ESMO Congress

Enfortumab vedotin-ejfv resulted in a significant improvement in overall survival versus chemotherapy in adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer who received prior treatment with platinum-based chemotherapy and a PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor.

In an interim analysis of a subset of patients with intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma harboring FGFR2 fusions/rearrangements, futibatinib was shown to be efficacious and tolerable.

As the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic lingers into the later part of 2020, consideration is needed regarding the lasting effects on patients with cancer who may have experienced delayed care or diagnosis.

The coronavirus disease 2019 has had a significant impact on cancer care and created widespread challenges for health care systems across the globe.

The wellbeing and job performance of oncology professionals has been significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and although the extent of this impact is varied between countries, it has been suggested to be related to the crude mortality rate of the virus.

Updated results from the phase I/II MEDIOLA study strengthen the case for combining olaparib and durvalumab in patients with metastatic breast cancer and relapsed ovarian cancer with germline BRCA mutations. The updated data were featured in two separate presentations at the 2019 ESMO Congress.

Combining nivolumab with the angiogenesis inhibitor tivozanib led to a high response rate and durable disease control in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma, a preliminary open-label study showed.

Evidence is increasing that blood-based biomarkers have predictive utility in advanced non–small cell lung cancer. Going further, blood-based next-generation sequencing appears to have clinical utility in selecting targeted treatment in this setting.

Larotrectinib demonstrated a clinically meaningful improvement in progression-free survival compared with time to progression on prior treatment in patients with TRK fusion–positive cancers using a measure known as the growth modulation index.

Treatment with the MEK inhibitor trametinib significantly improves progression-free survival and leads to a strong trend toward improved overall survival in recurrent, low-grade serous ovarian cancer.

Durvalumab added to etoposide and platinum-based chemotherapy as a first-line treatment for patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer delays development of new lesions and improves patient-reported outcomes compared with etoposide and platinum-based therapy alone.

Patients with ROS1-positive and NTRK-positive non–small cell lung cancer had frequent and durable responses, which appeared to deepen over time in some cases, with the multikinase inhibitor entrectinib.

The combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab appears to have durable clinical activity in patients with recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer.

Men who received cabazitaxel (Jevtana) as a third-line systemic agent for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer had a significant reduction in radiographic disease progression, leading to a significant increase in overall survival.

Nivolumab extended overall survival compared with chemotherapy in patients with previously treated advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) did not show an improvement in progression-free survival compared with chemotherapy in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma.

A case series presented at the 2019 ESMO Congress highlighted the activity of afatinib in patients with NRG1-positive tumors.

A population of predominantly Chinese women with advanced hormone receptor–positive/HER2-negative breast cancer obtained significant benefits from treatment with the CDK4/6 inhibitor abemaciclib and endocrine therapy.

The first-line combination of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) and chemotherapy led to an improvement in median progression-free survival compared with placebo/chemotherapy in patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma.

Treatment with ivosidenib reduced the risk of progression or death by 63% compared with placebo for pretreated patients with IDH1-mutant advanced cholangiocarcinoma.

Olaparib improved radiographic progression-free survival compared with physician's choice of abiraterone acetate or enzalutamide in men with heavily pretreated metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer with homologous recombination repair (HRR) gene alterations.

The tumor-agnostic TRK inhibitor larotrectinib (Vitrakvi) demonstrated marked antitumor efficacy, including objective responses that often persisted for years, and a favorable safety profile.

Dennis J. Slamon, MD, PhD, director, Clinical/Translational Research, Revlon/University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Women's Cancer Research Program, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, UCLA, discusses the overall survival results of the phase III MONALEESA-3 trial in hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer.

Antonio Gonzalez-Martin, MD, co-director, Department of Medical Oncology, Clinica Universidad de Navarra, discusses the results of the phase III PRIMA trial in advanced ovarian cancer.

The highly selective RET inhibitor selpercatinib (formally LOXO-292) demonstrated robust objective response rates for patients with RET-mutant medullary thyroid cancer and in those with other RET fusion-positive thyroid cancer.

An exploratory biomarker substudy of Impassion130 demonstrated clinical activity of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) and nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) in a subgroup of patients with triple-negative breast cancer who had immune cell PD-L1 expression by the SP142 immunohistochemistry assay, regardless of the site of the tumor sample.

The addition of the CDK4/6 inhibitor abemaciclib (Verzenio) to fulvestrant (Faslodex) led to a median 9.4-month overall survival benefit compared with fulvestrant with placebo in patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer who progressed on prior endocrine therapy.

With follow-up of nearly 2 years, the addition of atezolizumab to first-line carboplatin plus etoposide for the treatment of extensive stage small cell lung cancer continues to demonstrate improved overall survival compared with placebo plus CP/ET.