Myriam Chalabi, MD, PhD, on Colon Cancer: New Findings on Neoadjuvant Immune Checkpoint Inhibition
ESMO Congress 2022
Myriam Chalabi, MD, PhD, of The Netherlands Cancer Institute, discusses data from the NICHE-2 study, which confirms previously reported pathologic responses to short-term neoadjuvant nivolumab plus ipilimumab in patients with locally advanced mismatch repair–deficient colon cancer. Survival data suggest neoadjuvant immunotherapy may become standard of care and allow further exploration of organ-sparing approaches. (Abstract LBA7).
The ASCO Post Staff
Neil D. Gross, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses data from a phase II study, which showed that neoadjuvant cemiplimab-rwlc in patients with stage II–IV (M0) resectable cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma is active and may enable function-preserving surgery in some cases (Abstract 789O).
The ASCO Post Staff
Bernd Kasper, MD, PhD, of Germany’s Mannheim Cancer Center, discusses phase III data from the DeFi trial, the largest study conducted to date for patients with desmoid tumors. The trial showed that the gamma secretase inhibitor nirogacestat demonstrated improvements in all primary and secondary efficacy endpoints. Although considered benign because of their inability to metastasize, desmoid tumors can cause significant morbidity and, occasionally, mortality in patients (Abstract LBA2).
The ASCO Post Staff
Axel Bex, MD, PhD, of the Netherlands Cancer Institute, discusses phase III findings from the IMmotion010 study, which evaluated the efficacy and safety of atezolizumab vs placebo in patients with renal cell cancer who are at high risk of disease recurrence following nephrectomy (Abstract LBA66).
The ASCO Post Staff
Laurence Buisseret, MD, PhD, of Belgium’s Institut Jules Bordet, discusses phase II results from the SYNERGY trial, which tested first-line chemoimmunotherapy of durvalumab, paclitaxel, and carboplatin with or without the anti-CD73 antibody oleclumab in patients with advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. Although adding oleclumab to durvalumab with chemoimmunotherapy did not increase the clinical benefit rate at week 24, research is ongoing to better understand the mechanisms of response and resistance to this study combination (Abstract LBA17).
The ASCO Post Staff
Ana Oaknin, MD, PhD, of Barcelona’s Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, discusses an analysis of long-term survival from the EMPOWER-Cervical 1/GOG-3016/ENGOT-cx9 trial. Cemiplimab-rwlc is the first immunotherapy to demonstrate an overall survival benefit as a second-line monotherapy for patients with recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer previously treated with platinum-based chemotherapy but not immunotherapy. The benefit was sustained in this population (Abstract 519MO).
