Richard L. Schilsky, MD, Chief Medical Officer of ASCO, talks about some of the most important and practice-changing findings presented this year at the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program, including the use of targeted and immunotherapies in earlier lines of therapy, where they have made a significant impact.
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).
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).
Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil, of the University of Michigan, and Narjust Duma, MD, of the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, discuss the state of diversity in the hematology-oncology workforce, mechanisms that lead to inequities, promising interventions, and where the field should go next (Abstract 11000).
Fatima Cardoso, MD, of Lisbon’s Champalimaud Cancer Center, discusses the long-term results of MINDACT, a large prospective trial showing the clinical utility of the 70-gene signature MammaPrint for adjuvant chemotherapy decision-making. The primary distant metastasis–free survival endpoint at 5 years continued to be met in chemotherapy-untreated women with clinical-high/genomic-low risk disease (Abstract 506).
Patricia Pautier, MD, of Institut Gustave Roussy, discusses final results of the phase II LMS-02 study, which showed the combination of doxorubicin and trabectedin to be an effective first-line therapy for patients with leiomyosarcoma, with an acceptable safety profile (Abstract 11506).
