"SWOG always brings an impressive portfolio of work to the ASCO annual meeting," said SWOG Chair Charles D. Blanke, MD, "and this year I'm particularly excited about the research our investigators are presenting because it includes results that are likely to be practice-changing."
Investigators will present 12 abstracts from SWOG-led or co-led studies and 11 abstracts from studies led by other groups within the National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN).
Results from S1216 will be presented orally by study chair Neeraj Agarwal, MD, of the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah. S1216 compared androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) combined with TAK-700 to the standard treatment of ADT with bicalutamide in patients who had metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer. The study found that adding TAK-700 to ADT lengthened median progression-free survival in these patients and improved prostate-specific antigen response. The combination did not, however, significantly lengthen median overall survival, though it is worth noting that the median overall survival seen in the control arm was higher than has been reported in other recent phase 3 trials in this setting (abstract 5001).
Kenneth Grossmann, MD, PhD, also of the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah, will give an oral presentation of S1404 results. S1404 tested pembrolizumab against therapies that were the standard of care at the start of the trial--either high-dose interferon or ipilimumab--in patients with high-risk resected melanoma. The drug significantly lengthened relapse-free survival in these patients, although it did not provide a statistically significant improvement in overall survival. The safety profile of pembrolizumab was more favorable than that of either ipilimumab or high-dose interferon in this patient population. Notably, the overall outcomes of patients on this trial were substantially better than what was predicted when the study was designed, likely due to the widespread availability of better therapies in the metastatic setting. This is good news for patients with melanoma (abstract 9501).
Here are highlights from some of the other SWOG work to be presented at ASCO 2021.