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.
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).
Suresh S. Ramalingam, MD, of Emory University, discusses a 3-year update from the CheckMate 227, Part 1, trial, which showed that nivolumab plus ipilimumab continued to provide durable and long-term overall survival benefit vs platinum-doublet chemotherapy as first-line treatment for patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (Abstract 9500).
Rana R. McKay, MD, of the University of California, San Diego, discusses the results of a phase II trial of intense neoadjuvant hormone therapy followed by radical prostatectomy in men with high-risk prostate cancer. The data show that 21% of patients had a favorable pathologic response (Abstract 5503).
Eric Zhou, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses an existing online program called SHUTi (Sleep Healthy Using the Internet), that he and his team adapted to the needs of adolescent and young adult cancer survivors. After six online cognitive behavior therapy sessions delivered over 8 weeks, the 22 patients in the study reported a significant reduction in insomnia severity, daytime sleepiness, and fatigue as well as an overall improvement in quality of life.
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).
