Jennifer A. Ligibel, MD, on Early Breast Cancer and Weight Loss: Results From the BWEL Trial
2023 ASCO Annual Meeting
Jennifer A. Ligibel, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses a telephone-based weight loss intervention that induced clinically meaningful weight loss in patients with breast cancer who had overweight and obesity, across demographic and tumor factors. Additional tailoring of the intervention may possibly enhance weight loss in Black and younger patients as well (Abstract 12001).
The ASCO Post Staff
Amer Methqal Zeidan, MBBS, MHS, of Yale University and Yale Cancer Center, discusses phase III findings on the first-in-class telomerase inhibitor imetelstat, which was given to patients with heavily transfusion-dependent non-del(5q) lower-risk myelodysplastic syndromes that are resistant to erythropoiesis-stimulating agents. Imetelstat resulted in a significant and sustained red blood cell (RBC) transfusion independence in 40% of these heavily transfused patients. The response was also durable and accompanied by an impressive median hemoglobin rise of 3.6 g/dL, and seen in patients with and without ring sideroblasts. Importantly, reduced variant allele frequency was observed in the most commonly mutated myeloid genes which correlated with duration of transfusion independence and hemoglobin rise, therefore suggesting a disease-modifying potential of this agent (Abstract 7004).
The ASCO Post Staff
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).
The ASCO Post Staff
Rana R. McKay, MD, of the University of California, San Diego, and Brian I. Rini, MD, of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, discuss the 5-year follow-up results with the combination of a checkpoint inhibitor plus a VEGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor as first-line treatment for patients with advanced clear cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Pembrolizumab plus axitinib continued to demonstrate improved survival outcomes as well as overall response rate vs sunitinib for patients with previously untreated disease (Abstract LBA4501).
The ASCO Post Staff
Nirav N. Shah, MD, of the Medical College of Wisconsin, discusses phase II results showing that split-dose R-CHOP offers older patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) an equivalent dose intensity as R-CHOP-21 through a fractionated dosing schedule, improving tolerability. At the end of treatment for these older patients, a complete response rate of 71% was comparable to outcomes with R-CHOP in younger patients with the disease (Abstract 7554).
The ASCO Post Staff
Thomas E. Hutson, DO, PharmD, of Texas Oncology, discusses the 4-year follow-up results from the CLEAR study for patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The data showed that lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab continues to demonstrate clinically meaningful benefit vs sunitinib in overall and progression-free survival, as well as in overall and complete response rates, in first-line treatment (Abstract 4502).
