ASCO 2015 Highlights

San Antonio, TX—Although capecitabine (Xeloda) is approved for metastatic breast cancer, it is not clear whether it should be used in early breast cancer, and its optimal role remains to be established. A large meta-analysis sheds some light on this issue, demonstrating that capecitabine improves disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) for patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) when added to other systemic therapies, but not as a substitute for other therapies.

Miami, FL—With too much red tape regarding genetic (ie, hereditary) testing, not enough people are being identified before they have breast cancer, according to Kevin Hughes, MD, FACS, Co-Director, Avon Comprehensive Breast Evaluation Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.

The COVID-19 crisis has far-reaching implications for research in healthcare. A panel of experts explored the detrimental effects of the pandemic on the career development of research students, potential changes in the availability of clinical trials, and the anticipated shortfall of future funding for healthcare research. The session was moderated by Rob Butcher, Chief Executive Officer, Swim Across America, a charity that raises money for cancer research and funds 57 laboratories around the country.

No improvement in survival or in any key secondary end point was observed when the checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab (Tecentriq) was added to enzalutamide (Xtandi) for the treatment of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) in the phase 3 IMbassador250 trial. The study results were presented at the 2020 American Association for Cancer Research virtual annual meeting.

San Francisco, CA—Today, patients who receive stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) for intermediate- or high-risk localized prostate cancer are not receiving concurrent androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT), despite national guideline recommendations that support the concurrent use of ADT with radiation therapy.

Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA), a group of heterogeneous cancers that originate in the bile ducts that connect the liver and gallbladder to the small intestine, affects 2000 to 3000 individuals annually in the United States.¹ The disease most often affects older people aged ≥65 years and occurs slightly more frequently in men than in women.

San Francisco, CA—The combination of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) immunotherapy plus bevacizumab (Avastin) improves survival as well as significantly delaying deterioration in quality of life compared with the current standard of the targeted therapy sorafenib (Nexavar) in the treatment of patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

San Francisco, CA—Second-line treatment with a 3-drug regimen that included the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo), the VEGF receptor antagonist ramucirumab (Cyramza), and chemotherapy with the taxane paclitaxel, showed durable and impressive response rates, regardless of PD-L1 expression, in patients with advanced gastric cancers. Shuichi Hironaka, MD, PhD, Chiba Cancer Center, Japan, reported the study results at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

San Francisco, CA—The addition of a second immunotherapy, ipilimumab (Yervoy), to the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and cabozantinib (Cabometyx) produced durable responses and longer progression-free survival (PFS) than cabozantinib plus nivolumab alone in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common type of liver cancer. The overall survival (OS) was not yet reached in the triplet arm.

Although medical cannabis has been used successfully as a palliative therapy in patients with cancer, it is still stigmatized because of its illicit scheduling. However, as research on cannabis use in oncology matures and the stigma begins to fall away, more states are allowing for pharmacist oversight of this product, and its legalization continues to spread.