Thought After Attending WCLC2022

I attended IASLC/WCLC2022 from August 6th to 9th in Vienna, Austria. IASLC/WCLC stands for International Association for The Study of Lung Cancer/World Conference on Lung Cancer, which is the world's largest international gathering of clinicians and researchers in the field of lung cancer. It was the 5th time I had attended this conference, three were in person, and two were online. I'm not going to discuss the difference between online and in-person conferences. Still, I would like to talk about my experience with the difference between the WCLC and engineering conferences based on my observation and how I adapted to WCLC2022.

Keynote speeches from WCLC versus engineering conferences

I was an engineering professor, and attending engineering conferences was "my thing." So initially, I treated the WCLC the same as engineering conferences. Indeed, there are a lot of similarities between these two types of meetings, like the keynote speeches, academic talks, industrial exhibitions, posters and interaction between the researchers. In addition, outside the conference, the attendees often have dinners and drinks together, during which we still discuss research.

However, I noticed that WCLC differs from engineering conferences in several aspects. Firstly, in engineering conferences, the keynote speeches are the most important, at least in my view. Usually, at engineering conferences, exceptionally outstanding researchers give keynote lectures for 45 minutes about current research and, more importantly, the next several years' research direction. Also, the keynote speeches are at the most prominent time slots before the academic talks every day. In engineering conferences, it’s often a measure of the excellence of how outstanding the keynote speakers are.

In WCLC, the keynote lectures were given by several doctors and scientists about their work. There is nothing wrong with having several speakers sharing the podiums. However, I wish future directions of lung cancer research to be more emphasized. That's the part that I often pay much attention to.

Evolving with different interests

New attention to immunotherapy

My interests in the WCLC have changed over the past several years. In 2018 and after, I was interested in the targeted therapy, especially those related to ROS1+ and ALK+ lung cancer. Luckily, many talks were about EGFR, ROS1, ALK at those years. Now, targeted therapies have been extended to other mutations. Some of them are not much related to me. However, I got interested in immunotherapy. Although current check-point immunotherapy is ineffective for most targeted therapy patients, I believe that immunotherapy will be the one that cures lung cancer and other cancer.

New interests in patient advocacy

In WCLC2022, I became very interested in patient advocacy, especially in the patient advocates' oral and poster presentations. The broadness of the topics is very intriguing and refreshing. In addition, there is an urge that I would like to submit something to the conference. Thus, I'm interested in attending the sessions on patient advocacy, either on the podium or on the posters.

The new way to look at the posters

I used to think posters were less critical. In engineering conferences, the submitted papers were normally accepted for podium presentations. Engineering professors often gave the credits for journal publications, then the conference podium publications. However, at WCLC conferences, I found some excellent work, even critical, was presented on the posters, making me rethink the posters.

In WCLC2022, I spent one or two hours at the poster sessions at lunchtime daily. I skipped through all the posters by titles and abstracts. Then if it interested me, I would take pictures of them. So when I went home, I specifically went through these posters. I found this way very efficient in focusing on posters that interest me, but I wouldn't be able to ask the presenters any questions due to such a rush.

Afterthoughts from attendence

From the beginning, I attended WCLC2018 in Toronto, Canada, to this year's WCLC2022 in Vienne, Austria, I feel that WCLC guided me through the landscape of lung cancer, from its treatment to advocacy. It coincided with and played a significant role in my journey of lung cancer advocacy. Meanwhile, attending conferences, whether medicine or engineering, is very tiring if you genuinely take full advantage of them.

There are some differences between IASLC/WCLC and engineering conferences, but one thing in common is that the conferences are for attendees to know each other and to exchange ideas. For patient advocates, conferences are the opportunity to meet and learn from other advocates, doctors and scientists. Therefore, I strongly encourage every (lung) cancer patient advocate to find and attend your perspective conference. You won't regret it.