Ajay K. Nooka, MBBS, of Winship Cancer Center of Emory University, discusses phase II findings showing that, in patients with high-risk myeloma, maintenance therapy with carfilzomib, pomalidomide, and dexamethasone deepened responses. Measurable residual disease negativity was attained in 80% of patients.
Rami Manochakian, MD, of Mayo Clinic Florida, offers his perspective on the new phase III findings on osimertinib, a third-generation, central nervous system EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor, which demonstrated an unprecedented overall survival benefit for patients with EGFR-mutated, stage IB–IIIA non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after complete tumor resection, with or without adjuvant chemotherapy (Abstract LBA3).
Shilpa Gupta, MD, of Cleveland Clinic, discusses the results from the EV-103 study and the unmet need for effective first-line therapies in cisplatin-ineligible patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma. After nearly 4 years of follow-up, the trial findings showed that enfortumab vedotin-ejfv plus pembrolizumab continues to demonstrate promising survival trends with rapid and durable responses in this population (Abstract 4505).
Jennifer A. Woyach, MD, of The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses results of a phase III study showing that progression-free survival with ibrutinib plus obinutuzumab plus venetoclax is not superior to ibrutinib plus obinutuzumab for treatment-naive older patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in the setting of the COVID-19 pandemic. Long-term follow-up will determine whether there are advantages to obinutuzumab plus venetoclax, with special attention to measurable residual disease and therapy discontinuation (Abstract 7500).
Carmen E. Guerra, MD, MSCE, of the University of Pennsylvania Abramson Cancer Center, discusses three key abstracts presented at ASCO: strategies to increase accrual of underrepresented populations in Alliance NCTN trials, how patient-clinician education can strengthen partnerships and improve diversity in breast and lung cancer trials, and mediators of racial and ethnic inequities in clinical trial participation among U.S. patients with cancer from 2011 to 2022 (Abstracts 6509, 6510, 6511).
Allison Betof Warner, MD, PhD, of Stanford University Medical Center, and Adnan Khattak, MBBS, FRACP, PhD, of Australia’s Hollywood Private Hospital & Edith Cowan University, discuss the use of the mRNA-4157 vaccine in combination with pembrolizumab as adjuvant therapy for resected high-risk melanoma, which prolonged distant metastasis–free survival compared with pembrolizumab alone. These results provide further evidence that a personalized neoantigen approach is potentially beneficial (Abstract LBA9503).
