By Jairo Becerra, Vice President, Fundación GIST Colombia

ACHO Symposium

Left to right: Dr. Jorge Otero (Oncologist), Jairo Becerra, (Vice President Fundación GIST Colombia) Dr. Jonathan Trent (Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, Miami), Adriana Maria Garzón, (President of Simmon Cancer Foundation), and Adolf Watzke (GIST Patient)

The first Symposium of Personalized Medicine and Immunotherapy in Solid Neoplasias was hosed by the Colombian Association of Hematology and Oncology (ACHO) on March 15-16, 2019 at the Hotel Cosmos 100 in Bogotá. Dr. Jonathan Trent, oncologist and GIST specialist from the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, and member of the SDH-Deficient GIST Consortium, participated as a presenter.

During the two days of the conference, topics related to immunotherapy and cancer were discussed – how to merge the results of liquid and solid biopsies, personalized medicine, definition and applicability in clinical practice (Dr. Trent), and molecular targets for the treatment of sarcomas of soft and bony tissues (Dr. Trent). Two discussion panels dealt with the “Clinical applicability of personalized medicine in Colombia” and “Challenges in Colombia for the implementation of genomic tests and studies of therapeutic targets”.

At the end of the meeting, GIST patients and representatives of the Fundación GIST Colombia and Simmon Cancer Foundation (Fundación Simmon) met with Dr. Trent and Dr. Jorge Otero (a Colombian clinical oncologist) to exchange experiences and the latest advances related to GIST. One of the issues addressed was generic drugs for GIST, where the importance lies in the recognition that has the laboratory that produces them to ensure its quality, and that the dose of the drug in mg is correct.

Click on photos to see larger, full versions