ASCO Highlights

Onkologi Highlights from ASCO 2021

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting was held virtually on 4-8 June.

We at BestPractice Nordic followed the meeting and met virtually with some of the leading oncologists to hear more about new studies and interesting research results. You can read selected abstracts and watch short presentations on our platform bpno.no.

Below are some of the ASCO highlights.

NSCLC: Combination of nivolumab with chemotherapy for patients with NSCLC Dr. Jonathan Spicer presents new analyses from the CheckMate-816 study, which show that neoadjuvant nivolumab in combination with platinum-doublet chemotherapy did not compromise tumor resection outcome and significantly improved pathological complete response rate compared to chemotherapy alone in patients with resectable non-small cell lung cancer. Dr Spicer concludes that safety and surgical outcome, together with previously reported improvements in complete pathological response, support nivolumab in combination with chemotherapy as an attractive neoadjuvant treatment for patients with resectable NSCLC.

Jonathan Spicer, MD, PhD, FRCS, Associate Professor, Division of Thoracic Surgery Director, McGill Thoracic Oncology Network McGill University, Montreal General Hospital

Highlights from ASCO 2021

Melanoma: Promising results from the RELATIVITY-047 study The RELATIVITY-047 study was presented at ASCO by Dr. Evan Lipson. The RELATIVITY-047 study is the first randomized phase III trial to evaluate the immunotherapy agents nivolumab and relatlimab, administered as a fixed-dose combination, to patients with previously untreated, unresectable, or metastatic melanoma.

In a MEDtalk video, Dr. Marco Donia from Herlev Hospital in Denmark discusses the RELATIVITY-047 study. He finds the results very promising and highlights relatlimab + nivolumab as a potential new combination in first-line treatment of advanced melanoma. He put forward three questions, which were answered by Dr. Evan Lipson.

• Patients progressing on monotherapy anti-PD-1 (e.g. in adjuvant or metastatic setting), had a response rate of 11% in an interim analysis of a previous trial. What would you offer to these patients if nivo+rela was available?

• In the absence of a head-to-head comparison of nivo+rela vs. ipi/nivo, do you expect nivo+rela to replace nivo/pembro monotherapy, or do you expect that some patients who would have been offered ipi/nivo would now be offered nivo+rela instead?

• High tumor burden/rapid progression of BRAF WT: nivo+rela or ipi/nivo? Dr. Evan Lipson answers Dr. Marco Donia’s questions after a brief presentation of the study results in a MEDtalk video on our platform bpno.no. He underlines the fact that immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy has revolutionized the treatment of patients with advanced melanoma.

Dr. Marco Donia, Center for Cancer Immune Therapy, Herlev Hospital, Denmark

Dr. Evan Lipson, MD, Associate Professor of Oncology, Clinical Immunotherapy Specialist, Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center

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