Merry-Jennifer Markham, MD, ASCO’s Cancer Communications Chair, gives her views on key papers presented at the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program, addressing gynecologic malignancies and COVID-19.
Nancy U. Lin, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the HER2CLIMB study of patients with previously treated HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer that had metastasized to the brain. Adding tucatinib to trastuzumab and capecitabine doubled the intracranial response rate and reduced the risk of death by nearly half, compared with trastuzumab plus capecitabine (Abstract 1005).
Farhad Ravandi-Kashani, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses updates from a phase I dose-escalation study of AMG 330, a bispecific T-cell engager molecule. It showed early evidence of an acceptable safety profile, drug tolerability, and antileukemic activity, supporting further dose escalation in patients with acute myeloid leukemia (Abstract 7508).
Ursula A. Matulonis, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses three important studies focusing on newer therapies for patients with recurrent platinum-sensitive, platinum-agnostic, and advanced recurrent ovarian cancers (Abstracts 6003, 6004, and 6005).
Meletios A. Dimopoulos, MD, of the University of Athens, discusses phase III results from the BOSTON trial, which showed that once-weekly selinexor, bortezomib, and dexamethasone significantly improved progression-free survival and overall response rates compared with twice-weekly bortezomib and dexamethasone in patients previously treated for multiple myeloma (Abstract 8501).
Peter Reichardt, MD, PhD, of Helios Klinikum Berlin-Buch, discusses the 10-year survival analysis of 3 years vs 1 year of adjuvant imatinib for patients with high-risk gastrointestinal stromal tumor. The study found that about 50% of deaths can be avoided with longer imatinib treatment (Abstract 11503).
