Latest Conference Articles

Ghasson K. Abou-Alfa, MD, discusses the rapid evolution observed in the treatment landscape of hepatocellular carcinoma over the last few years.

The frontline combination of trifluridine/tipiracil in combination with bevacizumab demonstrated an overall survival benefit compared with capecitabine and bevacizumab as treatment of patients with unresectable metastatic colorectal cancer who are not eligible for a standard chemotherapy regimen, resulting in a difference of almost 5 months, according to the final analysis of the phase 2 TASCO1 trial.

Step counts appeared to correlate with self-reported quality of life during the first 2 weeks of treatment with SM-88 in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer, the results of a preliminary exploratory analysis from part 2 of the phase 2/3 TYME-88-Panc trial showed.

In patients with esophageal cancer, chemotherapy with or without added pembrolizumab led to similar health-related quality of life results over 18 weeks, according to findings from the phase 3 KEYNOTE-590 study.

The use of pembrolizumab monotherapy upfront significantly improved progression-free survival while demonstrating superior safety, compared with chemotherapy, in patients with microsatellite-instability high/mismatch repair deficient metastatic colorectal cancer.

In the frontline setting of FGFR2b-positive advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma, the combination of bemarituzumab combined with mFOLFOX6 achieved a 56% reduction in the risk of disease progression or death compared with placebo.

Andrew X. Zhu, MD, PhD, discusses the evolving treatment landscape for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.

Neoadjuvant chemotherapy regimens were not found to increase the risk for perioperative complications in patients who have potentially resectable advanced thoracic esophageal cancer, according to data from the phase 3 JCOG 1109 trial that were virtually presented at the 2021 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

In multiple gastrointestinal tumor types, the combination of the anti-angiogenic multikinase inhibitor lenvatinib plus the anti-PD-1 antibody pembrolizumab demonstrated promising antitumor activity and a manageable safety profile, according to data presented at the 2021 ASCO Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

In a retrospective, real-world analysis of patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma in the United States, investigators observed that lenvatinib alone was effective as first-line treatment.

Treatment with the multi-target tyrosine kinase inhibitor anlotinib led to a significant improvement in progression-free survival along with a tolerable and manageable safety profile in Chinese patients with refractory metastatic colorectal cancer. according to results from the phase 3 ALTER0703 trial.

Esophageal-specific and general quality of life was improved in patients with esophageal/gastroesophageal cancer who received nivolumab in the Checkmate 577 clinical trial, according to subgroup analysis data presented during the 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

The addition of pembrolizumab and trastuzumab to the combination cisplatin plus capecitabine was able to effectively treat HER2-positive advanced gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancer, regardless of PD-L1 expression in the phase 1b/2 PANTHERA trial.

Camrelizumab in combination with apatinib demonstrated encouraging clinical efficacy as a second-line treatment of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma and demonstrated acceptable safety in a single-arm, open-label phase 2 clinical trial.

Roughly 40% of patients with advanced, progressive gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors treated with pembrolizumab in combination with lanreotide achieved stable disease, according to results from the phase 1b/2 PLANET clinical trial presented during the 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancer Symposium.

Immunotherapy with pembrolizumab in combination with capecitabine-based chemotherapy and the VEGF inhibitor bevacizumab, appeared tolerable as treatment of patients with microsatellite stable metastatic colorectal cancer, showing a safety profile that was expected with the drug, results from a phase 2 study show.

Following neoadjuvant chemotherapy with or without pembrolizumab in patients with high-risk early-stage breast cancer, the presence of ctDNA was a biomarker for response and distant recurrence-free survival.

Treatment with tesetaxel plus a reduced dose of capecitabine improved progression-free survival in patients with HER2–, HR+ metastatic breast cancer compared with the FDA-approved dose of capecitabine alone.

In the phase 3 PENELOPE-B clinical trial, adding 1 year of palbociclib to endocrine therapy did not demonstrate improvement in invasive disease-free survival in patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer who are at high risk of relapse following neoadjuvant chemotherapy, according to results presented at the 2020 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

For patients with node-negative early breast cancer, RSClin, an intergration of the 21-gene expression assay and clinical pathologic features, provided more prognostic information compared with the 21-gene recurrence score or clinical pathologic features alone, as well as a more precise prediction of absolute chemotherapy benefit.

Using 5- HT3 inhibitors and early intervention with loperamide was shown to manage gastrointestinal adverse events oral paclitaxel and encequidar in patients with metastatic breast cancer, according to a study presented during the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Joseph A. Sparano, MD, discusses how identifying the risk of recurrence in patients with breast cancer can help inform treatment decisions.

Sacituzumab govitecan led to improvements in response rates and progression-free survival (PFS) compared with chemotherapy for patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer who had stable brain metastases in a subgroup analysis from the phase 3 ASCENT trial.

In the phase 3 PROTECTIVE-2 trial, patient with breast cancer who received plinabulin and pegfilgrastim experienced a reduction in the incidence of profound neutropenia that was 53% more effective than that of chemotherapy, according to findings presented during the 2020 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

The GP2 immunotherapy in combination with granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor induced a 100% disease-free survival with potent responses as treatment of patients with HER2/neu 3–positive disease who received adjuvant trastuzumab .

Treatment with amcenestrant demonstrated antitumor activity in postmenopausal women with heavily pretreated advanced or metastatic estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer.

Pathologic complete responses were improved when neoadjuvant atezolizumab was added to nab-paclitaxel followed by doxorubicin plus cyclophosphamide compared with placebo in combination with chemotherapy as treatment of patients with early triple-negative breast cancer without adding additional treatment burden to patients.

Ipatasertib in combination with paclitaxel failed to demonstrate a significant improvement in progression-free survival compared with placebo plus paclitaxel as treatment of patients with PIK3CA/AKT1/PTEN-altered locally advanced, unresectable or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.

Sacituzumab govitecan demonstrated clinical benefit compared with physician’s choice of therapy as treatment of patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, irrespective of Trop-2 expression, but greater efficacy was seen in patients with a medium or high Trop-2 score.

Subgroup analyses of a phase 3 randomized trial continue to support a role for the addition of pembrolizumab to chemotherapy in the frontline setting for patients with advanced triple-negative breast cancer, with the greatest benefit derived by those with higher PD-L1 expression by combined positive score.