OncLive News Network On Location: In Munich Monday, October 22

Today-

We are on site at the Messe in Munich, Germany at the 2018 ESMO Congress!

We have been recapping some of the top news presented each day during the meeting—and soon we’ll speak about pivotal studies with Dr Dan George on genitourinary cancers, Dr Ezra Cohen on head and neck cancer, and Dr Suresh Ramalingam on lung cancer.

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

In head and neck cancer, results of the KEYNOTE-048 trial showed that frontline pembrolizumab alone and in combination with chemotherapy showed a survival benefit in patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Data also showed that although the PD-1 inhibitor showed a superiority with duration of response, there was no improvement in response rates or progression-free survival. Pembrolizumab was also associated with a better toxicity profile compared with the standard EXTREME treatment regimen of cetuximab, 5-fluorouracil, and platinum-based chemotherapy with cisplatin or carboplatin.

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Also in head and neck cancer, international trial findings demonstrated that patients with HPV-positive low-risk oropharyngeal cancer should be treated with chemoradiotherapy rather than cetuximab with radiotherapy.

There were a significantly higher number of recurrences and deaths in patients on the cetuximab arm versus the cisplatin arm, as well as a significant difference in the 2-year overall survival. Moreover, there was no benefit in reduced toxicity with the cetuximab regimen.

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Pooled results from 3 small trials showed that patients with advanced cancers associated with NTRK gene fusions had an 80% objective response rate with the TRK inhibitor larotrectinib.

The most recent follow-up data showed complete responses in 10 of 55 patients and partial responses in 34. Responses occurred in multiple tumor types and across the age range from infants to older adults.

A supplemental dataset comprising an additional 67 patients with TRK fusion cancers showed an ORR similar to that observed in the primary group.

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An integrated analysis of 3 clinical trials showed that more than half of patients with advanced solid tumors associated with NTRK gene fusions responded to treatment with the small molecule inhibitor entrectinib.

Overall, 31 of 54 evaluable patients had objective responses encompassing 10 types of tumors. Moreover, responses had a median duration of 10.4 months. Among patients with brain metastases at baseline, more than half responded to entrectinib.

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In non—small cell lung cancer, a phase II study showed that the combination of tepotinib plus gefitinib improved progression-free survival and overall response versus chemotherapy in patients with MET-mutated EGFR-positive disease resistant to prior EGFR TKI therapy.

In the intent-to-treat population of patients with MET-positive tumors, the median PFS by investigator assessment was 4.9 months with tepotinib and gefitinib versus 4.4 months for the chemotherapy arm.

Additionally, in patients with MET amplification, the increase in median PFS was over 5 times that of chemotherapy.

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In the IMpower130 trial, the triplet first-line regimen of atezolizumab, nab-paclitaxel, and carboplatin demonstrated an improvement in progression-free and overall survival versus carboplatin and nab-paclitaxel alone, along with a tolerable safety profile, in patients with stage IV nonsquamous non—small cell lung cancer.

The benefit was observed across all PD-L1—specified groups, except in patients with liver metastases and EGFR/ALK abnormalities. No new safety signals were identified.

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That’s all for today.

Thank you for watching OncLive News Network: On Location, in Munich, Germany! I’m Gina Columbus.