BJMO - 2024, issue Special, december 2024
E. Dewulf
Metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) is associated with poor prognosis and remains incurable. The choice and sequence of therapy for patients with mCRPC is challenging and influenced by various factors, such as treatment history, the presence of actionable genomic alterations or biomarkers, side effects, comorbidities, patient preference, etc. This mini-review will briefly summarise the available data of the latest clinical trials on the use of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitors (PARPi) and prostatespecific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeted therapy that impacted clinical practice.
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E. Dewulf
Human trophoblastic cell surface antigen 2 (Trop-2) is a transmembrane glycoprotein that is expressed at a low level in normal epithelial cells but at a high level in many solid tumours. It regulates tumour growth, invasion and spread by several signalling pathways, and has a role in stem cell biology and other diseases. Furthermore, overexpression of Trop-2 in tumours has been associated with poor prognosis. This mini-review will briefly summarise the available clinical data on treatment with Trop-2-directed antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) in the field of breast cancer.
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T. Feys MBA, MSc
The advent of precision medicine, led by the discovery of druggable genes and informed by next-generation sequencing, has drastically changed the therapeutic landscape in oncology. These evolutions revealed a spectrum of actionable genetic alterations shared across a broad spectrum of tumour types, which fuelled the hope for cancer drugs that are capable to interfere with these oncogenic pathways irrespective of the organ of origin of the tumour. In recent years, several of these tumour-agnostic drug targets have been approved by regulatory agencies and it is to be expected that more will follow in the years to come. This article briefly explains the rationale for tumour-agnostic approvals followed by an overview of the currently approved and emerging pan-tumour targets. In addition, the paper addresses a new tool that was developed by the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) to assess the tumour-agnostic potential of new drugs (ECTA-S) and inform the clinical development of potentially tumour-agnostic drugs.
Read moreBJMO - 2024, issue Special, march 2024
A. Enguita PhD, T. Feys MBA, MSc
The opening session of the 2024 Belgian Multidisciplinary Meeting on Urological Cancers (BMUC) highlighted key advancements in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) management. Prof. Christine Gennigens (ULiège, Liège, Belgium) presented current and future strategies for first-line metastatic RCC treatment, emphasising options such as immunotherapy (IO) dual combinations, IO plus tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) regimens, TKI monotherapy, and triplet therapies. Additionally, Prof. Shankar Siva (Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne, Australia) discussed the promising outcomes of stereotactic ablative body radiotherapy (SABR) in primary RCC, underscoring its advantages over traditional approaches like surgery or thermal ablation.
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A. Enguita PhD
During the 2024 BMUC meeting, an entire session was dedicated to the management of patients with recurrent prostate cancer. In this session, Dr. Alastair Lamb (University of Oxford, UK) highlighted the concept and assessment of biochemical relapse (BCR) post-prostatectomy, stressing the importance of risk stratification. Subsequently, Prof. Bertrand Tombal (Cliniques Universitaires Saint Luc, Belgium) discussed strategies to optimise the systemic therapy for patients at both low and high risk after which Prof. Piet Ost (Ghent University, Belgium) discussed the integration of metastasis-directed therapy with systemic approaches in patients with metachronous metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer.
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J. Collins PhD, T. Feys MBA, MSc
During the 11th Belgian Multidisciplinary Meeting on Urological Cancers (BMUC) 2024, Prof. Dr. Karolien Goffin (University Hospitals Leuven), Dr. Carlos Artigas (Institut Jules Bordet, Brussels) and Prof. Dr. Nadia Withofs (CHU de Liège) discussed the current challenges in implementing prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) radioligand therapy in Belgium.
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J. Blokken PhD, PharmD, T. Feys MBA, MSc
The second day of BMUC 2024 kicked off with the late-breaking session on uro-oncology. During this session, three recent clinical trials with important implications for daily clinical practice were discussed and critically interpreted. First, Prof. Piet Ost (University Hospital Ghent) walked us through the results of the GETUG-AFU18 trial. Thereafter, Dr. Marco Gizzi (Institut Roi Albert II Cliniques universitaires Saint-Luc) shared his insights on the potential caveats of the KEYNOTE-564 trial after which Dr. Alexander Giesen (University Hospitals Leuven) closed the session with a presentation on the PREVENT trial.
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