Earlier this month, the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting brought together more than 42,000 people from around the world to present and discuss the latest scientific advances in cancer care and treatment. In the Research Round Up podcast series, Cancer.Net’s Associate Editors share their thoughts on the most exciting scientific research to come out of this year’s meeting and what it means for patients.
Cancer research constantly builds on what came before, as researchers compare new treatments to the ones already being used and refine the results of earlier studies.
In this podcast, 3 Associate Editors discuss important updates to previous studies, as well as research into new types of treatment, survivorship, and side effect management.
Breast cancer treatment and survivorship
Dr. Lynn Henry, the Cancer.Net Associate Editor for Breast Cancer, discusses updates to 2 studies that helped give further insight into who will benefit most from certain treatments. The first is about triple-negative breast cancer and immunotherapy, and the second is about whether chemotherapy should be given for early-stage, hormone-receptor positive, HER2-negative breast cancer in some women based on age. [3:20] She also discusses a separate study, called the MONALEESA-7 study, that whether adding ribociclib (Kisqali) to hormonal therapy helped some women with advanced hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer live longer. [6:31]
In addition, Dr. Henry discusses 2 more studies, one on the effects of a low-fat diet for women diagnosed with breast cancer and another that looked into whether pregnancy after breast cancer in women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 genetic mutation increases the chances that the cancer will come back. [7:37]
Treatment advances in head and neck cancer
Dr. Ezra Cohen, the Cancer.Net Associate Editor for Head and Neck Cancer, discusses an update to the KEYNOTE-048 study, which compared the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda) to the standard of care for metastatic head and neck cancer. The KEYNOTE-048 study was originally presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress. [11:14]
In addition, he discusses several early studies that showed promising results in using targeted therapy to treat some people with a salivary gland tumor and thyroid cancer, as well as using immunotherapy combinations to treat head and neck cancer. [14:40]
Preventing and managing nausea and vomiting
Dr. Charles Loprinzi, the Cancer.Net Associate Editor for Psychosocial Oncology, describes current research into prevention and treatment options for cancer-related nausea and vomiting. Doctors now have more ways to provide this type of supportive care to their patients than in the past, and research continues to evolve. Dr. Loprinzi outlines how research findings at this year’s ASCO Annual Meeting covered such factors as dosage, timing, side effects, and cost. [18:12]
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