Unpacking Advances Across Radiation Oncology From ASCO GU 2026

At the 2026 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, RadOnc on the Run host Brandon Mancini, MD, MBA, FACRO, reviewed several key presentations on the growing roles that radiotherapeutic modalities could play in the management of genitourinary malignancies. He spoke in San Francisco, CA, to highlight oral abstracts and poster sessions exploring the intersection between radiation oncology and prostate cancer, kidney cancer, and other patient populations.

Among numerous abstracts, Mancini, director at Bold Advanced Medical Future Health, clinical associate professor in the Department of Radiology at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, and editor at large for RadOnc Review, a supplement of the journal ONCOLOGY®, highlighted the following:

How Do Pre-Visit Educational Videos Impact Prostate Cancer Radiation Consultations?

One presentation explored whether provider-developed educational videos could minimize the amount of time that radiation oncology clinicians, residents, and nurses dedicate to patients for prostate cancer consults, thereby boosting clinical efficiency.¹ Data showed that administering videos alone without changing provider approaches may not be sufficient to improve clinical efficiency, although educational videos may give patients more resources to develop questions before a clinical visit. Findings from this study, Mancini said, may prompt clinicians to reconsider how to prepare patients more effectively for their consults.

How Safe is Immunotherapy Plus Radiation in High-Risk Prostate Cancer?

As part of another presentation, investigators of a phase 2 trial (NCT05568550) evaluated the safety of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) plus radiotherapy and androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) with or without olaparib (Lynparza) among those with high-risk localized prostate cancer.² The investigators noted that pembrolizumab plus radiation/ADT was feasible and typically tolerable, and that adding olaparib to this regimen did not increase the incidence of high-grade adverse effects, although low-grade urinary toxicities were more common. Mancini said that these results may warrant further investigation of pembrolizumab-based treatment to determine whether patient outcomes can improve in the long term.

Can LLMs Help Grade Radiation-Related Toxicities?

In another study presented at the meeting, investigators evaluated the ability of large language models (LLMs) to extract and grade toxicities from clinical notes and patient-reported outcomes among those who underwent radiotherapy for prostate cancer in a phase 2 trial (NCT02874014).³ Overall, the investigator’s ensemble model achieved strong performance metrics, supporting the conclusion that LLMs could feasibly extract and grade toxicity in this population. Besides supporting LLMs as potential assistants in one’s workflow, Mancini described how this study reflects the need to capture “every last ounce” of data from patients in radiation oncology practice.

References

1. Martin SA, Amin SA, Strudthoff E, Baine M. Impact of pre-visit educational videos on clinic efficiency for prostate cancer radiation oncology consultations. J Clin Oncol. 2026;44(suppl 7):332. doi:10.1200/JCO.2026.44.7_suppl.332
2. Myint ZW, Yan D, Strup S, et al. Interim safety analysis of a randomized phase II trial comparing pembrolizumab with radiation versus pembrolizumab, olaparib, and radiation in localized high risk prostate cancer. J Clin Oncol. 2026;44(suppl 7):362. doi:10.1200/JCO.2026.44.7_suppl.362
3. Wilson R, Mastroleo F, Osorio MB, et al. Using large language models for grading CTCAE toxicity after radiation therapy for prostate cancer. J Clin Oncol. 2026;44(suppl 7):357. doi:10.1200/JCO.2026.44.7_suppl.357