ITMIG 2017—Dr. Giuseppe Giaccone: focus on data and keep up-to-date

On Sept 23, the 8th International Thymic Malignancy Interest Group Annual Meeting (ITMIG 2017) held in Torino, Italy, successfully ended after a dense 3-day agenda blending a superb scientific and educational program, with over 150 participants in the field from more than 20 countries or regions. During the meeting, we were honored to conduct an interview with Dr. Giuseppe Giaccone from Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Georgetown University, USA (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Interview with Dr. Giuseppe Giaccone.

Dr. Giuseppe Giaccone, MD, PhD is an internationally recognized expert in the field of lung cancer and developmental therapeutics. In January 2013 he joined the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University, Washington DC as the Associate Director for Clinical Research and the Director of Clinical Research for the MedStar Health Cancer Network’s Washington Region. Dr. Giaccone has published more than 500 peer-reviewed papers and contributed to more than 30 book chapters.

During the meeting, Dr. Giaccone gave excellent presentations on the topics “Use of Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors in TET: Where are we now and where are we heading”, and “Potential Novel Approaches for Locally Advanced Thymic Tumors”, which both focused on immunotherapy and new drug uses in thymic tumors (Figure 2).

Figure 2 Snapshot of Dr. Giuseppe Giaccone’s presentation.

He shared his experience in treating patients of stage IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and his study on the increasing prevalence of NSCLC in young people.

“More and more young people, women and even non-smokers suffer from lung cancer. However, the cause of this development remains unknown.” Dr. Giaccone shared his perspective on lung cancer prevalence. As regard to the future prospect of tumor vaccines, Dr. Giaccone believes that although it has not been successfully developed now, it will make an impact one day, probably in combination with the current available immune checkpoint inhibitors.

As we know, artificial intelligence (AI) has been a hot-discussed topic in recent years, and some say AI would replace doctors one day in the future. We’ve communicated with Dr. Giaccone about his point of view upon this opinion, and he agreed that AI is a very promising technique, but pointed out the fact that doctors however still play an important role in the medical field.

At the end of the interview, Dr. Giaccone laid emphasis on the significance of follow-up of patients after operation by sharing his precious experience in China. “The large population of China contributes a lot on medical data, but it is hard for Chinese doctors to follow up patients after operation, due to the large number of people and frequent population movement. Therefore, what Chinese doctors need to do is to treasure the valuable medical data and find a way to follow up the patients.”

For more contents, please refer to the interview video (Figure 3).

Figure 3 Dr. Giuseppe Giaccone: focus on data and keep up-to-date (1). Available online: http://asvidett.amegroups.com/article/view/14034

Interview questions

• Would you like to summarize some main points of your presentation?
• In view of the good outcome of lung cancer immunotherapy, which studies on immunotherapy for thymic carcinoma are of high expectation? What is the long-term development prospect of immunotherapy for thymic carcinoma?
• We know you and your team have been dedicated to lung cancer researches for long. What do you think are the causes for the increasing prevalence of NSCLC in young people? Would you like to share your experiences in treating patients of stage IV NSCLC?
• In your opinion, what is the best indication of tumor vaccine? How to analyze its future research prospect?
• As a thoracic expert of global reputation, you and your team have contributed significantly to the field. How did your team always keep the right direction in the forefront research? Would you like to share your advice for the young thoracic surgeons?
• How many times have you been to the ITMIG annual meeting?
• What do you think are the most important progresses of ITMIG in the past 3 years and what are your future perspectives for the next 3 years?
• The AI technology has been applied to the diagnosis or perhaps some treatments of diseases. What do you think is the most promising developing trend of AI in the medical field?
• What would be your piece of advice for young experts in the field?
• Are there any experience or examples or models from big centers that you think we can learn from?

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to extend appreciation to Dr. Xuefeng Leng from the Affiliated Hospital of Chengdu University and Dr. Zhuoqi Jia from the First Affiliation Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University for their academic support to this interview.

Funding: None.

Footnote

Provenance and Peer Review: This article was commissioned by the editorial office, Mediastinum. The article did not undergo external peer review.

Conflicts of Interest: Both authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/med.2017.12.02). STH is an intern and JZ is a full-time employee of AME Publishing Company (publisher of the journal). The authors have no other conflicts of interest to declare.

Ethical Statement: The authors are accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Open Access Statement: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits the non-commercial replication and distribution of the article with the strict proviso that no changes or edits are made and the original work is properly cited (including links to both the formal publication through the relevant DOI and the license). See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

References

1. Huang ST, Zhong J. Dr. Giuseppe Giaccone: focus on data and keep up-to-date. Asvide 2017;4:588. Available online: http://asvidett.amegroups.com/article/view/14034

(Science Editors: Shi-Ting Huang, Jessie Zhong, MED, med@amegroups.com)