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
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
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
Martin Reck, MD, PhD, of Germany’s Lung Clinic Grosshansdorf, details two trials that included patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer: 3-year survival outcomes in the EMPOWER-Lung 1 study of continued cemiplimab-rwlc beyond disease progression with the addition of chemotherapy, and phase III results from the IFCT-1701 trial of nivolumab plus ipilimumab 6-month treatment vs treatment continuation (LBA54 and Abstract 972O).
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
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).
