Major Practice-Changing Themes at ASCO 2026

Opening this OncLive Peer Exchange, moderator Dr. Shah welcomed Dr. Jia Luo, a thoracic medical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Dr. Yu-Wei Chen, a GU medical oncologist at UC San Diego, to identify the themes cutting across ASCO 2026 rather than focusing on a single disease. Asked what excited them most regardless of tumor type, both panelists pointed to the same underlying shift: targeted therapy is advancing into previously undruggable territory and moving earlier in the treatment course.

Dr. Luo highlighted the plenary buzz around daraxonrasib, a pan-RAS inhibitor addressing pancreatic cancer's long-resistant RAS alterations, alongside the adjuvant selpercatinib trial bringing RET-targeted therapy into earlier-stage lung cancer. Dr. Chen turned to GU oncology and the PROTEUS trial, a perioperative study led by Dr. Mary-Ellen Taplin at Dana-Farber that, for the first time, successfully brought an androgen receptor signaling inhibitor into localized, high-risk prostate cancer following prostatectomy — a setting where prior perioperative trials had repeatedly failed to show benefit.

This opening episode framed ASCO 2026 as a genuine inflection point: several targets once considered untouchable, or confined to late-line metastatic use, reached meaningful new milestones in the same conference cycle. Rather than diving into trial specifics, the segment functioned as a table-setter, previewing three storylines — pan-RAS inhibition, adjuvant RET-targeted therapy, and perioperative androgen receptor blockade — that the panel would unpack in greater depth as the conversation continued. It closes with both panelists visibly energized, setting up a natural transition into how clinicians actually decide whether findings like these are ready to change practice.