Medical conferences are not rock concerts.
Nor are they fight scenes.
Usually, they are quiet (barely more than a mumble), cavernous, and full of people sitting in uncomfortable chairs. The clinical subject matter is hidden behind dense presentations full of survival curves, p-values, and hazard ratios. But every once in a while, the medical industry produces something that breaks this monotonous tedium. Famously, if you ask someone who was there, you will hear about what happened at the 2005 meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). It was there that the clinical trial results for Herceptin were first unveiled—and, boy, was that something.
When the data dropped showing that the drug slashed the risk of recurrence by half, the room erupted. It wasn’t just applause; it was a visceral outpouring of relief from doctors who knew their field had just changed forever.
This month, history echoed. At ASCO, Dr. Brian Wolpin was mid-talk, presenting the survival data for a new targeted pancreatic cancer therapy called daraxonrasib, when the room broke out into a spontaneous, sustained standing ovation right in the middle of his presentation.
