CONGRESS NEWS

Highlights in respiratory oncology

At ASCO 2021 much of the attention in the field of lung cancer went to early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) discussing both (neo)adjuvant strategies and local treatment modalities. In metastatic NSCLC, we would like to highlight some recent (chemo)immunotherapeutic advances in the treatment of non-oncogene addicted tumours as well as promising strategies to overcome osimertinib resistance, targeting of KRAS G12C mutated tumours and updated results for EGFR exon 20, HER2 exon 20, MET and RET targeting. As a final abstract, the results of the randomised phase III CALGB 30610/RTOG 0538 trial evaluating high-dose thoracic radiotherapy in small cell lung cancer will be summarised. We would like to acknowledge Prof. Veerle Surmont (University Hospital Ghent) for her help in selecting the abstracts discussed in this overview.

Highlights in gastro-intestinal cancers

At ASCO 2021, the most important studies in gastro-intestinal (GI) cancer related to the use of immuno-therapy in cancers of the upper gastro-intestinal tract. For advanced oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC), the CheckMate 648 trial demonstrated that both nivolumab plus chemotherapy and nivolumab plus ipilimumab represent a new potential first-line standard of care, especially for patients with a tumour PD-L1 expression of at least 1%. For adenocarcinoma of the oesophagus and oesophago-gastric junction, there is no evidence that peri-operative chemotherapy is unacceptably inferior to multimodal therapy. For tumours of the lower gastro-intestinal tract, the most important results came from the DESTINY-CRC01, CHRONOS, FIRE-4.5 and PANAMA studies.

(BELG J MED ONCOL 2021;15(5):248-53)

Highlights in genitourinary cancers

The 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting offered a variety of advancements in the treatment and detection of genitourinary cancers. For prostate cancer (PCa), matched tumour-normal tissue sequencing was shown to be the ideal standard of care (SOC) in de novo high-risk PCa patients. The addition of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) to the SOC was found to be highly effective in muscle-invasive bladder cancer, with enfor-tumab vedotin (EV) continuing to show efficacy in urothelial carcinoma in a post-ICI advanced/ metastatic setting. Finally, the combination of ICI and tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) as first-line therapy for both non-clear cell and clear cell renal cell carcinoma (non-cc/ccRCC) displays a clear survival benefit, with this efficacy extending into the second-line treatment of patients with metastatic non-ccRCC who have previously received ICIs. The most important headline presentations relating to genitourinary cancers will be discussed in this congress highlights article.

(BELG J MED ONCOL 2021;15(5):256-63)

Highlights of the 23rd annual meeting of the Belgian Society of Medical Oncology (BSMO)

SUMMARY

As always, the annual meeting of the Belgian Society of Medical Oncology (BSMO) wanted to provide a platform for the dissemination of practice-changing information relevant to Oncology within Belgium. In light of the ongoing global pandemic, the 23^rd annual meeting went virtual in 2021. This did not detract from the engaging line up of presentations, with a particular emphasis on treatment breakthroughs in a variety of cancers. In addition to this, several projects with a local impact on the Belgian Oncology landscape were presented. Get up to date with the 2021 BSMO 23^rd annual meeting with these highlights.

BELG J MED ONCOL 2021;15(3):134-44

Highlights in respiratory oncology

At ESMO 2020, again many interesting studies in the field of respiratory oncology were presented. For non-metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), there was a focus on neoadjuvant immunotherapy, adjuvant treatment with osimertinib and post-operative conformal radiotherapy. When addressing metastatic NSCLC, much attention went to combination strategies such as combining EGFR and VEGF inhibitors, an EGFR-MET antibody plus a tyrosine kinase inhibitor or VEGF and PD-1 inhibitor combinations. In addition, the question was raised on whether immunotherapy can cure metastatic NSCLC. Finally, this overview will describe important results in the field of non-metastatic and metastatic small-cell lung cancer (SCLC).

Highlights in breast cancer

During the 2020 Virtual ESMO meeting, long-awaited results were presented of several important breast cancer studies. For hormone receptor positive (HR+) breast cancer, ESMO 2020 featured conflicting results on the use of CDK4/6 inhibitors in the adjuvant treatment of patients with hormone-receptor positive (HR+) early breast cancer. In HR+ metastatic breast cancer, final overall survival data were presented of the SOLAR-1 trial evaluating alpelisib in PIK3CA mutant patients. In triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), new data on immune therapy were presented. In early-stage TNBC, the addition of atezolizumab to neoadjuvant chemotherapy resulted in a significant increase in the rate of pathological complete responses (pCR). In the metastatic setting, final results of the IMpassion130 trial confirmed the benefit of atezolizumab combined with nab-paclitaxel as first-line treatment for metastatic PD-L1 positive TNBC. Unexpectedly, the IMpassion131 trial evaluating atezolizumab plus paclitaxel in first-line treatment of patients with metastatic TNBC failed to meet its primary endpoint. Finally, the phase III randomized controlled ASCENT trial identified the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) sacituzumab govitecan as a safe and highly effective treatment option for heavily pre-treated metastatic TNBC patients.

Highlights in genitourinary cancers

Over the past years, many interesting studies in the field of prostate, urothelial and renal cell carcinoma have been initiated. In this overview, practice changing data from the latest virtual ESMO meeting are presented.