The San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, the world’s largest breast cancer conference, gets underway on Tuesday, where more than 7,000 physicians and researchers from countries across the globe will witness groundbreaking presentations.
Breast cancer news coming out of this symposium is so rapid that organizers plan multiple press conferences for media around the world to get the stories. Often researchers will complete important research projects just before the meeting, so the findings can be presented here.
Dr. Ismail Jatoi, chief of surgical oncology at the UT Health Science Center, said attendees are looking forward to definitive research that could end the debate over the best treatment for patients who have breast cancer or other cancers.
"Generally speaking, I would say most of the patients have received systemic therapy alone, and if the disease in the breast progressed during that time, then some doctors would offer the patients local therapy as well," Jatoi said. "And so I think this question will be answered, hopefully this year, because there are going to be two large, randomized trials addressing the issue presented in this conference."
Jatoi said those clinical trial results from two separate researchers – one from India and one from Turkey -- will be presented in San Antonio this week.
Twenty investigators from San Antonio will be presenting results of other clinical trials, and speakers will address global cancer trends.
The Cancer Therapy and Research Center, which has a long history of breast cancer treatment and research, hosts the conference along with the American Association for Cancer Research.
