ESMO 2017 Highlights

For the first time, a randomized clinical trial has shown significant tumor shrinkage with a phos­phoinositide-3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitor in patients with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive, HER2-negative early breast cancer. The phase 3 study LORELEI compared neoadjuvant therapy with letrozole plus placebo versus letrozole plus taselisib, a PI3K inhibitor, in this patient population.

Madrid, Spain—Maintenance therapy with the poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor rucaparib (Rubraca) after response to platinum-containing therapy significantly improved progression-free survival (PFS) by 11.2 months in patients with recurrent ovarian cancer compared with placebo, according to overall results of the ARIEL3 trial. The study was presented at the 2017 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress.

Madrid, Spain—Durvalumab (Imfinzi), a PD-L1 inhibitor, improved progression-free survival (PFS) by 11.2 months compared with placebo in patients with locally advanced, unresectable stage III non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that did not progress after standard treatment with chemoradiotherapy. These results—presented at the 2017 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress—come from PACIFIC, the first phase 3 clinical trial of a PD-L1 inhibitor in patients with locally advanced NSCLC outside of the metastatic setting.