Steven Frommeyer: Good evening, and welcome to the inaugural CancerNetwork® Face-Off. We’re focusing on acute lymphoblastic leukemia [ALL]. My name is Steven Frommeyer, executive director of oncology at MJH Life Sciences, and I’m tonight’s program host.

Here's a little about tonight’s program. Face-Off is a new series that should be a little different from many of the educational events that you’ve seen in the past. Make no mistake, Face-Off will be educational at its core but designed to be fun. It will follow a unique and lively format while showcasing the best and brightest minds in the hematology-oncology world of today and tomorrow.

What’s different about Face-Off? For tonight’s event, we have a team of in-person physicians here on West 57th Street in New York City. They’re known as the home team, and I’ll get to that. The second group of in-person physicians are together in Tampa, Florida, and they’re the visiting team. The rest of you are somewhere out there around the country and around the world. As of this afternoon, we had more than 60 people preregistered to attend virtually. Altogether, including the folks who are in person, we have more than 90 people taking part in tonight’s program right now.

Secondly, what makes Face-Off different from many of the other educational events is the fact this isn’t just a presentation. It’s so much more than that. This is a competition. We have the visiting team, the Moffitt Marrowvingians, and the home team, the Memorial Sloan Kettering Mavericks. They aren’t just presenting data to you, but to each other and at each other.

We’ll have the visiting team, the Moffitt Marrowvingians, up first. Visiting teams always go first. They’ll be presenting several studies to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Mavericks, after which the Mavericks will challenge the Marrowvingians on the data presented. Presenters should make sure that their presentations are clear, organized, complete, and contain certain levels of enthusiasm or levity. Questions posed by the faculty should attempt to make sure that’s the case. After each presentation, you’ll be asked to chime in. An evaluation will appear on your screen for you to grade each member of the presenting team in 1 of 6 criteria. The team with the highest score at the end of the evening wins.

This is a competition, and there will be a winning team. The winning team will go home tonight with trophies and ribbons and achieve the goal of bragging rights in December at ASH [American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting]. At this time, I’d like to introduce the teams of tonight’s competition. Dr Shah, please introduce your team.

Bijal D. Shah, MD: Absolutely. I’ve got Nikesh Shah to my direct left, Somedeb Ball in the middle, and Reem Akel on the end.

Steven Frommeyer: Thank you. Good job guys. Representing the home team, we have Dr Anthony Mato, director of the CLL [chronic lymphocytic leukemia] program, and Dr Jae Park. Unfortunately, Dr Park is stuck in traffic coming over, but he’ll be here shortly. I promise you. He’s the associate attending physician and the national league ALL champion of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Mavericks. Dr Mato, please introduce your team.

Anthony Mato, MD, MSCE: Absolutely. To my left, I have Dr Meghan Thompson, who’s going to be presenting today, and I have Dr Xiaoli Mi and Dr Varun Narendra. Nice to see you all.

Transcript edited for clarity.