Emiliano Calvo, MD

Udai Banerji, MD

Press briefing moderator and meeting Co-Chair, Emiliano Calvo, MD, Director of the START Madrid Group and Director of Clinical Research at the START Madrid-Centro Integral Oncologico Clara Campal Hospital, stated: “Using drugs that are already approved and in worldwide use, and to be able to generate a hypothesis on how to optimize them to maximize their effects, is of great value.”

Udai Banerji, MD, Deputy Director of the Drug Development Unit at the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, commented: “This hypothesis-generating population-based study offers interesting insights into the role of the interaction of the immune and cardiovascular systems in promoting cancer.”

Dr. Banerji continued: “There is room for improvement in the clinical efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitors such as anti–PD-1/L1 therapies. If these findings are validated in preclinical experiments and clinical trials, this would be a tremendous opportunity to repurpose existing cardiovascular drugs to be used in combination with immune checkpoint drugs to improve outcomes in patients with cancer.” 

DISCLOSURE: Dr. Calvo and Dr. Banerji reported no conflicts of interest.