ASCO got into the disease-oriented meeting business a few years ago as a means of creating communities of interested investigators and practitioners. The Annual Meeting, the crown jewel in our educational system, was just too much for many of our members: too large, too many people, too much noise, and too little intimacy. As Yogi Berra, the great 20th-century American philosopher, once said of a New York night club, "No one goes there any more—it's too crowded."
The Annual Meeting continues to thrive, with 30,000 or so attending the most recent event, and still represents a premier venue for cutting-edge science and top-notch education. But the criticism is still a legitimate one—it is pretty crazy. Some enjoy its hustle and bustle, and some do not.
For the latter, our disease-oriented meetings are great. We have disease-oriented meetings in the GI, GU, thoracic, and breast cancers. We have several other specialty meetings in development. Over the past few days, I was at the Breast Cancer Symposium in San Francisco, getting caught up on what I missed last year as ASCO president (a fair amount) and getting the chance to speak with old friends.
Among them was this year's recipient of the Bonadonna Award, given to a researcher who has made outstanding contributions to the field of breast cancer. The award, funded in perpetuity by a generous endowment from GSK [GlaxoSmithKline], has been given to a stellar bunch of individuals. This year's award went to Dr. Luca Gianni of Milan. The award is particularly appropriate given Luca's relationship with Dr. Bonadonna, who served as his mentor and long-term collaborator. Congratulations to Dr. Gianni, whose work over the years has helped to define modern breast cancer biology and treatment [see Dr. Gianni’s Award Lecture].
We also had a bunch of great talks at the meeting. This is a true multidisciplinary meeting, and it shows, with sessions on imaging, local-regional therapy, and systemic therapy, with some wonderful emerging science thrown in. We heard some updates on important studies. Most importantly, the ALTTO investigators have released information (provided to us by ALTTO co-leader Dr. Edith Perez of Mayo Clinic-Jacksonville) that the lapatinib arm of the international adjuvant HER2 trial has crossed the futility boundary and is being dropped. The trial continues in its other randomizations of trastuzumab versus trastuzumab plus or followed by lapatinib, a result awaited by the entire field.
But what I found most enjoyable was the ability to wander around the posters. Talking one-on-one with investigators is a chance to get a personal tutorial on an emerging area of research, and one that you rarely get outside your own institution. Poster sessions offer that opportunity. The passion researchers have in their science, and their willingness to share with complete strangers, always come to the fore in poster sessions.