2021 ASCO Annual Meeting Research Round Up: Advances in Treating Brain Tumors, Esophageal Cancer, and Colorectal Cancer

2021 ASCO Annual Meeting; #ASCO21
September 30, 2021
Brielle Gregory Collins, ASCO staff

In the annual Research Round Up series, Cancer.Net Associate Editors answer the question, “What was the most exciting or practice-changing research in your field presented at the 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting?” In this episode, 2 experts discuss new research from the meeting on brain tumors and gastrointestinal (GI) cancers.

Listen below, and subscribe to Cancer.Net Podcasts wherever you listen to podcasts for new episodes in this series.

New research in brain tumors

Dr. Glenn Lesser

Dr. Glenn Lesser, the 2021 Cancer.Net Associate Editor for Central Nervous System Tumors, discusses the results from 2 studies about brain tumors. First, he discusses the phase 2 Alliance A071601 clinical trial, which was evaluating whether treating people with newly diagnosed papillary craniopharyngioma with a BRAF V600E genetic mutation using the targeted therapy drugs vemurafenib (Zelboraf) and cobimetinib (Cotellic) helped shrink their tumors. [3:18] Next, Dr. Lesser discusses the long-term results from the phase 2 GEINO 14-01 clinical trial, which was studying whether prolonging treatment with the chemotherapy drug temozolomide (Temodar) for people with newly diagnosed glioblastoma helped them live longer. [8:40]

Advances in treating esophageal and colorectal cancers

Dr. Jeffrey Meyerhardt

Dr. Jeffrey Meyerhardt, the 2021 Cancer.Net Associate Editor for GI Cancers, discusses the results from 3 studies in this field, including 1 about esophageal cancer and 2 about colorectal cancer. The first study, the phase 3 CheckMate 648 clinical trial, compared 3 treatments for people with advanced, recurrent, or metastatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma to see which helped them live longer and slow the cancer’s growth: the immunotherapy nivolumab (Opdivo) with chemotherapy, nivolumab with another immunotherapy called ipilimumab (Yervoy), or chemotherapy alone. [15:31] The next study discussed, the phase 2 DESTINY-CRC01 clinical trial, studied whether the targeted therapy drug trastuzumab deruxtecan (Enhertu) helped shrink the tumors of people with HER2-expressing metastatic colorectal cancer. [17:06] Finally, Dr. Meyerhardt discusses the FOCUS4-N clinical trial, which was seeing whether maintenance chemotherapy helped people with metastatic colorectal cancer live longer compared with active monitoring, which is closely watching a person’s disease for signs of growth before giving more treatment. [19:17]

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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