ASCO 2018 News - Episode 1

OncLive News Network On Location: In Chicago Friday, June 1

June 2, 2018

Today-

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

We’ll be recapping some of the top news presented each day during the meeting—and soon we’ll speak with Drs Robert Coleman on potentially practice-changing ovarian cancer abstracts, and also with Jeffrey Weber on some promising early-phase studies.

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

In multiple myeloma, a phase I study of the second-generation chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy bb2121 was found to have promising efficacy in patients with relapsed/refractory disease.

The 2-part study, called CRB-401, showed clinical activity at all dose levels, with durable responses, as well as manageable reports of cytokine release syndrome and neurotoxicity.

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Results of the phase III OPTIMISMM trial demonstrated that treatment with pomalidomide, bortezomib, and low-dose dexamethasone was associated with an improvement in progression-free survival versus bortezomib and low-dose dexamethasone alone in relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.

This is the only phase III study to show this benefit in patients who were treated with lenalidomide, and 70% of whom were refractory to the agent.

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The combination of ibrutinib and rituximab showed superior efficacy when compared with rituximab plus placebo in patients with Waldenstrom’s macroglobulienma, according to phase III data presented at the meeting.

At a median follow-up of 26.5 months, the doublet therapy prolonged progression-free survival versus rituximab and placebo in all patients regardless of prognostic or genetic factors.

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A number of findings in cancer disparities are being reported at this year’s meeting, as well.

One analysis showed that metastatic colorectal cancer treatment in Western Washington State costs twice as much as it does in British Columbia.

Moreover, another analysis of 9 randomized phase III studies of patients with advanced prostate cancer who received chemotherapy demonstrated that survival rates are as good for African-Americans as they are for Caucasian patients.

Also in prostate cancer, the Abi Race trial showed that there were more and longer-lasting responses linked with abiraterone in African-African versus Caucasian patients.

In head and neck cancer, an analysis showed that women with head and neck cancer were less likely to receive intensive chemotherapy and radiation therapy compared with men.

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

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That’s all for today. Tune in tomorrow for a discussion on multiple myeloma with Dr Sagar Lonial of Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University.

And if you are looking for educational dinner options at ASCO, check out some of Physicians’ Education Resource’s dinner meetings from 6:30 — 9:00 on both Saturday and Sunday nights at the Hilton Chicago Hotel. Dinner topics include: