A gathering to remember

The Gathering Around Cancer 2018 conference will take place in Croke Park Convention Centre, Dublin, on Thursday 8 and Friday 9 November. The conference is one of the major oncology events of the year and will feature presentations from a wide panel of experts, who will give their perspective on the major developments within their specialty.

The inaugural meeting took place in 2013 to coincide with the Gathering events being held that year to mobilise the Irish diaspora. Since then, the event has gone from strength-to-strength.

“We had a very large meeting, a three-day meeting, at that time,” according to organiser and Consultant Medical Oncologist in the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Dublin, Prof John McCaffrey, who co-founded the event with Consultant Medical Oncologist in St James’s Hospital, Dublin, Prof David Gallagher.

“And it was so successful that we decided to carry on. It became a meeting that wasn’t disease-specific, but covered everything. It is mainly medical oncology but we take in radiation and surgery and paramedical also, so I think it satisfies all the things we needed and has become the meeting that people want to have.”

Speaking to the <strong><em>Medical Independent</em></strong> (<strong><em>MI</em></strong>) ahead of the 2018 meeting, Prof McCaffrey said he is delighted by the positive response the meeting has generated among the oncology community.

“Myself and David Gallagher continually get very positive feedback that people like the way we do it. We want stay fresh, so we try to change things a little bit each year,” according to Prof McCaffrey.

“But I think the formula we have now suits people.”

After the welcome address on Thursday, the first session of the conference will be devoted to presentations from ‘Young Investigators’. The topics in this session will range from immunotherapy in breast cancer to overcoming EGFR TKI’s resistance in lung cancer. Prof McCaffrey said that this is always one of the most popular sessions.

“A lot of these people will be known to the community in Ireland, and then to see the step up that people take when they go abroad is quite impressive,” Prof McCaffrey stated.

“And these are the people who will be our future leaders, so it is great to see it happening.”

<h3><strong>Burnout</strong></h3>

The following session will be on the subject of ‘Global Oncology’. CEO of the Irish Cancer Society (ICS) Ms Averil Power will begin the session with a talk on patient advocacy. The next speaker, Dr Patricia Scanlon, Muhimbili University, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, will deliver a talk on the challenges of running an oncology programme in the developing world. Other talks concern ‘The Future of AYA Oncology’ and ‘Burnout in Oncology: A Global View’, which will be delivered by Dr Scheryll Alken, St James’s Hospital and Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin and Dr Blanaid Hayes, Dean of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine, RCPI, respectively.

Prof McCaffrey told <strong><em>MI</em></strong> that meeting organisers felt that it was essential to cover the theme of burnout, given the enormous workload pressures those working in the field of oncology face.

“The inability of male and female doctors to disconnect from work isn’t something we pay a great deal of attention to,” according to Prof McCaffrey.

“Our only fear is that we are not giving it enough time on the programme. It is a huge issue and a topic that needs to get more air-time than is currently the case.”

Dr Sean Ennis from Genomics Medicine Ireland will give the last talk of the session on population genetics, industry and academic collaboration.

<h3><strong>Screening </strong></h3>

The final session of the day will be on the timely and controversial subject of cancer screening.

Head of Services and Advocacy at the ICS Mr Donal Buggy will talk about screening from the patient’s perspective. There will also be a presentation specifically on cervical cancer screening, which will be delivered by Prof Grainne Flannelly, St Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin. Given the recent controversy concerning CervicalCheck and the publication of the <em>Scally Report</em>, these talks are sure to be of extreme interest to delegates.

Two of the presentations will be on the subject of breast cancer screening. Prof Fidelma Flanagan, Mater Hospital, will deliver the first talk, while Prof John Crown, St Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin, will talk about the “benefits and pitfalls” of breast cancer screening. Colon screening will also be covered by Prof Diarmuid O’Donoghue, St Vincent’s University Hospital.

“I think it is to reaffirm the importance of screening in the various areas; to take a look at what has been achieved, to hopefully show that we are saving lives,” according to Prof McCaffrey.

“If we are doing something not right, that will come up at the meeting, and what are the steps that can be taken to reassure us as the practitioners and the wider public that there are clear benefits to doing it [screening].”

The first session on Friday will concern ‘Updates in Medical Oncology’. Prof Donal Brennan, University College Dublin, will start the session with a talk on gynaecology cancer surgery. This will be followed by a talk on ovarian cancer by Dr Dearbhaile O’Donnell, St James’s Hospital. Other subjects to be covered in the session include: Cervical/endometrium cancer; radiation therapy gynaecology; renal cell carcinoma; the central nervous system; and lung cancer.

<h3><strong>GI, breast and prostate cancer </strong></h3>

The next session will discuss aspects of GI cancer specifically. Presentations will cover upper GI cancer and lower GI cancer. Dr Steven Hochwald, Roswell Park Cancer Centre, New York, US, will speak about ‘Advances in Surgery for Gastro-oesophageal Malignancy’ in an eagerly-anticipated talk.

Dr Hochwald’s research focuses on technical advances in minimally-invasive oesophageal and GI surgeries and developing new targets and agents for treatment of pancreatic and other GI cancers. He has lectured both nationally and internationally on Western approaches to minimally-invasive oesophageal and gastric resection for malignancy and has published broadly on these topics. He has taught several courses and organised symposiums on minimally-invasive oesophagectomy. He serves as Editor of the book titled <em>Minimally Invasive Foregut Surgery for Malignancy</em>, which was published by Springer in 2015.

Prof John Reynolds, St James’s Hospital, will also give a presentation on the interesting topic of the relationship between obesity and cancer, while Prof Frank Sullivan, NUI Galway, will talk about diet and weight loss in cancer.

The final session of the conference is on both prostate and breast cancer. Subjects under discussion will include prostate surgery, radiation therapy, and systemic therapy. Prof David Gallagher will deliver a presentation on the role of the BRCA gene in prostate and breast cancer. Genetics will also be the subject of talks by Dr Janice Walshe, St Vincent’s University Hospital, who will discuss ER + HER2- stage IV breast cancer and Dr Cathy Kelly, Mater Hospital, who will talk about HER 2+. Dr Con Murphy, Bon Secours Hospital, Cork, will also deliver a presentation on triple-negative breast cancer.

<h3><strong>Cancer strategy </strong></h3>

The event comes just over a year since the <em>National Cancer Strategy 2017-2026</em> was published. Prof McCaffrey believes that implementation of the strategy over the past 12 months has been “steady”.

“I think we are all encouraged by the need to improve manpower, especially in medical oncology centres, but also supportive staff, including dietetics and psycho-oncology and the nurse specialty. I think they are all important things. A 10-year plan always needs to be given time to work. Now in its third iteration, I think we have made huge progress in the time since we have had the strategies. Of course, you don’t get to where you need to be every time, but that’s the nature of the evolving landscape. Things like genetics and genomics need to be incorporated into the management of cancer also. Overall, I think on-the-ground resourcing is the most important thing to achieve in terms of implementation.”

<strong>Cancer Trials Ireland’s Autumn Scientific Meeting coincides with Gathering Around Cancer</strong>

Cancer Trials Ireland (CTI) will be holding its Autumn Scientific meeting on 8 November in the Croke Park Conference Centre to coincide with this year’s Gathering Around Cancer.

Registration begins at 8am and will conclude at 1pm. Registration for the Gathering Around Cancer starts at noon that day in the same venue.

CTI’s meeting will bring together members — medical, surgical, radiation oncologists, haematologists and research specialists (oncology research nurses, translational scientists and staff in cancer trials research units around the country) — to discuss the organisation’s 100+ cancer trials portfolio.

Separate meetings will be held during the morning in a range of disease-specific subgroups, giving participants the opportunity to share their experience and insights.

These meetings are only open to registered CTI members and will focus on the following disease types: Breast; gastrointestinal; genitourinary; gynaecology; lung; melanoma; and central nervous system.

The meeting will also include training modules for chief and co-chief investigators, new investigators and researcher training, and good clinical practice training.

Consultant Medical Oncologist in the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital Dublin Prof John McCaffrey told the <strong><em>Medical Independent</em></strong> that having the CTI meeting coincide with the Gathering makes sense, given the essential role of research within the oncology landscape.

“I think the fact that the Cancer Trials Ireland group are having a session ahead of ours is to capture the audience who go to the Gathering,” according to Prof McCaffrey.

“There is good synergy between the speakers who present and who attend the meeting and those who are conducting very important research for Cancer Trials Ireland and a lot of what will be presented will be multi-centre research done with bigger centres with Irish researchers being closely involved. So it is a very important partnership.”

There is no charge to attend and to register, contact karen.munnelly@cancertrials.ie.

</div>