Oncology Times - OncTimes Talk

Patients with breast cancer who complied fully with their adjuvant endocrine medication lived 15 percent longer than those who skipped doses, according to a huge real-world study coordinated from Tübingen University, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, reported at the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting.

OncTimesTalk correspondent Peter Goodwin discusses the findings with senior author of the study, Dominik Dannehl, MD, a physician at the Department of Women's Health, Tübingen University Hospital, in Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Patients with breast cancer who complied fully with their adjuvant endocrine medication lived 15 percent longer than those who skipped doses, according to a huge real-world study coordinated from Tübingen University, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, reported at the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting.

OncTimesTalk correspondent Peter Goodwin discusses the findings with senior author of the study, Dominik Dannehl, MD, a physician at the Department of Women's Health, Tübingen University Hospital, in Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Being overweight or obese can reduce the benefit of extending adjuvant breast cancer hormone therapy in women younger than 60 years, according to research from the DATA trial discussed at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Breast Cancer 2023 Congress.
Senna W.M. Lammers, MD, from Maastricht University Medical Centre in The Netherlands, reported her findings from the DATA trial looking at the benefit of extending adjuvant hormonal therapy by treating women with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer who had already received tamoxifen with an additional course of anastrozole.
The study confirmed an overall benefit in disease-free survival from extending the endocrine therapy, but also found this was impacted by body mass index: with overweight and obese patients benefiting less if they were under the age of 60.

Being overweight or obese can reduce the benefit of extending adjuvant breast cancer hormone therapy in women younger than 60 years, according to research from the DATA trial discussed at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Breast Cancer 2023 Congress.
Senna W.M. Lammers, MD, from Maastricht University Medical Centre in The Netherlands, reported her findings from the DATA trial looking at the benefit of extending adjuvant hormonal therapy by treating women with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer who had already received tamoxifen with an additional course of anastrozole.
The study confirmed an overall benefit in disease-free survival from extending the endocrine therapy, but also found this was impacted by body mass index: with overweight and obese patients benefiting less if they were under the age of 60.

Non-small cell lung cancer was one of the big topics at the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting where Heather Wakelee, MD, FASCO, Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Oncology at Stanford University in California, was overheard reminding a junior cancer doctor that the only adjuvant therapy for lung cancer had been chemotherapy just a couple of decades previously.  Now, a plethora of targeted therapies are available, and Wakelee reported a big improvement in outcome from one of them—pembrolizumab—used both before and after surgery in early Stage II and III disease (mostly Stage III).

“These results indicate perioperative pembrolizumab given in combination with chemotherapy prior to surgery and for up to one year as a single agent after surgery led to significant improvement in event-free survival (defined by local progression precluding definitive surgery, recurrence, or death) with a strong trend towards improvement in overall survival. These results indicate peri-operative pembrolizumab significantly improves outcomes for patients with potentially resectable Stage II-III NSCLC,” said Wakelee. After her talk at ASCO, she discussed her group’s findings with OncTimesTalk correspondent, Peter Goodwin.

Non-small cell lung cancer was one of the big topics at the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting where Heather Wakelee, MD, FASCO, Professor of Medicine and Chief of the Division of Oncology at Stanford University in California, was overheard reminding a junior cancer doctor that the only adjuvant therapy for lung cancer had been chemotherapy just a couple of decades previously.  Now, a plethora of targeted therapies are available, and Wakelee reported a big improvement in outcome from one of them—pembrolizumab—used both before and after surgery in early Stage II and III disease (mostly Stage III).

“These results indicate perioperative pembrolizumab given in combination with chemotherapy prior to surgery and for up to one year as a single agent after surgery led to significant improvement in event-free survival (defined by local progression precluding definitive surgery, recurrence, or death) with a strong trend towards improvement in overall survival. These results indicate peri-operative pembrolizumab significantly improves outcomes for patients with potentially resectable Stage II-III NSCLC,” said Wakelee. After her talk at ASCO, she discussed her group’s findings with OncTimesTalk correspondent, Peter Goodwin.

End-of-life care for patients with cancer could be significantly improved while simultaneously reducing cost according to the findings of a study from the University of Pennsylvania. Ravi Parikh, MD, MPH, talks with OncTimesTalk correspondent Peter Goodwin about his findings on the value of harnessing AI to help doctors have serious illness conversations with patients during end-of-life care.

End-of-life care for patients with cancer could be significantly improved while simultaneously reducing cost according to the findings of a study from the University of Pennsylvania. Ravi Parikh, MD, MPH, talks with OncTimesTalk correspondent Peter Goodwin about his findings on the value of harnessing AI to help doctors have serious illness conversations with patients during end-of-life care.

Roy Herbst, MD PhD, Deputy Director of the Yale Cancer Center at Yale School of Medicine, talks with OncTimesTalk correspondent Peter Goodwin about his group’s findings from the international Phase III ADAURA clinical trial looking at adjuvant therapy with the anti EGFR-mutant drug osimertinib in patients with completely resected stage one B to three A non-small cell lung cancer.

In a late-breaking abstract reported at the 2023 American Society of Clinical Oncology Meeting Plenary Session, Herbst showed that osimertinib not only improved disease-free survival, but also brought a clear and big benefit in overall survival.

Roy Herbst, MD PhD, Deputy Director of the Yale Cancer Center at Yale School of Medicine, talks with OncTimesTalk correspondent Peter Goodwin about his group’s findings from the international Phase III ADAURA clinical trial looking at adjuvant therapy with the anti EGFR-mutant drug osimertinib in patients with completely resected stage one B to three A non-small cell lung cancer.
In a late-breaking abstract reported at the 2023 American Society of Clinical Oncology Meeting Plenary Session, Herbst showed that osimertinib not only improved disease-free survival, but also brought a clear and big benefit in overall survival.