Highlights from the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2008 Annual Meeting

CHICAGO, IL · MAY 30 – JUNE 3, 2008

Gemcitabine following pancreatic resection improved survival
Administering gemcitabine to patients with resected pancreatic cancer more than doubles their overall survival, according to the final results of the CONKO-001 trial presented during a Saturday press briefing at the 2008 ASCO Annual Meeting. “Treatment with gemcitabine as compared to observation in patients with resected pancreatic cancer resulted in improved disease-free survival and overall survival,” Helmut Oettle, MD, PhD, said during the briefing. “Gemcitabine should be the standard of care for adjuvant treatment of pancreatic cancer.” For more, see hemonctoday.com

Everolimus improved survival in metastatic RCC
Everolimus prolonged progression-free survival in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma who progressed after treatment with other targeted therapies. “Everolimus is the first and only agent with established clinical benefit in patients with renal cell carcinoma after VEGF-r tyrosine kinase inhibitor treatment,” said Robert J. Motzer, MD. “Everolimus should be the standard of care in this setting, pending regulatory approval.” For more, see hemonctoday.com

Docetaxel plus bevacizumab improves PFS in breast cancer
Adding bevacizumab to docetaxel slowed progression of locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer in patients who had not received prior treatment, according to results of the AVADO trial. The results of AVADO, an international, randomized, double blind phase-3 trial, were presented at the 2008 ASCO Annual Meeting by David Miles, MD, a professor at the Mount Vernon Cancer Centre in London. Bevacizumab (Avastin, Genentech) with paclitaxel was approved by the FDA in February to treat newly-diagnosed metastatic breast cancer, based on studies with progression-free survival as the primary endpoint. For more, see hemonctoday.com

Zoledronic acid improved disease-free survival, relapse rate when added to endocrine therapy
There was no difference in disease-free survival between premenopausal women with breast cancer who received tamoxifen and those who received anastrozole. The addition of zoledronic acid to both adjuvant endocrine therapies improved the disease-free survival and the relapse-free survival, according to Michael Gnant, MD, a professor of surgery at the Medical University of Vienna. Gnant presented this data from the Austrian Breast and Colorectal Cancer Study Group Trial 12 at an ASCO 2008 Annual Meeting Plenary Session. For more, see hemonctoday.com

No difference between initial radiotherapy or chemotherapy for oligoastrocytic tumors
No significant difference was found between radiotherapy and chemotherapy for treatment of oligoastrocytic tumors, according to new phase-3 data presented today. Wolfgang Wick, MD, department of neurology, University of Heidelberg and German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, presented the data June 2 at the 2008 ASCO Annual Meeting. For more, see hemonctoday.com

Tremelimumab failed to show improvement over standard chemotherapy for metastatic melanoma
Tremelimumab failed to demonstrate improvement in overall survival for patients with metastatic melanoma when compared with standard chemotherapy. "Tremelimumab as a single agent failed to demonstrate a significant improvement in overall survival when compared with standard chemotherapy for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic melanoma," said Antoni Ribas, MD, from the department of medicine at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA. The study was stopped early due to treatment futility. For more, see hemonctoday.com

KRAS mutations linked to ineffectiveness of cetuximab in colorectal cancer
Patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who have mutations to the KRAS gene do not appear to benefit from the addition of cetuximab to FOLFIRI chemotherapy. Those with wild-type KRAS genes, however, have a longer progression-free survival when they receive cetuximab (Erbitux, ImClone) with chemotherapy as first-line treatment, according to Eric Van Cutsem, MD, PhD, a professor at the University Hospital Gasthuisberg in Belgium. Van Cutsem presented data from a retrospective analysis of the CRYSTAL trial at an ASCO 2008 Annual Meeting Plenary Session. For more, see hemonctoday.com

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