Letter from the Editor

Dear Reader,

This year’s ASCO seemed to me a remarkable one in terms of clinical findings. Here are some examples, why:

• Good PROSPECTs to de-escalate treatment in rectal cancer: neo-adjuvant radiotherapy may be spared in good chemoresponders according to a large trial piloted by the MSKCC.
• FOLFIRINOX does not seem to benefit as neo-adjuvant treatment for localised pancreatic cancer, according to the phase 2 NorPACT trial.
• You might consider waiting for 2nd line treatment to introduce a CDK4 inhibitor in metastatic breast cancer patients: they seem not to provide significant benefit when introduced earlier in terms of overall survival – and come with the price of higher toxicity as compared with hormonal treatment alone. An important finding of the Dutch academic SONIA trial.
• Your patient’s lung cancer is operable? Check out peri-operative checkpoint inhibition! KEYNOTE-671 randomised adding peri-operative pembrolizumab to peri-operative chemotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer (stages II-IIIB), with a clear benefit in event-free survival at 2 years.
• Are checkpoint inhibitors of little use in ovarian cancer? Maybe not always. In BRCA-naïve ovarian cancers, adding the checkpoint inhibitor to olaparib maintenance seems to improve PFS. Wait: these are interim results of the DUO-O study. But intriguing ones.

Do you share my opinion that this ASCO is a good pick?

You should walk through our congress report to get a broader picture.

Have fun.

Yours, sincerely,

Dr med Stefan Rauh

 

 

Biography

Dr Stefan Rauh is currently working as haematooncologist in the oncology department of Centre Hospitalier Emile Mayrisch, Esch, Luxembourg. He is mainly involved in clinical work but also in research and teaching activities and is interested in public policy and international cooperation projects in oncology. He is member of the ESMO Practicing Oncologist’s Working Group since 2011 (chair 2014-2018), member of the ESMO Public Policy Committee, and has been an ESMO Executive Board member in 2015-2016. He is coauthor of the 2017 ESMO European Cancer Patient Coalition (ECPC) Patient Survivorship Guide and an invited expert for the ECPC.

 

Conflict of Interest Statement: Nothing to declare.



Posted on 2 August, 20232 August, 2023