ESMO Congress 2021 Expert video reports

Reporting from the ESMO Congress 2021, Valentina Guarneri provides an overview of the meta-analysis data in HER2-positive early breast cancer from the neoadjuvant trastuzumab-lapatinib studies with regard to the risk of relapse and death and the optimal treatment duration of adjuvant trastuzumab. She also explores the prognostic value of immune gene-expression signatures and TILs to predict the pathological response and patient outcomes.

Reporting from the ESMO Congress 2021, Elizabeth Smyth comments on the updated results from the CheckMate 649 in advanced gastric, GEJ and oesophageal cancer that confirm chemotherapy + nivolumab as a new standard of care, while the new results of the immunotherapy combination arm show a possible benefit for subgroups of patients only. She further discusses the encouraging results from second line treatment with trastuzumab deruxtecan in patients with HER2-positive gastric cancer. Finally, she explains the encouraging results of the CLDN 18.2-targeted CAR-T cell therapy in digestive cancers.

Reporting from the ESMO Congress 2021, Robin Cornelissen discusses novel precision medicine strategies for patients with NSCLC. He explains the response results from the ZENITH20-4 cohort in first-line treatment with poziotinib for HER2 exon 20 mutated NSCLC and reviews promising results from the Atalante-1 phase III study, testing a vaccine strategy in patients with HLA-A2+ NSCLC after immunotherapy failure. Finally, he explains the outcomes from datopotamab deruxtecan in mNSCLC with actionable genomic alterations by detailing the encouraging results from the TROPION-PanTumor01 study.

Reporting from the ESMO Congress 2021, Cristina Saura describes the outstanding results from the DESTINY-Breast03 study and the promising results from the TULIP trial. She explains the practice changing results in both response and PFS with trastuzumab deruxtecan, and elaborates on emerging opportunities for pre-treated patients with trastuzumab duocarmazine.

Reporting from the ESMO Congress 2021, Richard Cathomas gives an overview of important study results covering metastatic prostate cancer. He begins by covering the informative findings from the ARCHES study testing enzalutamide plus ADT in hormone-sensitive prostate cancer. Then he comments on results from the castration resistant setting in the COSMIC-021 trial testing a combination of atezolizumab + cabozantinib, and finally, discusses results from the SAKK 08/16 study about darolutamide maintenance therapy.

Reporting from the ESMO Congress 2021, Paolo Bossi provides an overview of important results related to the potential benefits of immunotherapy in head and neck cancer. First he discusses the results of the GORTEC-REACH trial in locally advanced SCCHN testing avelumab-cetuximab-radiotherapy, and the KEYNOTE-122 study in recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma testing pembrolizumab.
He then explains the results of a retrospective analysis designed to identify the genomic profile determining the best response to immunotherapy. Among possible reasons for unconclusive results is the need for patients selection based on biomarkers. He also suggests a possible role of maintenance immunotherapy after radiotherapy.

Reporting from the ESMO Congress 2021, Rocio Garcia-Carbonero summarises the interesting results presented in the NETs track including the phase III SPINET study testing lanreotide autogel/depot in patients with advanced lung NETs, response and PFS results from the AXINET study testing axitinib plus octreotide LAR in patients with grade 1-2 extrapancreatic NETs, and the GCO-001 NIPINEC of nivolumab+ipilimumab in pre-treated patients with advanced refractory pulmonary or GEP poorly differentiated NECs, designed to explore the efficacy of immunotherapy in this setting.

Reporting from the ESMO Congress 2021, Filippo Pietrantonio discusses the results from the FOCUS4-C trial on adavosertib in TP53 and RAS mutant metastatic colorectal cancer patients. He also covers results from the MAYA trial investigating strategies based on molecular selection and hypermutation induction to turn microsatellite stable metastatic colorectal cancer sensitive to immunotherapy.

Reporting from the ESMO Congress 2021, Michail Ignatiadis discusses results from the DESTINY-Breast03 and DESTINY-Lung1 studies performed in the metastatic setting and testing the efficacy and safety of trastuzumab deruxtecan. He describes outstanding results in patients with HER2-positive tumours, with manageable toxicity, although the occurence of pneumonitis needs to be monitored, particularly in lung cancer patients.

Reporting from the ESMO Congress 2021, Helen Gogas discusses the results of a phase II study of ipilimumab and nivolumab plus tocilizumab aiming to reverse steroid refractory toxicity from ICI in patients with metastatic melanoma. She also covers the MASTERKEY-265 phase III study testing the efficacy of pembrolizumab plus talimogene laherparepvec or placebo in advanced melanoma and the 3-year outcomes from the CheckMate 204 study of the nivolumab + ipilimumab combination in patients with brain metastases from melanoma.