The One With Ralph

#RadOnc legend Dr. Ralph Weichselbaum joins The Accelerators (Drs. Anna Laucis, Simul Parikh, and Matt Spraker) for one of our favorite episodes ever.

We kick off by discussing how to #MedTwitter, the state of technology and proton therapy, and radiation resource allocation. Then we discuss Ralph and Sam Hellman's 1995 paper, Oligometastases, the history of the concept, and where we are headed. This leads to a scientific discussion on the abscopal effect.

We close the show with an epic new segment: the lightning round! We grill Ralph on pizza, the MD/PhD degree, the best cities for conferences, and why #RadOnc would benefit from broadening our scope of work to include delivery of select systemic therapies.

Here are some other things that came up on the show:

• Michigan Radiation Oncology Quality Consortium 
• Ralph and Sam Hellman's (2011) Oligometastases revisited
• Turchan, Pitroda, and Weichselbaum (2021) on radiotherapy and immunotherapy for patients with metastatic disease. 
• Pitroda and colleagues (2018) on molecular subtyping to define an oligometastatic state in colorectal cancer. 
• Tsai and colleagues trial (2021) of SBRT for oligometastases from non-small cell lung cancer and breast cancer.
• Robin Mole's (1953) original description of the abscopal effect.
• Postow and colleagues (2012) NEJM case report of the abscopal effect. 
• Sylvia Formenti's Nature Medicine (2018) paper on radiotherapy plus immune check point inhibitors. 
• Huang and colleagues Nature (2017) paper on T-cell invigoration.
• McNeil, Weichselbaum, and Parker NEJM study (1981) on trade-offs between quality and quantity of life.
  • See also: McNeil, Weichselbaum, and Parker (1978) on the Fallacy of the Five-Year Survival in Lung Cancer.

Podcast art generously donated by Dr. Danielle Cunningham.