ASCO update 2016

Abstract

SummaryThe past few years have seen major progress in cancer research and treatment. Today we are able to select treatments based on molecular profiling of tumors and do not solely rely on tumor type and stage. The most recent advance has taken place in the field of immunotherapy, and at this year's ASCO again a huge number of studies were reported dealing with immunotherapy. In Europe we expect approval of different immunotherapies in various entities ranging from head and neck cancer, urothelial cancer, gastric cancer to lung cancer and colorectal cancer. But immunotherapy is not the only area of progress. There are tremendous advances in surgery, chemotherapy and targeted agents, too, as will be discussed in further detail in this report of the most important abstracts of this year's ASCO by our experts in the field Drs. Wöll, Bartsch, Pall, Roider-Schur, Hamacher, Brodowicz, Kacirek, and myself.Ewald Wöll presents data on curative treatment in locally advanced gastric cancer with negative results for additional postoperative radiochemotherapy as used in the CRITICS study [1]. In the metastatic setting there is no anti-Her2-directed therapy beyond trastuzumab that has shown benefit [2]. Nevertheless, encouraging results were gained with immunotherapy in the Checkmate-032 trial [3] with Nivolumab and the combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab.Klaus Kacirek discusses the latest findings on the management of colorectal cancer liver metastasis in upfront resectable, borderline resectable, and initially unresectable disease and recommends parenchymal sparing resections for solitary, small metastases in W. Eisterer ( ) Klagenfurt Hospital Wörthersee, Klagenfurt, Austria wolfgang.eisterer@kabeg.at the liver or lung [online first; to be printed in memo 2/2017]. In initially unresectable disease, the focus lies on the induction of high remission rates by triplet chemotherapy plus a biological agent.Rupert Bartsch weighs the pros and cons in the adjuvant treatment of breast cancer with extended aromatase-inhibition as well as omission of anthracyclines in chemotherapy regimens. In the metastatic setting, a new standard for hormone-receptor-positive patients will appear by the combined action of letrozole and palbociclib, a cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) 4/6 inhibitor, as demonstrated in the PALOMA-2 trial [4] with impressive improvements in progression-free survival (PFS).Georg Pall updates us on the most recent findings in lung cancer. There are important findings for a small subset of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with BRAF-V600E mutations. A combination of targeted agents induced high response rates and long PFS [5]. ALK-rearranged NSCLC seem to benefit more from second-generation ALK inhibition with alectinib than from first-generation with crizotinib as shown in the J-ALEX trial [6].Sophie Roider-Schur covers data from a FrenchAustrian phase II trial of regorafenib in soft tissue carcinoma (STS) [7] with promising results for this agent in various subtypes of STS. The first results of immune che...