ASCO20 Virtual Research Round Up Podcast: Central Nervous System Tumors and Lymphoma

ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program; Research Round Up Podcast Series
September 3, 2020
Claire Smith, ASCO staff

In the annual Research Round Up podcast series, Cancer.Net Associate Editors answer the question, “What was the most exciting or practice-changing research in your field presented at the ASCO20 Virtual Scientific Program?” In this final episode of 2020, 2 editors discuss a range of research presented in central nervous system (CNS) tumors and lymphoma.

Listen below, and subscribe to Cancer.Net Podcasts on Apple Podcasts or Google Play to catch up on all the highlighted research from this year’s meeting.

Treatment advances in primary and secondary brain tumors

Dr. Glenn Lesser, the 2020 Cancer.Net Associate Editor for Central Nervous System Tumors, discusses new research in cancer that has started in the brain or spinal cord, as well as cancer that has spread to the brain from another part of the body, called secondary or metastatic cancer.  

First, he discusses a study on whether adding low-dose whole-brain radiation therapy to standard chemotherapy helps people with a specific type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma called primary CNS lymphoma  live longer. [4:24] He also discusses a study that looked at whether adding a targeted therapy called tucatinib (Tukysa) to chemotherapy could treat HER2-positive breast cancer that has spread to the brain. [7:47]

New research in different types of lymphoma

Dr. Michael Williams, the 2020 Cancer.Net Associate Editor for Lymphoma, discusses 3 studies across the field of lymphoma. First, he discusses a study that compared the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab (Keytruda) with a standard treatment for Hodgkin lymphoma that was resistant to the initial treatment, called refractory, or if it came back after treatment, called recurrent or relapsed. [13:58] Next, he discusses a study comparing 2 targeted therapy drugs, ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and zanubrutinib (Brukinsa), for people with a specific type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma known as Waldenstrom macroglobulinemia (lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma). [16:32] Finally, he discusses a study that looked at treating people with refractory or recurrent follicular lymphoma with a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy called axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta). [19:09]

Disclosure information for this podcast’s speakers can be found in their individual biographies, which are linked to in the paragraphs above.

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