ESMO 2016

The ASCEND-5 trial results establish ceritinib as a valid option for pretreated non-small-cell lung cancer patients harboring anaplastic lymphoma kinase translocations.

The programmed death-ligand 1 directed antibody atezolizumab confers an overall survival advantage relative to docetaxel in previously treated patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small-cell lung cancer, indicate phase III trial findings.

Updated phase III trial results show that ipilimumab treatment improves overall survival and distant metastasis-free survival in stage III melanoma patients who have undergone complete resection, but with increased toxicity relative to placebo.

Women with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer derive a significant progression-free survival benefit from the addition of ribociclib to letrozole in the first-line setting, shows the placebo-controlled MONALEESA-2 trial.

Pembrolizumab is superior to platinum-based chemotherapy for the first-line treatment of advanced non-small-cell lung cancer expressing programmed death-ligand 1 in at least 50% of cells, KEYNOTE-024 results show.

Cabozantinib significantly improves progression-free survival in newly diagnosed patients with intermediate- or poor-risk metastatic renal cell carcinoma, shows a head-to-head comparison with the standard of care sunitinib.

ENGOT-OV16/NOVA trial results support the use of maintenance treatment with niraparib for platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer, in both patients with and without a germline BRCA mutation.

KEYNOTE-021 results indicate that adding pembrolizumab to carboplatin and pemetrexed chemotherapy could be an effective strategy for the first-line treatment of advanced, non-squamous non-small-cell lung cancer.

Proffered paper presentations on prostate cancer at the ESMO 2016 Congress, held in Copenhagen, Denmark, covered metastasis-free survival as a surrogate for overall survival in localised disease, and PTEN loss as a predictive biomarker for ipatasertib plus abiraterone therapy in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.