Accreditation Statement  

The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education activities for physicians.

Credit Designation Statement

AACR has designated this live activity for a maximum of 16.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™.

Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Credit certification for individual sessions may vary, dependent upon compliance with the ACCME Accreditation Criteria. The final number of credits may vary from the maximum number indicated above.

Claiming (CME) Credit

Physicians and other health care professionals seeking AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)TM for this live continuing medical education activity must complete the online CME Request for Credit Survey by April 12, 2024. Certificates will only be issued to those who complete the survey. The Reques for Credit Survey will be available via a link on the AACR website and via email. Your CME certificate will be sent to you via email after the completion of the activity.

Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the participant to earn up to 16.5 Medical Knowledge MOC points in the American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program. Participants will earn MOC points equivalent to the amount of CME credits claimed for the activity. It is the CME activity provider's responsibility to submit participant completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABIM MOC credit.

To receive ABIM MOC, participants must request MOC in the CME Request for Credit Survey and complete all questions. Once these steps are completed, AACR will submit your completion information via the ACCME’s Program and Activity Reporting System for the purpose of granting MOC points.

CME Request for Credit Survey

Statement of Educational Need, Target Audience, and Learning Objectives

There have been recent unprecedented improvements in immunotherapies, with multiple therapies directed to various components of the tumour microenvironment having been developed in recent years. This opens the avenue to develop combinatorial targeted and immunotreatments potentially practice-changing.

Despite the unprecedented success of the first wave of cancer immunotherapies there are a few major challenges that need to be overcome. One area in need of major improvement is treatment toxicity, as otherwise promising therapies such as immune checkpoint inhibitors or CAR-T cells are associated with a spectrum of potentially life-threatening immune-related adverse events. Another major challenge that needs addressing for successful targeted therapies is treatment resistance, with the heterogeneity of resistance mechanisms adding another layer of complexity. Intrinsic resistance to immunotherapy is frequent and very few rational combination therapies exist today to overcome this intrinsic resistance. Another gap in the advancement of personalized immunotherapies is an urgent need for reliable biomarkers. In addition, it has been proven challenging to scale treatments effective in one malignancy to address tumours that originate at other sites (e.g limited efficacy of CAR T in solid tumours). In order to address any of these challenges clinicians and cancer researchers alike need to focus their attention on understanding tumour biology and the relationship between tumour cells and the surrounding microenvironment from the pre-cancerous lessons throughout cancer progression up to and during metastatic spread.  

To address these gaps major contributors to the cancer immunology field, whose work ranges from basic investigation into the regulation of tumorigenesis and anti-cancer treatment response to large-scale clinical trials that assess the efficacy of various anti-cancer immunotherapies, were invited to present their latest data at this conference. A large part of preclinical cancer research is mostly done in an academic setting and therefore in order to impact patient outcomes it needs pharma and clinical support. This conference aims to bring together scientists, clinicians and representatives of the pharma industry to facilitate the transition of the latest research into the clinic with the ultimate goal of improving patient outcomes.

Professional Practice Gap Analysis

Physicians participating in this CME activity will gain knowledge of the progress made in designing new (combination) immunotherapies and the latest clinical trials that test new approaches for immunotherapies, including newly developed drugs and combinatorial approaches to anti-cancer treatment. This knowledge gain is expected to improve practitioners’ performance in the clinic, especially in terms of clinical trial design and patient recruitment for treatments and/ or clinical trials, which is ultimately expected to have a positive effect on patient outcomes. The target audience for this conference is basic and translational scientists, including experienced investigators and trainees at all levels with an interest in cancer development and treatment, as well as clinicians involved in the development of novel therapeutic approaches to treatment.

After participating in this CME activity, physicians should be able to:

• Differentiate between different cell types present in the TME and articulate the role of stromal heterogeneity.
• Explain the role of distinct immune cell types in modulating cancer progression as currently understood.
• Compare the immune contexture of tumours and interpret features of the immune contexture in terms of response to patient treatment.
• Describe mechanisms of primary resistance to neoadjuvant immune checkpoint blockade therapy.
• Discuss which drug combinations are currently most promising to overcome intrinsic resistance to immune checkpoint blockade.
• Evaluate the potential of recently developed liquid biopsy approaches in cancer detection and response to therapy.
• Articulate the benefits and limitations of current preclinical models for evaluating immunotherapies.
• Determine if there is an opportunity in clinical practice to improve patient stratification for treatment or to integrate combinatorial therapies.

Disclosure Statement

It is the policy of the AACR that the information presented at AACR CME activities will be unbiased and based on scientific evidence. To help participants make judgments about the presence of bias, AACR will provide information that Scientific Program Committee members and speakers have disclosed about financial relationships they have with ineligible companies whose primary business is producing , marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products or services used by or on patients. All of the relevant financial relationships for these individuals have been mitigated.

Disclosure of Financial relationships

Acknowledgment of Financial or Other Support

This activity is supported by Professional Educational Grants which will be disclosed at the activity.

Questions about CME?

Please contact the Office of CME at (215) 440-9300 or cme@aacr.org.