Clifford A. Hudis, MD, ASCO Chief Executive Officer, talks about extending the reach and impact of ASCO by partnering with patients who play a key role in advancing science through clinical trial participation. With near-record numbers of registered attendees, the 2023 Annual Meeting fostered new connections and plans for collaborations.
Christian Pfister, MD, PhD, of Rouen University Hospital, discusses phase III results from the VESPER trial, which showed that dose-dense methotrexate, vinblastine, doxorubicin, and cisplatin provided a better overall survival rate at 5 years and improved disease-specific survival compared with gemcitabine as perioperative chemotherapy in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer (Abstract LBA4507).
Aaron T. Gerds, MD, of Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute, talks about treating the anemia many patients with myelofibrosis experience because of JAK inhibitor therapy. The ACE-536-MF-001 study showed that luspatercept improved anemia and transfusion burden in this population, with a safety profile consistent with that in previous studies (Abstract 7016).
Funda Meric-Bernstam, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses interim results from the DESTINY-PanTumor02 trial, the first tumor-agnostic global study of fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) in a broad range of HER2-expressing solid tumors. This agent showed an encouraging overall response rate, particularly in patients with IHC 3+ expression; durable clinical benefit; and a manageable safety profile in these heavily pretreated patients. T-DXd may be a potential new treatment option for this population (Abstract LBA3000).
Shailender Bhatia, MD, of the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, discusses phase I/II results on the efficacy of nivolumab with or without ipilimumab in patients with recurrent or metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma. The study found that, for this rare and aggressive skin cancer, nivolumab showed clinical activity in advanced disease. However, these results from CheckMate 358 do not suggest an additional benefit with ipilimumab added to nivolumab (Abstract 9506).
Smitha Krishnamurthi, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, and Deb Schrag, MD, MPH, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discuss phase III findings from the PROSPECT trial, which showed FOLFOX chemotherapy with selective use of radiation therapy and sensitizing fluoropyrimidine (5FUCRT) is noninferior to 5FUCRT for the neoadjuvant treatment of patients with locally advanced rectal cancer, prior to low anterior resection with total mesorectal excision (Abstract LBA2).
