ESMO 2019

Complete Coverage

Maintenance Olaparib Found to Provide a PFS Benefit in Advanced Ovarian Cancer

By

Leah Lawrence

The benefit was seen in an all-comers population, according to the presenters at ESMO Congress 2019.

Kegel Exercises May Prevent Incontinence Associated With Prostate Cancer

By

Tiffany Garbutt, PhD

Researchers sought to determine if practicing Kegel exercises, a common pelvic-floor exercise, could prevent urinary and fecal incontinence in patients with prostate cancer.

Can Plasma-Based NGS be Routinely Used to Select Treatment in Advanced NSCLC?

By

Susan Moench, PhD, PA-C

This study provided evidence suggesting that advanced NSCLC characterized by a genomic alterations in both STK11 and KRAS may not respond well to immunotherapy.

Additional Support for Benefit of 21-Gene Assay in Early-Stage Breast Cancer: A Subgroup Analysis of TAILORx

By

Susan Moench, PhD, PA-C

In TAILORx, 84% of patients with a high recurrence score were treated with chemotherapy containing a taxane and/or an anthracycline prior to endocrine therapy.

Single-Agent Immunotherapies Carry Different irAE Risks

By

Bryant Furlow

“Despite a lack of head-to-head trials, there is a perception that irAE profiles arecomparable between agents,” the abstract authors wrote.

Immunotherapy irAEs Associated With Hospitalizations, Treatment Discontinuation

By

Bryant Furlow

More than 15,000 distinct irAEs were found for 13,030 patients.

Blood Test May Potentially Replace Invasive Biopsy for Certain Patients With Lung Cancer: Results of BFAST

By

Bryant Furlow

Liquid biopsy can be used to detect a complex type of driver mutation, called ALK, in patients with NSCLC.

Pembrolizumab Does Not Outperform Chemotherapy in Mesothelioma

By

Bryant Furlow

While pembrolizumab was not superior to chemotherapy, survival times were similar, suggesting immunotherapy might offer an alternative to chemotherapy.

Palbociclib, Capecitabine Regimens Offer Similar Patient-Reported Quality-of-Life Outcomes in Metastatic HR-Positive Breast Cancer

By

Bryant Furlow

Results of the YoungPearl study revealed that patient-reported QoL scores were high for palbociclib plus endocrine therapy.

Abemaciclib Plus Fulvestrant Improved Survival in Patients with HR+, HER2- Advanced Breast Cancer

By

Bryant Furlow

Results of MONARCH-2 showed a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in overall survival with abemaciclib plus fulvestrant.

High Concordance Rate for Solid and Liquid Biopsy-Based NGS Results Reported in Metastatic CRC

By

Susan Moench, PhD, PA-C

One finding was a drop in concordance rate for clonal alterations when NGS was performed on tumor tissue and ctDNA samples collected following treatment initiation.

Longer Follow-Up Continues to Support Similar Efficacy and Safety of Trastuzumab Biosimilar in Breast Cancer

By

Susan Moench, PhD, PA-C

At 3-year follow-up, the mean LVEF was over 60% in both study arms.

Concordant Results Obtained for Estimates of Tumor Mutational Burden Across Several NGS Panels

By

Susan Moench, PhD, PA-C

Interestingly, concordance for estimates of TMB between NGS panels was higher for tumor specimens with a low compared with a high PD-L1 expression level.

Promising Results for Targeted Methylation Sequencing in the Detection of Multiple Types of Cancer

By

Susan Moench, PhD, PA-C

The precision of the targeted methylation sequencing assay for localizing the cancer tissue of origin was reported to be 89%.

Pembrolizumab Does Not Prolong Survival Compared With Chemotherapy in Metastatic TNBC

By

Bryant Furlow

Pembrolizumab monotherapy does not improve overall survival (OS) compared with single-agent chemotherapy among women with metastatic triple negative breast cancer (mTNBC).

Addition of Bevacizumab to Temozolomide-Based Chemotherapy Increased OR in Children With R/R Neuroblastoma

By

Susan Moench, PhD, PA-C

The addition of bevacizumab to temozolomide-based chemotherapy was also associated with higher rates of grade 3 or higher thrombocytopenia and anemia.

Adjuvant Sorafenib Does Not Improve Survival in Renal Cell Carcinoma

By

Bryant Furlow

Active surveillance remains the standard of care for patients at intermediate or high risk of recurrence following nephrectomy.

First-Line Combination Immunotherapy Deemed Superior to Chemotherapy in Advanced Lung Cancer

By

Bryant Furlow

“In my opinion, these data are practice changing,” said lead study author Solange Peters.

Biomarkers May Predict Immune Checkpoint Blockade-Related Hyperprogression in Lung Cancer

By

Bryant Furlow

Nearly 11% of patients in the study who underwent immune checkpoint inhibition for NSCLC experienced HPD.

Matched Tumor Tissue and Circulating Cell-Free DNA Sequencing Assays Yield Complementary Results

By

Susan Moench, PhD, PA-C

Some oncologic driver mutations may be missed when NGS is performed using either tumor tissue or tumor circulating cell-free DNA alone.