Eric Jonasch, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses phase II study findings on the oral HIF-2α inhibitor known as MK-6482, which showed efficacy and tolerability in patients with Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL)–associated clear cell renal cell carcinoma as well as responses in other VHL-related lesions (Abstract 5003).
As Thomas Powles, MD, PhD, of Queen Mary University of London, prepares to deliver his late-breaking presentation at the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program (LBA-1), he talks with Christopher Sweeney, MBBS, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, about current therapy: PD1/PDL1 inhibition in second-line treatment and as monotherapy in the first-line setting, as well as the concept of maintenance switch.
Douglas B. Johnson, MD, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, discusses three important melanoma abstracts: the need for more than two doses of nivolumab plus ipilimumab in combination immunotherapy; antitumor activity for low-dose ipilimumab with pembrolizumab after disease progression on PD-1 antibodies; and ipilimumab alone or in combination with anti–PD-1 therapy for metastatic disease resistant to PD-1 monotherapy (Abstracts 10003, 10004, and 10005).
Sara A. Hurvitz, MD, of UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, summarizes four breast cancer studies: KATHERINE, on adjuvant trastuzumab vs trastuzumab in patients with residual invasive disease after neoadjuvant therapy for HER2-positive breast cancer; KAITLIN, on trastuzumab emtansine and pertuzumab vs trastuzumab, pertuzumab, and taxane after anthracyclines as adjuvant therapy for high-risk HER2-positive early breast cancer; TRAIN-2, on neoadjuvant chemotherapy with or without anthracyclines for HER2-positive disease; and PHERGain, on chemotherapy de-escalation using an FDG-PET/CT and pathologic response–adapted strategy in HER2-positive early breast cancer (Abstracts 500, 501, 502, and 503).
Christopher Nutting, MD, PhD, of the Royal Marsden Hospital and Institute of Cancer Research, discusses phase III results from the first study to demonstrate the functional benefit of swallow-sparing intensity-modulated radiotherapy in oro- and hypopharyngeal cancers (Abstract 6508).
Mikkael A. Sekeres, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, discusses data from a phase II study of pevonedistat plus azacitidine vs azacitidine alone in patients with higher-risk myelodysplastic syndromes, chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, or low-blast acute myeloid leukemia (Abstract 7506).
