Erika P. Hamilton, MD, of Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses results of the nextMONARCH study, which indicated that combining abemaciclib with tamoxifen improved overall survival. Dr. Hamilton also details adverse events in different arms of the study (Abstract 273O).
Erica L. Mayer, MD, MPH, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses an initial analysis of phase III findings from the PALLAS trial, which suggested the benefits observed in the metastatic setting with palbociclib plus endocrine therapy did not translate into the earlier adjuvant setting for patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer. Long-term follow-up is ongoing (Abstract LBA12).
Stephen R.D. Johnston, MD, PhD, of The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, discusses phase III study findings from the global monarchE trial, which showed that when added to standard adjuvant endocrine therapy, abemaciclib is the first CDK4/6 inhibitor to improve invasive disease–free survival in hormone receptor–positive high-risk early breast cancer (Abstract LBA5_PR).
Read more on the monarchE trial in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Thierry Andre, MD, of Hôpital Saint-Antoine, discusses phase III KEYNOTE-177 findings on the reduced risk of disease progression or death in patients receiving pembrolizumab monotherapy as a first-line treatment of microsatellite instability–high and/or mismatch repair–deficient metastatic colorectal cancer (Abstract 396O).
Ezra E.W. Cohen, MD, of the University of California, San Diego, discusses primary results of the phase III JAVELIN trial of locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck, in which the immune checkpoint inhibitor avelumab was combined with chemoradiotherapy followed by avelumab maintenance. Although the study results were negative, Dr. Cohen suggests other regimens that may prove to be effective (Abstract 910O).
Paolo A. Ascierto, MD, of the Istituto Nazionale Tumori, discusses phase II results on progression-free survival for patients with advanced melanoma in the SECOMBIT study, whose aim is to evaluate the different sequencing of a BRAF inhibitor (encorafenib) plus a MEK inhibitor (binimetinib) with ipilimumab plus nivolumab (Abstract LBA45).
