ASCO: American Society of Clinical Oncology

It’s been years since a large portion of colon cancer patients have seen any innovations in treatment. However, there are dietary and physical behavioral changes individuals can make that positively impact colon cancer survival said Leonard Saltz, MD, executive director of Clinical Value and Sustainability, head of Colorectal Oncology Section, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

There are a lot of new and exciting agents that are being explored for metastatic HER2-positive disease, explained Sara M. Tolaney, MD, MPH, instructor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, attending physician of medical oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Immune therapies, or check point inhibitors, have been very successful in a subset of patient with multiple different types of malignancies and has changed their trajectory tremendously, explained Victoria Villaflor, MD, associate professor of Medicine, hematology and oncology, Northwestern University.

Next-generation sequencings tests are just starting to change the landscape for cancer patients, explained Peter Paul Yu, MD, FASCO, FACP, physician-in-chief, Hartford HealthCare Cancer Center.

What has really changed in the shift to precision medicine is that it adds a layer of data to each step we go through with the patient, explained James Lin Chen, MD, Ohio State University, and chair of ASCO CancerLinQ Oncology Informatics Task Force.

Cancer patients are agreeing to treatment plans lacking a fundamental understanding of the impacts on their finances, explained Ellen Miller Sonet, MBA, JD, chief strategy and policy officer, CancerCare.

Michael Thompson, MD, PhD, FASCO, Aurora Advanced Healthcare, outlines novel therapies being used in the treatment of hematologic malignancies and identified biomarkers for deciding on a treatment approach.

Leonard Saltz, MD, executive director of Clinical Value and Sustainability, head of Colorectal Oncology Section, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the role next-generation sequencing currently plays in advancing precision medicine.

At the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, a study conducted in France revealed the impact of electronic patient-reported outcomes (PROs) on survival among patients being treated for lung cancer. The study was presented by Fabrice Denis, MD, PhD, radiation oncologist at Institut Inter-regional de Cancérologie Jean Bernard, Le Mans, France.

During a session at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, June 1-5, in Chicago, Illinois, panelists discussed the financial burdens of cancer diagnosis and treatment, the barriers facing clinicians and patients in discussing these financial burdens, and solutions that can be implemented to alleviate the burden.

As the opioid epidemic persists in the United States, there are growing questions and concerns over how to manage cancer-related pain and aberrant opioid use. During a session at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, Egidio Del Fabbro, MD, Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center, discussed several management strategies that can be used to address these concerns.

Researchers are examining combination therapies with immunotherapy, with and without chemotherapy.

FDA has fast-tracked the Biologics License Application for cemiplimab, with a decision expected October 28, 2018.

Regeneron's Matthew Fury, MD, said the decision to move immediately to a phase 3 trial came after 2 of 3 patients in a phase 1 trial showed durable responses.

A late-breaking abstract presented on Sunday at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting confirmed that pembrolizumab significantly improved the primary endpoint of overall survival over platinum-based chemotherapy in treatment-naïve advanced/metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The effect, the authors found, was agnostic of PD-L1 expression, meaning the monoclonal antibody was effective for tumors expressing PD-L1 at ≥50%, ≥20%, and ≥1%.

Trial Assigning IndividuaLized Options for Treatment (Rx), or TAILORx, successfully confirmed the benefit of endocrine therapy alone in patients with early-stage breast cancer who have an Oncotype DX Breast Recurrence Score of 11 to 25.

In the era of real-world data and its growing role in oncology, panelists discussed collecting and using this information in combination with clinical trials to inform evidence-based care during a session at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting.

Michael Thompson, MD, PhD, FASCO, Aurora Advanced Healthcare, discusses the role precision medicine currently plays in the community setting and how that role differs from that in an academic medical center.

There are multiple challenges associated with trying to pursue precision medicine, explained Victoria Villaflor, MD, associate professor of Medicine, hematology and oncology, Northwestern University.

Treatment with cetuximab, concurrent with chemoradiation (CRT), in older patients diagnosed with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) has similar toxicity as CRT treatment, but overall survival is inferior. These are the results of a retrospective analysis that were presented by Dan Paul Zandberg, MD, University of Maryland, Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center, at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting.

A long-term follow-up of the chimeric antigen receptor T-cell treatment, axicabtagene ciloleucel (Axi-cel) in patients with B-cell lymphoma, presented at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, found that a response at 3 months may be prognostic for long-term remission in those patients.

Treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC)—the third leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States—remains challenging even today. But according to leading oncologists in the field, who were speaking at a session at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, screening patients diagnosed with CRC for deficient mismatch repair (dMMR) could help create a roadmap for precision treatment.

While utilization management in general is a pain point for everyone, it’s a necessary evil in the United States, where we spend 18% of our gross domestic product on healthcare, explained Debra Patt, MD, MPH, MBA, vice president, policy and strategy, Texas Oncology; medical director, analytics, McKesson Specialty Health, during a session at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois.

In order for precision oncology to be fruitful and to be effective, we need interoperability and we need to be able to share patient data, said James Lin Chen, MD, Ohio State University, and chair of ASCO CancerLinQ Oncology Informatics Task Force.

Ellen Miller Sonet, MBA, JD, chief strategy and policy officer, CancerCare, discusses the financial burden cancer patients face and how novel therapies and next-generation sequencing impact the burden.

Leading global experts believe that for immunotherapy to work in glioblastoma—which has an estimated 5-year survival rate of 33% in the United States—combination treatments are the way forward.

The ability to create health information technology tools is happening much faster than the ability to figure out what to do with them, explained Peter Paul Yu, MD, FASCO, FACP, physician-in-chief, Hartford HealthCare Cancer Center.

At the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, June 1-5, Chicago, Illinois, Noopur S. Raje, MD, director, Center for Multiple Myeloma, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, presented results from the phase 1 multicenter study with a second-generation chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy called bb2121.

There is going to be an increased use of next generation sequencing testing, and the challenge is going to be to figure out when and how, said Leonard B. Saltz, MD, executive director of Clinical Value and Sustainability, head of Colorectal Oncology Section, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

A phase 3 study, conducted by the Children’s Oncology Group among children and young adults between ages 1 and 30 diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia or T-cell lymphoblastic leukemia, has found a 90% survival rate at 4 years posttreatment initiation—84% of these patients were declared cancer free at that point in their treatment trajectory. Results from this study will be presented at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, June 1-5, in Chicago, Illinois.