Kohei Shitara, MD, on G-HOPE 001: Arcotatug Tavatecan in GI/GEJ Cancer
ESMO Congress 2026
Kohei Shitara, MD, of the National Cancer Center Hospital East in Kashiwa, Japan, presents findings from the prespecified first interim analysis of the phase III G-HOPE 001 trial, which showed that arcotatug tavatecan, a CLDN18.2-targeted antibody-drug conjugate, demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in progression-free survival with a manageable safety profile vs treatment of physician’s choice for patients with CLDN18.2-positive gastric or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer in the third-line and beyond setting (Abstract LBA77).
The phase III HARMONi-GI1 trial is evaluating the efficacy and safety of ivonescimab, a PD-1/VEGF bispecific antibody, plus chemotherapy vs durvalumab plus chemotherapy as first-line treatment for advanced biliary tract cancer. At the ESMO Congress 2026, invited discussant James J. Harding, MD, reviewed the results from the preplanned interim analysis (Abstract LBA8).
Domenica Lorusso, MD, PhD, of Humanitas University, summarizes findings from the phase III TroFuse-005/ENGOT-en23/GOG-3095 study, which showed sacituzumab tirumotecan, a TROP2-directed antibody-drug conjugate, provided statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvements in progression-free and overall survival and response vs treatment of physician’s choice in patients with previously treated advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer, with manageable safety (Abstract LBA11).
Yelena Y. Janjigian, MD, FASCO, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center—a co-chair of a Presidential Symposium at the ESMO Congress 2026—reviews results from the phase III trial that looked at the CLDN18.2-targeting antibody-drug conjugate sonesitatug vedotin vs investigator’s choice of therapy after at least one prior therapy for gastroesophageal cancer expressing CLDN18.2 in ≥ 25% tumor cells with membranous staining at any intensity (Abstract LBA7).
Sanjiv S. Gangaram-Panday, PhD, of Erasmus University, presents 5-year outcomes from the Surgery As Needed for Oesophageal Cancer (SANO) trial. The study previously demonstrated that active surveillance is noninferior to standard surgery in terms of 2-year overall survival in patients with a complete clinical response after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy; active surveillance also resulted in improved quality of life (Abstract LBA78).
Brian M. Slomovitz, MD, of Mount Sinai Medical Center, discusses results from a phase III, randomized, open-label study of first-line pembrolizumab vs carboplatin/paclitaxel in patients with mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) advanced or recurrent endometrial carcinoma (Abstract LBA12).
