Recapping the 2024 ASCO® Annual Meeting: AI & Innovation in Cancer Care

This blog was authored by Bryant Fields, VP, Integrated Evidence at Medidata.

The theme of the 2024 ASCO® meeting in Chicago was “The Art and Science of Cancer Care: From Comfort to Cure.” One could interpret this as the way innovation takes place within the boundaries of a traditional and compliance-driven industry. The theme also acknowledges the important idea that advancements can be incremental as we extend life and improve quality while marching closer to cures. Though we oftentimes are looking for the latest and greatest breakthrough therapies, it’s often just as important to acknowledge the “smaller”, less attention-grabbing wins. For example, standards of care having greater efficacy and impact on survival rates than previously thought are incremental, yet important advancements to acknowledge.

From an innovation perspective, the broad range of offerings and publications around data, analytics, and artificial intelligence were hard to ignore. By volume alone, the amount of AI-themed content continues to trend upward and will likely be a space to watch in the coming years. In fact, it’s likely that almost all future drugs will be created with some form of AI in the development process (WHO, 2024). Among the dozens of presentations, posters, and sessions, the following sessions were particularly illuminating:

• Harness Artificial Intelligence to Enhance Patient-Physician Relationships 
• ASCO Communities of Practice (CoP): Artificial Intelligence
• Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Prostate Cancer Care: A Path to Enhanced Efficiency and Outcomes

In addition to the many attendees who stopped by our booth learn about our solutions, the Medidata team continued to advance thought leadership during our two poster presentations:

• BMS Poster: Highlighted an association between treatment response and overall survival (OS) and progression free survival (PFS), showing that CR/CRi by 12 months may be an informative early response endpoint for assessing the PFS of r/r CLL/SLL patients
• Medicenna Poster: Showcased how an external control arm was leveraged to interpret the impact that Bizaxofusp had on survival in GBM patients

The poster sessions were well attended and highly engaged. One particular publication of interest was presented by a group out of Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center (Bronx, New York). I’m all too familiar with the area as I grew up in the broader community and passed this center on my way to school everyday. The demographics are largely comprised of a low income, diverse, community of color. The results of the study revealed a nearly doubled rate of colonoscopies when patients were engaged with the AI-driven patient navigator. 

Another publication illustrated how AI was used to determine the prevalence of AI-generated publications from previous ASCO meetings! So not only is AI of course a driver of the scientific content, but it’s a part of the governance as well. 

It’s an exciting time to be at the intersection of clinical and technology innovation. This is a space that has proven to continuously evolve, and Medidata aims to remain at the forefront of these advancements, especially in oncology, with our vast repository of data and AI-powered products.