Shailender Bhatia, MD, on Adjuvant Avelumab in Patients With Metastatic Merkel Cell Carcinoma
ASCO 2026
Shailender Bhatia, MD, of the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, presents data from the phase III ADAM trial, a multicenter, randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled study of the anti–PD-L1 antibody avelumab in patients with Merkel cell carcinoma and lymph node metastases (Abstract LBA9504).
Suneel Kamath, MD, of Cleveland Clinic, discusses a study that found tissue tumor mutation burden (TMB) was a stronger predictor of immunotherapy outcomes than blood-based circulating tumor DNA testing, with high tissue TMB associated with a longer time to treatment failure (Abstract 2580).
The ASCO Post Staff
Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, of Cleveland Clinic, provides an update on the DESTINY-Breast05 trial, which is an ongoing phase III trial investigating postneoadjuvant trastuzumab deruxtecan (T-DXd) as compared with trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) in patients with HER2-positive breast cancer with residual invasive disease and node-positive disease at surgery or inoperable disease at diagnosis. Dr. Abraham makes special note of rates of interstitial lung disease seen in the trial and methods of management.
The ASCO Post Staff
Thomas A. Jandl, MD, PhD, of Stony Brook University Hospital, discusses data from part 1B of the OLYMPIA-3 trial, which showed that among patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), the safety profile of the first-line combination of odronextamab and CHOP chemotherapy was generally manageable and preliminary efficacy was encouraging, with no meaningful differences between regimens. Additionally, combination with odronextamab did not impact the delivery of CHOP (Abstract 7009).
Lorenza Rimassa, MD, of IRCCS Humanitas Research Hospital, and David James Pinato, MD, PhD, of Imperial College London, discuss positive phase III findings in intermediate-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with immunotherapy-based combinations with TACE, second-line data from IMbrave251, and novel targeted and bispecific antibody therapies.
The ASCO Post Staff
Atish Choudhury, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, talks about findings from the phase II A-DREAM/Alliance A032101 trial, which explored the possibility of androgen-deprivation (ADT) interruption in patients with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer who had an exceptional response to androgen receptor pathway inhibitors (ARPIs) (Abstract 5004).