Caroline Helwick

An updated overall survival analysis of the phase III HIMALAYA study, now at 5 years, confirms the benefit for the STRIDE regimen of the monoclonal antibodies durvalumab plus tremelimumab in unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma. 1

For women with early-stage triple-negative breast cancer, KEYNOTE-522 changed the treatment paradigm several years ago. Support for neoadjuvant use of the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy, followed by adjuvant pembrolizumab, was bolstered by the positive overall survival analysis presented during Presidential Symposium II at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2024. 1

In the final per-protocol analysis of the phase III KEYNOTE-811 trial, an overall survival benefit was shown by adding the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab to trastuzumab and chemotherapy in treatment-naive, unresectable, HER2-positive metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma. 1

Neoadjuvant therapy for patients with resectable stage III melanoma has recently emerged as a better approach than resection plus adjuvant therapy. At the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) ...

Total neoadjuvant therapy followed by rectal surgery is the standard of care in proficient mismatch repair locally advanced rectal cancer, but studies are finding that patients with clinical complete ...

Patrick M. Forde, MBBCh, PhD An examination of patient-level data from the phase III CheckMate 816 and CheckMate 77T trials supports the perioperative use of the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab plus chemotherapy, as compared with the neoadjuvant use of nivolumab plus chemotherapy without adjuvant therapy, in resectable non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The findings were presented at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer 2024 World Conference on Lung Cancer by Patrick M. Forde, MBBCh, PhD, Co-Director of the Division of Upper Aerodigestive Malignancies and Director of the Thoracic Oncology Clinical Research Program at Johns Hopkins Medicine. 1

In the neoadjuvant I-SPY2.2 trial, a treatment strategy including the antibody-drug conjugate datopotamab deruxtecan (Dato-DXd), partnered with the PD-L1 inhibitor durvalumab, yielded a high pathologic complete response rate, especially in immune-positive and “all-negative” subtypes. 1

Attendees at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2024 heard the results of many positive clinical trials that will advance the field of cancer treatment. However, a few late-stage trials of promising adjuvant therapies unexpectedly reported negative results. The ASCO Post considers these findings to be just as important to our readers and have summarized some of them here.

In a phase III study conducted in China, the bispecific antibody (targeting both PD-1 and the vascular endothelial growth factor [VEGF]) ivonescimab was compared with the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab as first-line treatment of PD-L1–positive advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Ivonescimab demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in progression-free survival, according to

In addition to our in-depth analysis of important clinical trials presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2024, there is always room for more coverage from The ASCO Post, including these brief summaries of other presentations of interest. They focus on a potential biomarker in bladder cancer treatment, a novel treatment in MTAP-deleted solid tumors, an immunotherapy combination for non–clear cell renal cancer, and first-line combinations with an antibody-drug conjugate in HER2-positive upper gastrointestinal cancers.