CancerNetwork®’s Week in Review: June 14, 2021

Each Monday, CancerNetwork® highlights the most important content from the previous week in oncology news.

The 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting was the focus of last week, with 4 featured pieces from the conference focusing on breast cancer, colorectal cancer, uterine cancer, and non–small cell lung cancer treatment.

Ultralow Risk 70-Gene Signature May Indicate Survival Outcomes in Early-Stage Breast Cancer

Patients with early-stage breast cancer who have ultralow risk disease indicated by a 70-gene signature demonstrated an excellent survival prognosis, regardless of clinical risk.

“Our results confirm previously published results of excellent survival in ultralow-risk patients in the largest cohort to date,” presenting author Josephine Lopes Cardozo, MD, a PhD candidate at the Netherlands Cancer Institute and medical fellow at the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer, said during an oral presentation of the data.

Preferred Treatment of RAS Wild-Type, BRAF V600E Mutant mCRC Favors Bevacizumab Over Cetuximab

Certain patients with RAS wild-type colorectal cancer should be treated with bevacizumab (Avastin) in place of cetuximab (Erbitux) in combination with FOLFOXIRI.

Sebastian Stintzing, MD, with the department of Hematology and Oncology at the Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin Department of Haematology-Oncology in Munich, Germany, presented findings from the FIRE-4.5 trial. FOLFOXIRI plus cetuximab (49.2%) did not induce a higher ORR when compared with FOLFOXIRI plus bevacizumab (60.0%), according to the findings, he said.

ERBB2/ERBB3+ Uterine Cancer Shows Disease Control With Combination of Pertuzumab and Trastuzumab

Clinical activity of the combination of pertuzumab (Perjeta) and trastuzumab (Herceptin) in seen in patients with ERBB2/ERBB3 overexpressing uterine cancers.

Data showed that the objective response rate was 7% (95% CI, 1%-24%), with a 37% (95% CI, 21%-50%) disease control rate. Two patients had partial responses and 8 patients achieved stable disease at 16+ weeks, which translated to 10 patients meeting the prespecified criteria as responders to the combination.

FDA Approval for Technetium Tc 99m Tilmanocept Expanded to Include Pediatric Patients

Technetium Tc 99m tilmanocept may now be used to enhance identification of lymph nodes in pediatric patients with certain tumors.

The agent now allows for clinicians to accurately enhance lymphatic mapping and sentinel lymph node biopsy in adult and pediatric patients 1 month or older with melanoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, and other solid tumors.

Adding Nivolumab to Chemotherapy Improves Outcomes in Resectable NSCLC

The addition of neoadjuvant nivolumab (Opdivo) plus platinum-doublet chemotherapy significantly improved pathological complete response (pCR) rates and showed a greater depth of pathological response compared with chemotherapy alone in patients with resectable non–small cell lung cancer.

“In CheckMate 816, the primary end point of pCR was met,” said Jonathan Spicer, MD, PhD, lead study author and assistant professor of surgery at McGill University Health Center in Montreal, Canada. “Patients had improved response rates and greater depth of pathological response, regardless of disease stage.”

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