Positive results from the phase III NIAGARA trial showed perioperative treatment with the PD-L1 blocker durvalumab in combination with neoadjuvant chemotherapy demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in the primary endpoint of event-free survival and the key secondary endpoint of overall survival vs neoadjuvant chemotherapy alone for patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer. Patients were treated with durvalumab in combination with neoadjuvant chemotherapy before radical cystectomy followed by durvalumab as adjuvant monotherapy.

An updated overall survival analysis of the phase III HIMALAYA study, now at 5 years, has confirmed the robust benefit for the STRIDE regimen of durvalumab plus tremelimumab in unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.At the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2024 (Abstract 947MO), investigators reported a doubling of 5-year survival, which was 19.6% with STRIDE vs 9.4% with sorafenib alone—a 24% reduction in the risk of death. This benefit was accentuated in patients achieving disease control, and no additional safety concerns were observed with extended follow-up.

Updated data from the global, multicenter, single-arm phase II TRUST-II trial, which were reported by Liu et al during the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) 2024 World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC; Abstract MA06.03), continued to demonstrate robust overall and intracranial responses with the next-generation ROS1 tyrosine kinase inhibitor taletrectinib in patients with locally advanced or metastatic ROS1-positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), regardless of their prior tyrosine kinase inhibitor exposure status and geographic region.

Studies reported at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2024 reveal new groups of women with early-stage cervical and endometrial cancers who gain clinically meaningful benefit from adding immunotherapy to current standard treatments, and a first-in-human study found “promising” antitumor activity with a novel antibody-drug conjugate targeting the protein claudin 6 in heavily pretreated patients with ovarian and endometrial cancers.