"Cancer Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment" Popular Science Education Lecture Series

organized by the Global Collaborative Oncology Group (GCOG) and the Department of Clinical Oncology of the University of Hong Kong 

Cancer is a big problem of society and is the second cause of death in 2020. According to a recently released research article on JAMA Oncology, there were estimated 23.6 million new cancer cases and 10.0 million cancer deaths globally in 2019, with a 26.3% increase in new cases and 20.9% increase in deaths from 2010 to 2019. There is an imminent need to strengthen cancer prevention, cancer diagnosis and cancer treatment. 

"Cancer Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment" is a series of popular science education lectures supported by the Knowledge Exchange of the University of Hong Kong and jointly organized by the Global Collaborative Oncology Group (GCOG) and the Department of Clinical Oncology of the University of Hong Kong. It has been held since October 2021. In these lectures, multidisciplinary experts provide their expert knowledge on the current status of cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment including surgery, chemotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy, and radiotherapy. During the lecture, the experts also answer the questions previously collected from the public and instantly raised in the chat room. We hope that the public can get more medical information from the experts in order to increase the cure rate of cancer.  

This series includes 12+1 sessions (12 lectures on specific kinds of cancers + one bonus lecture in Chinese New Year) on Saturday night every calendar month Four sessions have been held, this program has already raised the public’s awareness of cancer as 86000+ people joined including the audience from Hong Kong and Mainland China. 

The first KE session entitled "Overall Global Views in Cancer Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment. What’s the Public Needs to Know" was held on 30 October 2021. Almost 20000 audiences from Mainland China and around 2000 from Hong Kong attended this session. Prof. Feng-Ming (Spring) Kong, the director of this HKU Knowledge exchange program, opened the program, introduced our aim, and the motivation of this effort. She introduced the HKU multiD team of the HKU KE project (https://www.oncology.hku.hk/), and session co-Chairs of Prof. Geng Tian, Professor of Shenzhen University First affiliated hospital, the Chair of GCOG Patients & Family Committee, Dr. Joseph Siu-kie Au, President of Hong Kong Precision Oncology Society. Prof Kong then introduced multiD experts of this first session. She first broke the “rumors” or misconception on cancers, for example, ‘cancer can only be cured by surgery’ and ‘cancer is unpreventable’. She emphasized that the anti-cancer field is advancing fast, and there are now many treatment options to control cancers in addition to surgery and the public should get information from medical experts and reliable websites such as China Anticancer Association, National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) of the United States. NCCN has versions for patients, some Chinese translated versions for some diseases. Prof. Zhou-Yi Zhi, the Director of Public Education Program of China Anticancer Association, gave a keynote speech on the importance of Cancer Prevention. Of important note, also to address a question from the public, Prof. Cassian Yee, a top medical expert in the field of clinical oncology and the head of Cell therapy for solid tumors from world #1 MD Anderson Cancer Center, gave an updated speech on a hot topic on T-cell therapy, ‘Will CART therapy work for my cancer?’. Professor Yee introduced the principle of CART-T and its high efficiency on melanoma and recurrent lymphoma, using easy to understand cartoon illustration. The last part of this session focused on answering the questions from the public. The experts answered 26 questions from the public.  Prof. Joseph Siu-Kee Au, Prof. Chak-Kwan Tong, Prof. Ming-Yen Ng, and Prof. Jing Cai served as expert panelists and answered questions.  Answers to these questions and detailed knowledge of this session is available online https://www.liangyihui.net/doc/80797. 
Youtube replay at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw0MBF-Fj3I. 

The second session focused on Lung Cancer prevention diagnosis and treatment, held on 20 November 2021. Increasing number of audiences joined, 28000 from the mainland and 3000 from Hong Kong. Lung cancer is the top killer and the most common cancer in the world for man and women combined. Prof. Feng-Ming (Spring) Kong introduced session Co-Chairs Professor Weiqi Shen, the President of Shenzhen Anticancer Association, and Prof. Zhou-Yi Zhi, Professor of Qinghua University and Director of Lung Cancer Center of Qinghua, as the session co-chairs. Prof. Kong reviewed the statistics on lung cancer in 2020 to raise public awareness. There were 4 new cases and 3 deaths due to lung cancer every minute worldwide estimated in 2020. She emphasized that multidisciplinary team development is the major direction on lung cancer treatment, prevention and diagnosis. She is also a top expert in lung cancer prevention and surgery, explaining the possible risk factors causing lung cancer and the direction on preventing and curing lung cancer. Professor Zhi suggested the inhalation of tobacco smoke, kitchen oil smoke, and indoor volatile gas VOC caused by house decoration materials could increase the risk of getting lung cancer. Importantly, he also advised the public and physicians to be proactive in quitting smoking and lung cancer screening. By doing so, he hopes that the 5-year survival rate can be raised from 20% to 35%. Prof. Chun-xue Bai, President of Shanghai Respiratory disease Institute, President of China Lung Cancer Alliance, summarized important procedures of lung cancer prevention into 16 Words in Chinese “知己知彼，避忌替移，專業就醫，智保無虞”. Prof. Dai-zhi Pang and Prof. Xin Wang provided the role of surgery and the advancement of minimally invasive procedures. Prof. Tian illustrated the basics of systemic therapy including target and immunotherapy. Prof Kong introduced the curative role of Radiation therapy and role of Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy (SBRT) in lung Cancer. SBRT as one kind of local therapies that targets very high dose to tumor, in only a few treatment fractions, using High accuracy of target delineation, High level of motion control, High Conformal plan, and High precision treatment delivery can provide cure in patients who are medically fragile, and generate treatment outcome comparable to surgical resection. Prof. Terence T. Sio, an associate Professor and radiation oncologist from Mayo clinic (one of the top clinics in the USA), presented the detailed advances in SBRT procedures and excellent outcomes in the United States. This gives the public more hope on cancer treatment. There were also replying sessions of questions from the patients and the public. Prof. Zhou-Yi Zhi, Prof. Hon-Chi Suen, Prof. Chak-Kwan Tong, Prof. Shubin Wang, Prof. Joseph Siu-Kee Au and Prof. Weixi Shen served as expert panelists and answered questions.
More details of this session is at https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/sI-Kxet3AGMDlSYWwfx8iQ.
Youtube replay at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUUwS4xMG54. 

The third session of the program is on liver cancer. ‘Is Liver Cancer a Curable Disease? What Kinds of Treatment Modality Are Available? Listen to These Experts of a Multidisciplinary Team.’ holding on 18 December, 2021. This lecture focused on liver cancer and had 13 top multidisciplinary experts volunteered their personal time to lecture and answer questions from the public. Prof. Chung-Mau Lo and Prof. Zhou-Yi Zhi hosted this lecture. Prof. Chung-Mau Lo, the President of the University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Hospital, former president of International Liver Transplantation Society and a top expert in liver cancer, firstly introduced the high incidence mortality of liver cancer to raise audience attention towards liver cancer diagnosis and treatment. Prof Lo further briefly introduced that the multiple disciplinary treatments for liver cancer. Prof. Tan-To Cheung, head of hepatobilliary surgery of HKU department of surgery gave a speech on "Liver Cancer Diagnosis and Surgery Can Cure Liver Cancer". Professor Cheung explained that the patients with good health condition and good liver function can do liver resection to cure liver cancer. Besides, the advancement in minimally invasive surgery gives advantage in post-surgery recovery. However only about 20% patients can have surgical resection due to cancer burden or medical condition of the patients. For treatment of these patients, Prof. Jinhua Wang from Sun Ye Sun University Cancer Hospital, vice President of Chinese Society of the International Radiology, presented the minimally invasive “magic” international radiologic technologies in treating liver cancer, with the use of “通、擴、栓、堵、冷、熱、電、照”technologies. Prof. Thomas Yau, a world known expert on systemic therapy presented advances in systemic therapy, evolving the role of immunotherapy for liver cancer. Professor Yau presented several recently published results of important clinical trials led by himself showing the advancement of immunotherapy strategy in liver cancer patients, including publications at top oncology Journal like Lancet Oncology. This speech provided more knowledge on immunotherapy to the public and gave more confidence for the particular patient to apply immunotherapy. Prof. Kong presented exciting results of NON-invasive precision SBRT in liver cancer and presented outstanding tumor results in newly diagnosed liver cancer and recurrent liver cancers. Specifically, she reported evidences of surgical resectable comparable results from SBRT, and mentioned an upcoming clinical trial from the HKU multiD team led by Prof. Chun-Mau Lo, on SBRT versus surgery in resectable liver cancers. This opened a door to a noninvasive approach of curing liver cancer. The last highlight lecture was given by Prof. Chi-Leung Chiang from Clinical Oncology Department of HKU who broke the misunderstanding that large HCC cannot be cured. He shared cases in which patients with large HCC can be cured by non-surgical treatment. He said that, “Liver cancer with a larger than 7cm tumor got disappointing results from TACE treatment. However, a combination of Radiation therapy and immunotherapy achieved good results on curing liver cancer due to high sensitivity of it to radiation therapy.” There were also three sessions for the doctors answering 30 questions previously collected from the public. Prof. Xiao-fang Yu, Dr. Ji Ren, Prof. Chak-Kwan Tong, and Prof. Kong served as expert panelists and answered questions.  During the lecture, doctors were also answering many questions instantly raised in the chat room. This session provided extensive information for the liver cancer patients and the public on liver cancer.  
Detailed knowledge of these is also available online https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/uphcdtrNAh7LJKuM1OIYBA. 
Youtube replay is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=navzifYwIpY. 

The fourth session focused on Colorectal Cancer. “Is Colorectal Cancer a Curable Disease? What Kinds of Treatment Modality Are Available? Listen to These Experts of Multidisciplinary Team”. There were at least 21042 views collected from various media platforms. There were 4 keynote lectures focusing on colon screening, surgery, targeted therapy and radiation therapy and answered 24 questions from the public. In the beginning of lecture, Prof. Feng-Ming (Spring) Kong introduced her Co-Chairs Prof. Shubin Wang, Professor and Director of Oncology Center of Beijing University Shenzhen Hospital, Chair of GCOG Colorectable Cancer Clinical Trial Workshop, and Prof. Jing Jin, Professor and expert leader in colorectal Cancer, Assistant President of the China National Cancer Center Shenzhen Hospital, and Co-Chair of GCOG Unique databank. As an introduction of the session, Prof Kong explained the origin, the similarity and differences of colon and rectum, reviewed clinical treatment outcome including excellent cure rate of early stage disease which led to the keynote speech on importance of screening and early diagnosis for colorectal cancer, which was given by Prof. Way-Kay Seto, Clinical Professor in the Department of Medicine, head of GI Medicine, Assistant President of HKU Shenzhen Hospital. He firstly pointed out that the western country got a declining incidence rate of colorectal cancer but China was increasing in this. He suggested that the main reason is that more and more western people would do colon screening. Professor Seto also introduced and explained pros and cons of several screening methods including colonoscopy, Fecal occult blood test, colon CT imaging, PillCam(R) COLON. He finally advised the audience Not to say no to colonoscopy. Prof. Jingwen Fan, Head of the Department of Surgery, Queen Mary Hospital of the University of Hong Kong, Assistant Dean of the University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Hospital, presented how colorectal cancer can be cured by surgery. Prof. Fan first explained to the public that the methods of colon cancer surgery are different from those in the past, abandoning open surgery and now using minimally invasive procedures with assistance of colonoscopy, laparoscopy and near-anal endoscopy to remove tumors. Prof. Fan explained to the public how to remove tumors using different surgical methods on videos. Prof. Fan also mentioned that there are new technologies that help improve the quality of surgery, such as fluoroscopy, which can help prevent leakage after oral surgery. Prof. Ruilian Xu, Chair of Colorectable Cancer Committee of Shenzhen Anticancer Association gave a great talk on systemic therapy including targeted therapy and immunotherapy for late stage colorectal cancer. Prof. Xu emphasized the importance of biomarker guided precision oncology care, and explained that each late- stage patient should take gene testing for targeted drug treatment. She also explained the advantages and advancement on the combination treatment of targeted drugs and chemo drugs. Prof. Yajie Liu, Chair of Radiation Oncology Department of Beijing University Shenzhen Hospital, Chair of GCOG Advanced Technology Committee, presented role of radiation therapy as neoadjuvant and adjuvant treatment to improve the cure of colorectal cancers after surgical resection and the role of SBRT in metastatic diseases.  Prof. Terence T. Sio, Prof. Geng Tain, Prof. Wan He, Prof. Peng Gong, Prof. Ka-On Lam and Prof. Guixiang Liao served as expert panelists and answered questions. Prof Terance Sio from Mayo Clinic joined the expert discussion and shared his expertise. At the end of the session, all experts emphasized the importance of colorectal cancer screening, urging the public to do colon screening. Prof Shubin Wang introduced a free screening program at Shenzhen GCOG.
Youtube replay is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRpasiyJ4hA. 

Please email cancerpdt.ke@hku.hk for event enquires.  

 

Tentative future topics

Topic 5: New technologies to fight cancer: Protons, Heavy Irons, Artificial Intelligence, and Flash?  Listen to what the experts say!
Time：2022/2/12 (Saturday 8-10PM HKT, 8-10AM New York Time, 1-3PM London Time) 

Topic 6: Breast Cancer
Time：2022/2/19 (Saturday 8-10PM HKT, 8-10AM New York Time, 1-3PM London Time) 

Topic 7: Pancreatic Cancer
Time：2022/3/26 (Saturday 8-10PM HKT, 8-10AM New York Time, 1-3PM London Time) 

Topic 8: Stomach Cancer  
Time：2022/4/23 (Saturday 8-10PM HKT, 8-10AM New York Time, 1-3PM London Time) 

Topic 9: Prostate Cancer & Bladder Cancer
Time：2022/5/21 (Saturday 8-10PM HKT, 8-10AM New York Time, 1-3PM London Time) 

Topic 10: Esophagus Cancer
Time：2022/6/25 (Saturday 8-10PM HKT, 8-10AM New York Time, 1-3PM London Time) 

Topic 11: Central Nerve System Cancer
Time：2022/7/30 (Saturday 8-10PM HKT, 8-10AM New York Time, 1-3PM London Time) 

Topic 12: Non-melanoma Skin Cancer  
Time：2022/8/27 (Saturday 8-10PM HKT, 8-10AM New York Time, 1-3PM London Time) 

Topic 13: NPC and other Head and Neck Cancers
Time：2022/9/24 (Saturday 8-10PM HKT, 8-10AM New York Time, 1-3PM London Time)