ASCO Annual Meeting

The use of real-time comprehensive profiling provides valuable diagnostic information and identifies potential therapeutic targets in adults with malignancies, but this process remains widely underutilized for pediatric patients and represents a significant unmet need.

Gestational trophoblastic tumors (GTTs) that resist chemotherapy can be treated with frontline avelumab, making avelumab the first immunotherapy to show efficacy in treating patients with GTT, according to findings from a cohort of the ongoing phase 2 TROPHIMMUN trial.

Adjuvant treatment with osimertinib demonstrated an 83% reduction in the risk of disease recurrence or death in patients with stage II to IIIA EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer.

Adding avelumab to best supportive care improved the median overall survival by over 7 months in patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma, according to findings from the phase 3 JAVELIN Bladder 100 study.

Pembrolizumab doubled progression-free survival compared with chemotherapy in patients with newly diagnosed microsatellite instability–high/mismatch repair deficient metastatic colorectal cancer, according to findings from an interim analysis of the phase 3 KEYNOTE-177 trial.

An analysis of data collected in the COVID-19 and Cancer Consortium registry showed that patients with progressive cancer were 5.2-times more likely to die within 30 days of being diagnosed with novel coronavirus 19 compared with patients in remission or with no evidence of disease.

Benoit You, MD, PhD, discusses the findings of the phase 2 TROPHIMMUN study which treated chemotherapy-resistant gestational trophoblastic tumors with avelumab.

Thomas Powles, MD, MBBS, MRCP, discusses the utility of maintenance avelumab in the phase 3 JAVELIN Bladder 100 study in advanced urothelial carcinoma.

We spoke with leading oncologists in breast cancer, lung cancer, gastrointestinal cancers, genitourinary cancers, and hematologic malignancies to gain their perspectives on the most significant studies in their specialties.

People who quit smoking at any time, even up to 2 years before a lung cancer diagnosis, have increased chances of survival after their diagnosis, according to data during a 2020 ASCO Virtual Scientific Program press briefing.

The cancer mortality rate declined more in states that expanded Medicaid coverage than those that didn’t following the passage of the Affordable Care Act of 2010, a study found.

The use of video conference technology significantly reduced anxiety and stress among individuals who provide care for an individual with cancer and live more than one hour away from the patient.

Integration of a comprehensive geriatric assessment with geriatrician-led management care improved health-related quality of life, unplanned hospital admissions, and treatment discontinuation among older adults undergoing systemic therapy for their cancer.

People who quit smoking at any time, even up to 2 years before a lung cancer diagnosis, have increased chances of survival after their diagnosis, according to data during a 2020 ASCO Virtual Scientific Program press briefing.

Treatment with olaparib in the maintenance setting extended overall survival by 12.9 months in women with platinum-sensitive relapsed ovarian cancer with BRCA1/2 mutations, compared with placebo, according to randomized phase 3 trial results presented during a 2020 ASCO Virtual Scientific Program press briefing.

The efficacy of larotrectinib is supported in distinct patient populations with TRK fusion cancer—specifically pediatric patients and adult or pediatric patients with brain metastases or primary central nervous system tumors.

Neratinib combined with capecitabine reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 24% compared with lapatinib plus capecitabine in patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer who received at least 2 prior lines of HER2-targeted therapy.

Adding the Akt inhibitor capivasertib to fulvestrant led to a more than doubling of progression-free survival compared with fulvestrant alone in patients with endocrine-resistant estrogen receptor-positive advanced breast cancer.

Margetuximab, a novel Fc-engineered HER2-targeted antibody, improved progression-free survival compared with trastuzumab in patients with pretreated HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer in the open-label phase III SOPHIA clinical trial.

Simultaneous targeting of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase and the CD20 antigen led to overall responses in more than 90% of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, including untreated and relapsed/refractory disease.

Hope S. Rugo, MD, director, Breast Oncology and Clinical Trials Education, University of California San Francisco Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the phase III SOPHIA trial of margetuximab plus chemotherapy versus trastuzumab (Herceptin) plus capecitabine in patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer after prior anti–HER2-targeted therapies.

Caroline Robert, MD, PhD, head of the Dermatology Unit in Gustave Roussy Cancer Center, Villejuif-Paris, France, discusses results of a 5-year analysis evaluating the long-term effects of dabrafenib (Tafinlar) and trametinib (Mekinist) in patients with BRAF V600–mutant unresectable or metastatic melanoma.

The PARP inhibitor olaparib reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 38% versus chemotherapy in patients with platinum-sensitive, relapsed, germline BRCA1/2-mutated ovarian cancer who received at least 2 prior lines of chemotherapy.

The addition of venetoclax to obinutuzumab reduced the risk for disease worsening or death by 65% compared with obinutuzumab plus chlorambucil in patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

A chemotherapy-free doublet for platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer more than doubled progression-free survival as compared with single-agent PARP inhibitor.

Two new therapies are showing encouraging findings for patients with NSCLC with either RET rearranged or EGFR exon 20 insertions, raising hope that 2 hard-to-target driver alterations may soon have an associated targeted treatment.

Paul G. Richardson, MD, clinical program leader and director of clinical research at the Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discussed the phase III ICARIA-MM trial, which looked at the triplet regimen of isatuximab, pomalidomide (Pomalyst), and dexamethasone in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.

The investigational KRASG12C inhibitor AMG 510 achieved a 50% response rate in patients with KRASG12C-positive advanced non–small cell lung cancer, according to results from a phase I study presented at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting.