Daniel A. Ermann, MD, on First-Line Therapy for CLL: Real-World Outcomes Among Medicare Beneficiaries
ASCO 2026
Daniel A. Ermann, MD, of Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah School of Medicine, presents findings from a retrospective cohort study which used a large U.S. database to evaluate clinical outcomes among Medicare beneficiaries treated with first-line therapy for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) (Abstract 7047).
To learn more about this data, read a related article in Oncology and Therapy.
Elizabeth Smyth, MD, of Oxford NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, Churchill Hospital, discusses three major studies presented at this year’s meeting: the antibody-drug conjugate izalontamab brengitecan in recurrent or metasatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (Abstract 4008); the ATTRACTION-6 study of chemoimmunotherapy in HER2-negative advanced gastric/gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer (Abstract 4006); and an investigational EP4 antagonist in combination with chemoimmunotherapy as a first-line strategy for HER2-negative gastric/GEJ cancer (Abstract 4007).
The ASCO Post Staff
Veronica Diermayr, PhD, of EDDC and A*STAR, discusses the use of artificial intelligence (AI) driven strategy called H&E 2.0 in gastric and esophageal cancer. Researchers tested the feasibility of training deep-learning models on hematoxylin and eosin images of gastroesophageal carcinomas and their ability to predict EBC-129 antigen expression directly from these images. EBC-129 is an experimental antibody-drug conjugate that targets N256-glycosylated CEACAM5/6, which is highly expressed on solid tumors, including gastroesophageal cancers (Abstract 4018).
The ASCO Post Staff
Lillian L. Siu, MD, of Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, discusses the clinical utility of liquid biopsy testing for common KRAS variants to facilitate matching patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma to appropriate early-phase trials (Abstract 3049).
The ASCO Post Staff
Julie R. Brahmer, MD, FASCO, of the Bloomberg–Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, provides expert commentary on the overall survival results from the phase III HARMONi-6 trial presented in this year’s Plenary Session. The study compared ivonescimab plus chemotherapy vs tislelizumab plus chemotherapy in previously untreated patients with advanced squamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (Abstract LBA4).
The ASCO Post Staff
Brendan Heiden, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine, discusses data from a unique real-world cohort of nearly 1 million patients in the Veterans Health Administration; researchers evaluated whether tobacco smoking duration improves lung cancer risk prediction compared with tobacco pack-years (Abstract 8004).
