Samra Turajlic, MBBS, PhD, on Understanding Metastatic Disease in Renal Cancer and Melanoma
AACR Annual Meeting 2021
Samra Turajlic, MBBS, PhD, of The Francis Crick Institute, discusses our limited understanding of metastases in terms of the timing of dissemination, the many metastatic phenotypes and varieties of seeding, as well as how the spread of cancer evades the immune system and resists treatment. Expanding this knowledge base is critical to better managing malignant disease.
The ASCO Post Staff
Jeanne Tie, MD, MBChB, of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, discusses how to improve the current, somewhat imprecise, approach based on pathologic staging alone, used to select patients for adjuvant treatment. Circulating tumor DNA analysis after curative-intent treatment may detect minimal residual disease and might be used to predict recurrence and adjuvant treatment efficacy across multiple tumor types.
The ASCO Post Staff
Katelyn T. Byrne, PhD, of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses the first in-depth analysis of the impact of selicrelumab, an anti-CD40 antibody, which was found to enrich T cells in pancreatic tumors, activate the immune system, and alter the tumor stroma (Abstract CT005).
The ASCO Post Staff
Charlotte E. Ariyan, MD, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses improved outcomes with metastasectomy in the setting of checkpoint inhibitors, with the removal of residual disease and “escape” lesions. Surgical outcomes may also be better than targeted treatments, although long-term data and biomarkers are needed to confirm these findings.
The ASCO Post Staff
Michel Sadelain, MD, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the challenges in developing CAR T-cell therapy, as well as the progress being made, such as creating hybrid CAR and T-cell receptors that should enable T cells to recognize much lower levels of antigens. The field, he says, is poised to take on a range of solid tumors to extend the successes in hematologic malignancies.
The ASCO Post Staff
Jessica C. Hassel, MD, of University Hospital Heidelberg, discusses phase III results of a study that compared tebentafusp, a bispecific fusion protein, with investigator’s choice in patients with metastatic uveal melanoma. Tebentafusp nearly halved the risk of death among patients in the trial with this rare eye cancer (Abstract CT002).
