Nicholas J. Short, MD, on ALL: Ponatinib Plus Blinatumomab May Help Patients Avoid Transplants
2021 ASCO Annual Meeting
Nicholas J. Short, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses early results from a phase II study which showed that combining ponatinib and blinatumomab in patients with Philadelphia chromosome–positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia may prove to be an effective chemotherapy-free regimen that might reduce the need for allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (Abstract 7001).
The ASCO Post Staff
Paolo Ghia, MD, PhD, of the Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele, discusses phase II results from the CAPTIVATE study, which examined ibrutinib plus venetoclax as a fixed-duration first-line treatment in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma (Abstract 7501).
The ASCO Post Staff
Cathy Eng, MD, of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, discusses two abstracts from a session she co-chaired: the phase II DEEPER trial, which explored the use of FOLFOXIRI plus cetuximab vs FOLFOXIRI plus bevacizumab as first-line treatment in metastatic colorectal cancer with RAS wild-type tumors; and the phase II FIRE-4.5 study, which investigated FOLFOXIRI plus either bevacizumab or cetuximab as first-line treatment of BRAF V600E–mutant advanced disease (Abstracts 3501 and 3502).
The ASCO Post Staff
Nadia Harbeck, MD, PhD, of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, discusses first phase III results from a prospective high-risk cohort of patients with luminal breast cancer, which showed a good prognosis in some women with more than four positive lymph nodes and low recurrence scores. The study also showed that a lower postendocrine Ki67 index and limited tumor burden may be promising criteria for chemotherapy de-escalation strategies, even in patients with high recurrence scores (Abstract 504).
The ASCO Post Staff
Nadia Harbeck, MD, PhD, of Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, discusses results from the ADAPT HR–/HER2+ trial, which showed, for the first time, improved pathologic complete response and survival in patients with early breast cancer who were treated weekly with a de-escalated 12-week regimen of neoadjuvant paclitaxel plus pertuzumab and trastuzumab (Abstract 503).
The ASCO Post Staff
Martin Reck, MD, PhD, of LungenClinic, discusses a 2-year update of the CheckMate 9LA study, which sought to determine whether nivolumab plus ipilimumab combined with two cycles of chemotherapy is more effective than four cycles of chemotherapy alone as a first-line treatment for patients with stage IV non–small cell lung cancer (Abstract 9000).