Top Trials From the 2025 ASCO and EHA Meetings

The 2025 ASCO Annual Meeting showcased groundbreaking oncology research and treatments, fostering collaboration among leading experts in the field.

The 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting brought together over 40,000 oncology professionals for the world’s largest multidisciplinary oncology meeting. Robin Zon, MD, the 2024-2025 ASCO president, presented her presidential address, “Driving Knowledge to Action: Building a Better Future.” The program was also thoughtfully put together to present the latest research, educational topics, and oncology care to enhance not only the patient care of today but also research for tomorrow’s patients. There were a record-breaking 7775 abstracts submitted, and of those, 3200 were selected for presentations.

The Plenary Session had presentations on the 5 top abstracts presented on the phase 3 MATTERHORN trial (NCT04592913) in gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancer,¹ the phase 3 ATOMIC trial (NCT02912559) for stage III DNA mismatch repair–deficient colon cancer,² the phase 3 VERIFY trial (NCT05210790) for polycythemia vera,³ the phase 3 NIVOPOSTOP trial (NCT03576417) for locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck,⁴ and the phase 3 SERENA-6 trial (NCT04964934) for hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer with detectable ESR1 mutations.⁵ These trials evaluated therapies for a wide range of malignancies.

In addition, Educational Sessions and Poster Sessions brought enhanced opportunities for learning and interactions. ASCO has grown so much over the years that it is difficult to see all the presentations that might be interesting. Thankfully, the online viewing of the presentations and having the abstracts available after the meeting continue to enhance the experience.

The European Hematology Association (EHA) 2025 Congress was held in Milan, Italy, in June 2025. The Plenary Session had 5 abstracts presented, including a phase 1 clinical trial (NCT05652335) of JNJ-5332, which targets CD3, BCMA, and GPRC5D.⁶ This investigational trispecific antibody for the treatment of relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma aims to prevent antigen escapes and specificity to the tumor cells. In the study, 70.4% of patients who were BCMA/GPRC5D naive at the recommended dose had at least a complete response.

The second abstract was the presentation of the phase 3 POLARGO trial (NCT04182204) of polatuzumab vedotin (Polivy), rituximab (Rituxan), gemcitabine, and oxaliplatin (Pola-R-GemOx) for relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.⁷ The results showed a 40% reduction in the risk of death with the Pola-R-GemOx compared with the R-Gem-Ox alone.

The results of the phase 3 SURPASS-ET trial (NCT04285086) of ropeginterferon alfa-2b (Besremi) for second-line essential thrombocytopenia (ET) were also presented.⁸ The trial met its primary end point of rate of response with 42.9% for ropeginterferon vs 6% for anagrelide.

Also noteworthy were the findings from the phase 3 ALLG BM12 CAST (ACTRN12618000505202) trial of cyclophosphamide for the prevention of graft-vs-host disease (GVHD) after allogeneic transplantation.⁹ Patients were assigned to cyclophosphamide/cyclosporin (experimental) vs cyclophosphamide/methotrexate (standard of care). In the experimental arm, 49.1% of patients survived to 3 years without GVHD or relapse, whereas the rate was only 14.2% in the standard-of-care arm.

The last abstract in the Plenary Session was regarding acute myeloid leukemia classification using machine learning, which complemented the existing European LeukemiaNet categorization scheme.¹⁰ This study used the Dirichlet mixture models to assess 17 distinct biological clusters characterized by overall survival differences with follow-ups lasting beyond 11 years.

International meetings such as ASCO and EHA allow physicians and researchers to work collaboratively to share valuable information and advance research for our patients in hematology/oncology.

References

1. Janjigian Y, Al-Batran S-E, Wainberg Z, et al. Event-free survival (EFS) in MATTERHORN: a randomized, phase 3 study of durvalumab plus 5-fluorouracil, leucovorin, oxaliplatin and docetaxel chemotherapy (FLOT) in resectable gastric/gastroesophageal junction cancer (GC/GEJC). J Clin Oncol. 2025;43(suppl 17):LBA5. doi:10.1200/JCO.2025.43.17_suppl.LBA5
2. Sinicrope FA, Ou F-S, Arnold D, et al. Randomized trial of standard chemotherapy alone or combined with atezolizumab as adjuvant therapy for patients with stage III deficient DNA mismatch repair (dMMR) colon cancer (Alliance A021502; ATOMIC). J Clin Oncol. 2025;43(suppl 17):LBA1. doi:10.1200/JCO.2025.43.17_suppl.LBA1
3. Kuykendall AT, Pemmaraju N, Pettit KM, et al. Results from VERIFY, a phase 3, double-blind, placebo (PBO)-controlled study of rusfertide for treatment of polycythemia vera (PV). J Clin Oncol. 2025;43(suppl 17):abstr LBA3. doi:10.1200/JCO.2025.43.17_suppl.LBA3
4. Bourhis J, Auperin A, Borel C, et al. NIVOPOSTOP (GORTEC 2018-01): A phase III randomized trial of adjuvant nivolumab added to radio-chemotherapy in patients with resected head and neck squamous cell carcinoma at high risk of. J Clin Oncol. 2025;43(suppl 17):LBA2. doi:10.1200/JCO.2025.43.17_suppl.LBA2
5. Turner N, Mayer E, Park YH, et al. Camizestrant + CDK4/6 inhibitor (CDK4/6i) for the treatment of emergent ESR1 mutations during first-line (1L) endocrine-based therapy (ET) and ahead of disease progression in patients (pts) with HR+/HER2– advanced breast cancer (ABC): Phase 3, double-blind ctDNA-guided SERENA-6 trial. J Clin Oncol. 2025;43(suppl 17):LBA4. doi:10.1200/JCO.2025.43.17_suppl.LBA4
6. Popat R, Touzeau C, Perrot A, et al. First-in-human study of JNJ-79635322 (JNJ-5322), a novel, next-generation trispecific antibody, in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma: initial phase 1 results. Presented at European Hematology Association 2025 Congress; June 12-15, 2025; Milan, Italy. Abstract S100.
7. Matasar M. Polatuzumab vedotin, rituximab, gemcitabine, and oxaliplatin (Pola-R-GemOx) for relapsed/refractory (R/R) diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL): results from the randomized phase III POLARGO trial. Presented at the 2025 European Hematology Association Congress, Milan, Italy. June 12-15, 2025.
8. Gill H, Masarova L, Xiao Z, et al. Better safety and efficacy with ropeginterferon alfa-2B over anagrelide as second-line treatment of essential thrombocytopenia in the topline results of the randomized phase 3 SURPASS-ET trial. Presented at the 2025 European Hematology Association Congress, Milan, Italy. June 12-15, 2025.
9. Curtis DC, Purtill D, Lewis C, et al. A phase 3 randomised trial of post-transplant cyclophosphamide for GVHD prophylaxis in matched sibling donor peripheral blood stem cell transplantation: the ALLG BM12 CAST trial. Presented at: 2025 European Hematology Association Congress press briefing; June 12-15, 2025; Milan, Italy. Abstract S103.
10. Turki A, Dall’Olio D, Carota L, et al. Development and independent validation of unsupervised genomic classification of patients with acute myeloid leukemia using hierarchical Dirichlet mixture models: a HARMONY Alliance study. Presented at: EHA 2025 Congress; June 14, 2025; Milan, Italy.