Every year around this time, the cancer world’s focus turns to a number of high profile oncology conferences including the AACR Annual Meeting and the ASCO Annual Meeting.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic forced the oncology world to cancel their in-person meetings, which are usually highly social events, and pivot to virtual platforms.
Each association employed a different strategy for their virtual conference. AACR, originally scheduled in late April, had to quickly set up a virtual platform--ultimately making the decision to split their program into two individual meetings--one in late April and one in late June. While ASCO benefited from more time to prepare, the meeting was able to launch on the originally scheduled dates--with a full virtual facsimile of the meeting.
MD/alert spoke to several doctors and researchers who had planned to present their research at the meetings. While all agreed the organizers made the best of a challenging situation, there was also agreement that there was something missed from not being able to interact with their peers in person.
“I have to commend the ASCO leadership for how that went off overall. It was an incredibly difficult situation. They all signed up to run this meeting well before the pandemic happened. It was a lot of adlibbing at last minute. I think the biggest thing you lose really is the networking aspect of ASCO main. Normally this is a time that we as investigators would set up meetings to collaborate with one another, with people at other institutions, to collaborate with pharmaceutical R&D people as well. I think losing that opportunity certainly is a big deal because there's nothing better than having that face to face interaction with people where you can really say the things that we're trying to do by email or by teleconferencing or whatnot. You can only get so far that way. If you really sit down with someone, you can really accomplish a lot more.
“I do worry a little bit about what that impact is going to be in terms of cancer research, not in the near term because most of what will be published soon here has already been done. I do wonder about what type of data or is there going to be a bit of a lull in our research output two or three years from now due to the lack of sort of interaction that happens around this time.”
- Suneel Kamath, MD, Hematology and Medical Oncology at the Cleveland Clinic.
“I think we're in a very difficult, unique time, challenging time in this global pandemic. The health and wellbeing of our patients and physicians and researchers and clinicians and people who take care for these patients that are still needed back at home and we all really have to prioritize the safety of everybody. So, although we always hope for in-person meetings, this is really an unprecedented time, and for us, we just want the best for our world and to be really the safest that we could be.
“Of course, I will admit that I miss in-person meetings because it's a chance to meet with the best minds, see the best data in live formats, but we are very fortunate to be able to attend the virtual meeting this year and to learn the data virtually and that also is important as the data continues to get disseminated and to help our patients get better daily and to make these great strides. The good news is we will still reap the benefits of ASCO and the important data that it presents to the world, but we will hope for the ability to meet in person next year. And we accept the situation of this unprecedented time, which is really something that we just would have never expected.
“I think all researchers, clinicians, scientists are still continuing to advance the field as much as they can on their home fronts. I'd like to think that the data is still being worked on at home, and it will have the opportunity to continue to grow and be disseminated over the coming months when we can hopefully move past this pandemic and get back to normal life. In the meantime, I think researchers and clinicians everywhere and patients everywhere, thanks to the patients who participate in these trials and their families, we are still trying to keep the research going and continue to move the needle to improve patient care day to day. I think in the greater scheme of things, I know that everyone at our hospital and probably hospitals everywhere is doing their best to advance research on a daily basis to the best of their ability.”
-Salma Jabbour, MD, Radiation Oncologist at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey
“It's always a pity not to have face to face meetings when we can interact in a much better way, but more and more we have to work based on telemedicine and teleconferences. I think that the message will be absolutely the same. Exactly the same number of people or even more will be able to look at these data, which at the end is the most important thing, is to look at the data and to have the opportunity to use these drugs for the patients once they're approved by the agencies. I think that again, from a medical perspective, nothing will change. From a feeling, from a personal perspective, it's a pity not to have the opportunity to interact in a very close way with my colleagues.”
-Javier Cortes, MD, PhD, head of breast cancer and gynecological cancer at the IOB Institute of Oncology
“It's certainly a different experience to have these meetings virtually. But, I think it's really impressive how ASCO has managed to put this together.
“I think it's amazing that they've been able to get this together in such a short fashion and being able to get the data out there, which is great. Certainly, I think we'll all miss the personal interactions that occur at these meetings and the live discussions that occur afterward, but to be able to share the data even in these circumstances is really nice.”
-Sara Tolaney, MD, MPH, Associate Director, Susan F. Smith Center for Women's Cancers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
