Peter Schmid, MD, PhD, and Hope S. Rugo, MD, on Breast Cancer: Next Steps in Immunotherapy
2019 ASCO Annual Meeting
Hope S. Rugo, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, and Peter Schmid, MD, PhD, of Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, discuss ongoing trials of immunotherapy for early triple-negative breast cancer; immunotherapy in other disease subtypes such as estrogen receptor–positive and HER2-positive; and checkpoint inhibition in PD-L1–negative disease.
Patricia A. Ganz, MD, of NRG Oncology and Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA, discusses the NRG/NSABP phase III findings, which showed that partial-breast irradiation was more convenient and resulted in less fatigue but slightly poorer cosmesis at 36 months in patients who did not receive chemotherapy (Abstract 508).
Amy J. Davidoff, PhD, of Yale University School of Public Health, discusses study findings on how expanding access to Medicaid through the Affordable Care Act (ACA) reduced racial disparities among patients with advanced cancer. Before the ACA was implemented in 2014, black patients with cancer were less likely than white patients to receive timely treatment, but in states that did not adopt Medicaid expansion, racial disparities persist (Abstract LBA1).
Karim Fizazi, MD, PhD, of the Institut Gustave Roussy, University of Paris-Sud, discusses study findings showing that not only does darolutamide prolong metastasis-free survival, it maintains quality of life as well as delays worsening of pain and disease-related symptoms compared with placebo for patients with nonmetastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (Abstract 5000).
Christopher Sweeney, MBBS, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Ian D. Davis, MBBS, PhD, of Monash University and Eastern Health, discuss the Australian and New Zealand Urogenital and Prostate Cancer Trials Group, working globally to speed clinical research in and treatment of urogenital cancers.
Matteo Lambertini, MD, PhD, of the University of Genova and Policlinico San Martino Hospital, and Hope S. Rugo, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, discuss findings from the SOPHIA trial on margetuximab plus chemotherapy vs trastuzumab plus chemotherapy in patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer after prior anti-HER2 therapies (Abstract 1000).