UPDATE: 9/14/14 11:00 am:
During last night's annual dinner, new AVAHO board members were announced. Anita Aggarwal was named president elect to take the helm following the 2015 conference. Karen Griffith Clark was named treasurer and Rusty Crawford, Raye Anne Dorn, and Drew Moghanaki were named to the board.
Lodovico Balducci, MD, of the Moffit Cancer Center delivered the keynote address. His presentation was focused on the evolving face of cancer care for geriatric patients. According to Dr. Balducci, age is not a sufficient reason to withhold treatment. Patients > 70 years respond to cancer treatment at a similar rate as younger patients, though in many cases the treatment is not provided. Still, Balducci noted, health care providers should develop a variable approach to care decisions, factoring in the patients “physiological age,” which includes the the patient’s ability to handle the recognized activities of daily living, comorbidities, and presence of care givers.
UPDATE 9/13/14 5:00 pm:
Today's agenda began at 6:30 am with a "Fun Run" along the Portland waterfront. From there, sessions included topics like esophageal cancer, using VA data for cancer care research, brain malignancies and symptom management.
In the evening, conversation-like breakout sessions were held on topics including palliative care, cancer registrars, navigation and survivorship care plans, clinical trials, and radiation oncology.
UPDATE 9/13/14 9:00 am:
Dr. Stephen Bartlett of the Eastern Colorado Health Care System and co-chair of the VA Central IRB, presented his much-anticipated address on the barriers preventing VA health care professionals from accessing NCI cooperative group trials. Bartlett's presentation closed last night's 2014 AVAHO Meeting welcome reception at the Portland Art Museum.
Bartlett's presentation focused on changes that he feels need to be implemented at facilities across the VA health care system in order to improve veteran participation in trials and promised some of the barriers to access to clinical trials would be solved soon.
UPDATE 9/12/14 5:00 pm:
The 10th Annual AVHO meeting kicked off on Friday afternoon in Portland, Oregon with a mini-symposium focused on lymphoma. Adrian Weistner and Mark Roschewski of the National Institute of Health and Dr. Christopher Flowers or Emory University focused on the treatment of novel therapies for Hodgkin Lymphoma, chronic lymphocytic leukemia and mantel cell lymphoma. For an interview with Drs. Weistner and Roschewski, click here.
A second panel focused on the challenges facing cancer registrars. Donna Connery of VA Connecticut Healthcare System and Barb Cunningham of the Buffalo VA Medical Center discussed the communications challenges facing cancer teams and the changing role of cancer registrars.
UPDATE 9/12/14 9:00 am:
Stephen Bartlett, RPh, MSPH, and Lodovico Balducci, MD, will deliver highly anticipated addresses at the 10th Annual Association of VA Hematology/Oncology (AVAHO) meeting that begins September 12th in Portland, Oregon.
Bartlett will discuss the barriers preventing access to important clinical trials in oncology to veterans and discuss strategies to improve access to NCI Cooperative Group trials. Bartlett is the research pharmacy manager of the Investigational Drug and Specialty Pharmacy Section at the Eastern Colorado Health Care System. He is also co-chair of the VA Central IRB and an assistant professor in the school of medicine at the University of Colorado in Denver.
Dr. Balducci will deliver the keynote address at the annual dinner on Saturday night. The keynote will focus on the management of cancer in older patients, focusing on designing personalized treatment of cancer in geriatric patients and palliative care options.
Balducci is the senior member and program leader of geriatric oncology at the Moffitt Cancer Center and a professor of oncological sciences and medicine at the University of South Florida College of Medicine, all in Tampa, Florida.