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
Marleen Kok, MD, PhD, of The Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam, discusses the initial results from the BELLINI trial, which tested whether short-term preoperative nivolumab, either as monotherapy or in combination with low-dose doxorubicin or novel immunotherapy combinations, can induce immune activation in patients with early-stage triple-negative breast cancer with tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (Abstract LBA13).
The ASCO Post Staff
Christelle de la Fouchardiere, MD, of France’s Centre Léon Bérard, discusses phase III findings from the PRODIGE 65–UCGI 36–GEMPAX UNICANCER study, which evaluated whether the combination of gemcitabine and paclitaxel improves overall survival compared with gemcitabine alone in patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma after FOLFIRINOX failure or intolerance (Abstract LBA60).
The ASCO Post Staff
John B.A.G. Haanen, MD, PhD, of The Netherlands Cancer Institute, discusses recent phase III findings, which show that tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) improve progression-free survival compared with ipilimumab by 50% in patients with advanced melanoma after not responding to anti–PD-1 treatment. Around 50% of TIL-treated patients had a response, and 20% had a complete response (Abstract LBA3).
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).
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).
