect this discussion to be both ongoing and increasingly visible in the months leading to the Annual Meeting. My perhaps overly optimistic view is that tackling this challenge is something the community of cancer care providers must do and is uniquely suited to do—a worthy endeavor that will ultimately result in a more efficient environment for scientific and clinical advances.

I hope that you find the upcoming Meeting to be inspiring, thought-provoking, and enlightening. All of us are working to make sure it reflects the pride we take in our first 50 years, the confidence we feel in our ability to overcome and even leverage the unique and unprecedented challenges of today, and the optimism that will enable us to do all of this while delivering empathic care to our patients and their families.