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).
Dor Abelman, BS, of the University of Toronto, reviews results of a comparison of two minimally invasive measurable residual disease (MRD) assays—BM-informed cfDNA whole-genome sequencing (cfWGS) and plasma proteomic MRD (EasyM)—in patients with multiple myeloma (Abstract 7546).
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).
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).
Mohammed Al-Jumayli, MD, of H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, discusses the effects of the use of a multimodal, digitally supported prehabilitation program among adults aged 65 years and older undergoing surgery for hepatobiliary cancer; the model was associated with favorable short-term functional performance signals and high levels of engagement (Abstract 12039).
Walter Weber, MD, of University Hospital Basel, presents data from the international randomized phase III PREPEC trial (OPBC-02), which found prepectoral implant-based breast reconstruction (IBBR) significantly and relevantly improved long-term quality of life—at the cost of a higher risk of loss or replacement of expander or implant—compared to subpectoral IBBR (Abstract 504).