ESMO 2020 Highlights

Adding the oral cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK)4/CDK6 inhibitor abemaciclib (Verzenio) to endocrine therapy led to a significant reduction in the risk for invasive disease recurrence versus endocrine therapy alone in patients with high-risk hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative early-stage breast cancer, according to findings from the phase 3 monarchE clinical trial. The results were presented at the 2020 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) virtual meeting and were featured at the meeting press conference.

PARP inhibition is moving on from breast and ovarian cancer to the treatment of patients with prostate cancer and BRCA1/2 mutation. Olaparib (Lynparza) reduced the risk for death by 31% versus enzalutamide (Xtandi) or abiraterone (Zytiga) in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) and BRCA1 or BRCA2, and to a lesser extent ATM mutations, according to the final analysis of the phase 3 PROfound trial.

The combination of cabozantinib (Cabometyx), a second-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), plus nivolumab (Opdivo), an immune checkpoint inhibitor, significantly improved overall survival (OS) and doubled the objective response rates (ORR) compared with the current standard, sunitinib (Sutent), in treatment-naïve patients with advanced renal-cell carcinoma (RCC), according to the results of the phase 3 CheckMate-9ER clinical trial. The results were presented at the 2020 European Society for Medical Oncology virtual meeting and were featured at the meeting press conference.

Nivolumab (Opdivo) is forging a new role in gastroesophageal cancers, according to results of 3 phase 3 clinical trials indicating that nivolumab as first-line therapy or adjuvant therapy can improve survival in patients with gastric and gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer. These results are a “paradigm shift” for these patients, but questions remain, suggested several experts who discussed these results at the 2020 of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) virtual meeting.