Oncology Times - OncTimes Talk

The CARACO prospective, multi-institutional, Phase III trial, among patients with newly diagnosed advanced epithelial ovarian cancer, found that lymphadenectomy should be omitted in patients with clinically negative lymph nodes, as well as those undergoing neoadjuvant chemotherapy and interval complete surgery. This finding from the University of Nantes was reported at the 2024 ASCO Annual Meeting...

A combination of two checkpoint inhibitors used as neoadjuvant therapy for macroscopic, resectable Stage III melanoma brought a highly statistically significant improvement over the standard of care: surgery followed by checkpoint inhibition (therapeutic lymph node dissection followed by adjuvant therapy with nivolumab, pembrolizumab or, in BRAFmut melanoma, dabrafenib + trametinib). This research...

Primary results from ASC4FIRST trial, the first study in chronic myeloid leukemia comparing current standard-of-care frontline tyrosine kinase inhibitors with the novel agent asciminib in newly diagnosed patients, were reported at the 2024 ASCO Annual Meeting. First author Timothy Hughes MD, Consultant Hematologist with the Royal Adelaide Hospital, the South Australian Health and Medical Research...

Treatment with perioperative chemotherapy, with chemotherapy before and after surgery, brought superior outcomes for patients with locally advanced esophageal adenocarcinoma, in research reported to the 2024 ASCO Annual Meeting. Lead author Jens Höppner FAChirg, FACS, MD, Director of the Department of Surgery in the University Medical Center at the University of Bielefeld in Germany, spoke wi...

Data from the DESTINY Breast06 trial using the antibody-drug conjugate trastuzumab deruxtecan to treat patients with estrogen receptor positive (HR+), human epidermal growth factor receptor-low (HER2-low), and HER2-ultralow breast cancer after endocrine therapy, show longer progression-free survival in comparison with standard chemotherapy.  After announcing the results at the 2024 ASCO Annua...

New data from the Phase III LAURA study, reported in Chicago at the ASCO 2024 Annual Meeting Plenary Session, suggest that the tyrosine kinase inhibitor osimertinib could become standard of care for treating patients whose unresectable locally advanced lung cancers test positive for mutated epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and have no progression after definitive chemoradiotherapy. In Chica...

When the immune checkpoint inhibitor durvalumab was added to standard-of-care chemoradiation treatment for patients with limited-stage small-cell lung cancer, it brought a “statistically significant and clinically meaningful” improvement in overall and progression-free survival, compared to adding placebo. This was in data from the ADRIATIC study reported in the Plenary Session at the...

An improvement over standard care in both efficacy and safety of a new combination regimen for treating Hodgkin lymphoma was discussed at the 2024 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago. The six-drug BrECADD regimen was compared with the high-achieving German-originated BEACOPP chemotherapy that has been widely adopted as standard of care. During the conference, Oncology Times reporter Peter Goodwin met u...

The 2024 AACR Annual Meeting heard that an “efficacy signal” was detected in an international Phase I study of a new radiosensitizer, tested as adjunctive therapy (combined with standard radiation plus temozolomide) in patients with recurrent glioblastoma. After reporting his group’s early findings of AZD1390, an inhibitor of ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM) kinase studied in 115 patients with...

A combination of a new mRNA vaccine used together with a programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) immune checkpoint inhibitor to treat patients with lung cancer was markedly less toxic than a combination of the same vaccine with chemotherapy. However, it was apparently just effective. This is according to findings from a study reported to the 2024 AACR Annual Meeting. The randomized study, led by the res...

A new blood test that uses artificial intelligence to analyze circulating molecular markers for the earliest signs of ovarian and other cancers has been reported by researchers. At the AACR 2024 Annual Meeting in San Diego, Victor Velculescu, MD, PhD, Co-Director of the Cancer Genetics & Epigenetics Program at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, reported his group’s validation of the test that ass...

An early study using selective inhibition of the Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) has provided evidence it could bring greater cancer control with less toxicity than the well-proven non-selective PARP 1 and PARP 2 inhibitors already in use for treating a number of tumor types. At the AACR Annual Meeting 2024, Timothy Yap, PhD, MD, MBBS, Vice President and Head of Clinical Development in the The...

Findings from a new study support a body of evidence showing that physical exercise can bring benefits to patients with advanced prostate cancer. Data from an intervention study reported at the AACR Annual Meeting 2024 are consistent with mounting epidemiological evidence showing that regular physical exercise can help patients with advanced or metastatic prostate cancer “deter” death, slow diseas...

Double checkpoint blockade using a single bispecific agent could become the new standard for treating advanced gastric cancer regardless of PD-L1 status, according to research reported at the AACR Annual Meeting 2024. The investigational bispecific antibody drug cadonilimab (used with chemotherapy) significantly extended life and delayed disease progression among patients with HER2-negative advanc...

Linvoseltamab, a B-cell maturation antigen-targeted T-cell-engaging bispecific antibody, brought robust clinical benefit to patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, including those in difficult-to-treat subgroups, in a multi-center, international study reported to the 2024 American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting. After giving his talk in San Diego, lead author Sundar...

An opportunity to detect pancreatic cancer at stages where early intervention can greatly extend life and even make cure possible seems to be on offer, according to findings from a study of a new liquid biopsy method based on so-called exosomes: subcellular molecules shed into the circulation by cancer cells. At the AACR Annual Meeting 2024 in San Diego, Peter Goodwin talked with Ajay Goel, PhD, A...

Designed with the help of artificial intelligence to recognize multiple genetic features of each patient’s tumor, a small clinical trial of a personalized therapeutic vaccine has shown durable tumor-specific immune responses in patients with surgically resected HPV-negative head and neck squamous cell cancer. The vaccine also prevented relapse in some patients. At the AACR Annual Meeting 2024, Oli...

Higher rates of satisfaction and psychosocial well-being and low complication rates were reported by patients who had a new mesh-supported prepectoral method of breast reconstruction using titanized mesh pockets after their surgery for breast cancer. At the 14th European Breast Cancer Conference in Milan, Stefan Paepke, MD, from the Interdisciplinary Breast Centre at the Technical University of Mu...

The value of adding a radiation boost to postoperative radiotherapy for patients younger than 50 with early breast cancer has been confirmed by 10 years of data from the Young Boost trial conducted in the Netherlands. However, by randomizing patients between the standard radiation boost and a lower dose boost, the study demonstrated comparable efficacy for the two boost regimens, with less toxicit...

A 30-year-long population-based study, reported at the 14th European Breast Cancer conference held in Milan, Italy, showed that breast-conserving therapy for ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) had become increasingly effective in preventing the emergence of breast cancer over the long term, but that there were still unanswered questions. The population-based Netherlands Cancer Registry retrospective...

Most patients whose breast cancer has spread to more than three lymph nodes can nevertheless be spared extensive axillary dissection, according to the findings of a study presented at the 2024 European Breast Cancer Conference in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Annemiek van Hemert, a Medical Doctor and PhD candidate at the Surgical Oncology Department of the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek-Netherlands Cancer I...

Artificial intelligence is being harnessed by a team of researchers at Leicester University in the United Kingdom to predict the risk of lymphedema (and potentially other toxicities) from the use of postoperative radiation therapy for breast cancer. The 2024 European Breast Cancer Conference heard the latest news on an artificial intelligence tool that promises to help cancer clinicians individual...

New data from the Phase III KEYNOTE-756 clinical trial show that adding pembrolizumab immunotherapy to chemotherapy before and after surgery for high-risk breast cancer (which was estrogen receptor (ER)-positive and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative) resulted in better outcomes for patients regardless of their age or menopausal status. The findings were presented at the 14th...

Offering MRI-guided partial breast irradiation before surgery to patients with low-risk breast cancer could become the norm, according to Yasmin Civil, MD, in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Amsterdam UMC in the Netherlands, who reported 5-year results from the ABLATIVE trial to the 14th European Breast Cancer Conference. The researchers found that single-dose, MRI-guided, partial brea...

Adding checkpoint inhibition immunotherapy to adjuvant chemotherapy did not improve survival among patients with triple-negative breast cancers.   These findings from a study reported at the 14th European Breast Cancer Conference were presented by Heather McArthur, MD, MPH, Clinical Director of Breast Cancer and Komen Distinguished Chair in Clinical Breast Research at the University of Texas...