Thomas Powles, MD, PhD, and Christopher Sweeney, MBBS, on RCC: Expert Review of Two Key Studies on Atezolizumab, Nivolumab, and Ipilimumab
ESMO Congress 2022
Thomas Powles, MD, PhD, of Barts Health NHS Trust, Queen Mary University of London, and Christopher Sweeney, MBBS, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discuss two important phase III studies on renal cell cancer (RCC) presented at ESMO 2022: IMmotion010, which examined the efficacy and safety of atezolizumab vs placebo as adjuvant therapy in patients with RCC at increased risk of recurrence after nephrectomy; and CheckMate 914, which compared nivolumab monotherapy or nivolumab combined with ipilimumab vs placebo in patients with localized disease who underwent radical or partial nephrectomy and who are at high risk of relapse. (Abstract LBA4 & LBA66).
The ASCO Post Staff
Toni K. Choueiri, MD, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Laurence Albiges, MD, PhD, of France’s Gustave Roussy Cancer Centre, discuss phase III findings showing that cabozantinib in combination with nivolumab and ipilimumab reduced the risk of disease progression or death compared with the combination of nivolumab plus ipilimumab in patients with previously untreated advanced renal cell carcinoma of IMDC (the International Metastatic RCC Database Consortium) intermediate or poor risk. However, the combination of cabozantinib, nivolumab, and ipilimumab vs nivolumab plus ipilimumab did not demonstrate an overall survival benefit to patients (Abstract LBA8).
The ASCO Post Staff
Julien Taïeb, MD, PhD, of Paris Descartes University, discusses phase II results from the SAMCO-PRODIGE 54 trial, which shows the efficacy and safety of avelumab in the second-line treatment of patients with deficient DNA mismatch–repair microsatellite-instability metastatic colorectal cancer. According to Dr. Taïeb, the study indirectly suggests this population should be treated as soon as possible with an immune checkpoint inhibitor (Abstract LBA23).
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
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
Jean-Pascal Machiels, MD, PhD, of Belgium’s Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc (UCLouvain), discusses the primary results of the phase III KEYNOTE-412 study of pembrolizumab plus chemoradiation therapy (CRT) vs placebo plus CRT for patients with locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (Abstract LBA5).
