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With the theme Illumination & Innovation this year’s congress of the American Society of Clinical Oncology promises a lot of new developments and insights in the field of cancer. One of the progresses to keep an eye on is immunotherapy. This treatment strategy is rapidly gaining ground and will be discussed in numerous sessions at the 2015 Annual ASCO Meeting.

As one of the attendants, Joseph Kim, MD, associate professor in the division of surgical oncology at the Cancer Research Hospital City of Hope, California, puts it in an interview with ASCO Daily News: “Immunotherapies for gastrointestinal cancers have become increasingly important. As a surgical oncologist, it is important for me to understand such complex topics even without prior training. I hope that I may gain a stronger understanding of the mechanisms and actions of immune therapies.”

For everyone who is not able to attend the congress, ASCO will live stream select events on Periscope, a free mobile app.

Furthermore, you can stay up-to-date by using the MedZine app, which filters more than 4,700 medical news sources and selects the articles that are relevant for your profession. All news about ASCO can be found under ‘Oncology Other’.

Curious which immunotherapy topics will be covered? Check out our summary below. (Time: UTC-08:00)

On Thursday, May 28^th, during the New Drugs in Oncology Session, the endpoints, immune response measurements and combinatorial trials of immunotherapy will be discussed at 3:25 PM.

On Friday, May 29^th, leukaemia treatment will be covered. In two seperate Education Sessions, the development of immunologic therapies in both acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and chronic lymphocytic leukaemia will be addressed at 1:00 PM. Furthermore, you can hear all about immunotherapy for renal cell carcinomas, starting at 2:45 PM.

Newly introduced this year, are the Pathways Clinical Science Symposia to explore emerging treatments in-depth. Naturally, one of them will discuss the upcoming immunotherapies. Early on Saturday, May 30^th, at 8:00 AM, you can attend the critical evaluation “Immunotherapy for Every Patient: Check Your Enthusiasm”.
Later that day, at 3:00 PM, the dendritic cell-based immunotherapy, DCVax®, will be presented in the Industry Expert Theatre and at 4:45 PM there is a talk about immunologic treatments in melanoma.

On Sunday morning, May 31^st, 8:00 AM, the results of the the phase 2 ReACT study of Celldex Therapeutics with RINTEGA® (rindopepimut) in patients with recurrent glioblastoma (GBM) will be reported, together with other study results.
Immediately after that, at 9:45 AM, Amgen will give a presentation on the evolution of T cell-based immunotherapy in the Industry Expert Theatre.
Furthermore, attendants can discuss translating melanoma immunology into practice with expert Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD from the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center at 11:30 AM during the Meet the Professor Session.
For those who still have enough energy after a long day, emerging topics in immunotherapy and cellular therapy will be presented at 4:30 PM.

Monday, June 1^st, will bring two Practice-Centred Sessions on immunologic therapies. One at 1:15 PM about understanding the targets in immunotherapy and a second one at 4:45 PM named “The ABCs of Cancer Immunotherapy”.

The last immunotherapy centred presentation will be held on Tuesday, June 2^nd, at 11:30 AM. In “Immunotherapy for Genitourinary Tumors: Are We Ready for Prime Time?” you can hear everything about the application in urogenital tumours.

Sources: ASCO