OncLive News Network On Location: In Chicago Sunday, June 3

Today-

We are on site at McCormick Place in Chicago at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting!

First, we’ll be recapping some of the top news presented from the day—and then we’ll speak with Drs Howard “Skip” Burris and Francisco Esteva on breast cancer research, and Hossein Borghaei on the latest abstracts in lung cancer.

Welcome to OncLive News Network! I’m Gina Columbus.

Long-term follow-up from the nonpivotal cohort of the phase I TRANSCEND NHL-001 trial showed that treatment with the chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy lisocabtagene ciloleucel had durable responses in patients with heavily pretreated relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

Additionally, there were trends toward more durable responses at the second dose level. Regarding safety, acute adverse events have been manageable at all evaluated dose levels tested.

In non—small cell lung cancer, findings with the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab demonstrated its long-term efficacy as a single agent and in combination with chemotherapy.

Data from the randomized phase III KEYNOTE-042 trial demonstrated that pembrolizumab is a more effective initial treatment than chemotherapy for most patients with this disease. Moreover, those with advanced NSCLC with a PD-L1 expression of 1% or greater treated with frontline pembrolizumab lived 4 to 8 months longer versus those who received chemotherapy.

In KEYNOTE-407, the addition of pembrolizumab nearly doubled the overall response rate for chemotherapy at 58.4% for patients with treatment-naïve metastatic squamous cell NSCLC. The immunotherapy and chemotherapy combination was said to be well tolerated.

In breast cancer, results of the phase III TAILORx trial showed that most patients with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative, axillary node-negative early-stage disease who had a mid-range score on a 21-tumor gene expression assay don’t require chemotherapy after surgery. Data showed that the addition of hormone therapy in these patients did not lead to an improvement in disease-free survival.

The assay used in the trial was the Oncotype DX Breast Recurrence Score.

The CDK 4/6 inhibitor ribociclib combined with fulvestrant was associated with a significant progression-free survival improvement versus placebo and fulvestrant in postmenopausal patients with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer who received 0 or 1 line of prior endocrine therapy.

The ribociclib and fulvestrant arm also demonstrated a manageable safety profile.

For a full review of these topics, please visit OncLive.com.

That’s all for today. Tune in tomorrow for a discussion on ovarian cancer with Drs Michael Birrer of University of Alabama at Birmingham Comprehensive Cancer Center and Shannon Westin of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and an interview with Dr Tanios Bekaii-Saab of Mayo Clinic to highlight the abstracts in pancreatic cancer.

Thank you for watching OncLive News Network! I’m Gina Columbus.