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.
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).
Thierry André, MD, of Hôpital Saint-Antoine, discusses the phase III results from KEYNOTE-177, which showed that, compared with standard chemotherapy of FOLFOX or FOLFIRI, pembrolizumab doubled median progression-free survival, from 8.2 months to 16.5 months, in patients with microsatellite instability–high/mismatch repair–deficient metastatic colorectal cancer (Abstract LBA4).
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).
Leora Horn, MD, of Vanderbilt University, discusses the results of the TERAVOLT study, launched by the Thoracic Cancers International COVID-19 Collaboration. It examined the impact of specific chemotherapy and immunotherapy regimens on hospitalization and risk of death in patients with thoracic malignancies who are also infected with COVID-19 (Abstract LBA111).
Rachel E. Sanborn, MD, of the Providence Cancer Institute, discusses three key abstracts on EGFR-mutated non–small cell lung cancer: a final overall survival analysis of bevacizumab plus erlotinib; concurrent osimertinib plus gefitinib for first-line treatment; and first-line treatment with a tyrosine kinase inhibitor with or without aggressive upfront local radiation therapy (Abstracts 9506, 9507, 9508).
