Five interesting scientific abstracts to be followed at ASCO

Five interesting scientific abstracts that will to be followed at ASCO in a Medscape interview with Dr. Jeffrey Weber, a medical oncologist at the New York University Langone Medical Center in New York City:

1) KEYNOTE-006 clinical trial update: 50% of patients with inoperable metastatic disease treated with pembrolizumab lives up to 3 years. Also, data suggest that patients who stopped because of toxicity or after 2 years of treatment could continue to respond to the therapy (Caroline Robert, Institut Gustave Roussy in Paris, France);

2) Combi-d update: 28% of the patients receiving the combination Dabrafenib /Trametinib are alive after 5 years. A higher overall survival rate of 51% could be seen for patients that started the treatment with normal levels of LDH and three or fewer sites of disease (LDH or lactate dehydrogenase is here a biomarker for the progress of the disease), (Georgina Long, University of Sydney, Australia).

3) Combi-MB trial update shows a response rate of 55% and a median overall survival of 10,5 months for patients with brain metastasis treated with the combination dabrafenib/trametinib. So, patients with brain metastasis will do well on the combination, but ‘’probably not so well as the patients who start the treatment without brain metastasis (Mike Davies from MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas).

4) CheckMate 204 study update will be presented by Hussein Tawbi, from MD Anderson Cancer Center. 
In this study, 40% of the patients with brain metastasis, treated with a combination of immunotherapy (ipilimumab/nivolumab) responded to the therapy.

5) And finally, the ECOG/intergroup 1609 clinical trial has (unplanned!) shown no significant differences in the Relapse Free Survival at 3 years, between 10 mg/kg (54%) and 3-mg/kg ipilimumab (56%). This result could lead to using the 3 mg/kg ipilimumab dose as adjuvant therapy, but not 10 mg/kg, with a higher toxicity (ECOG Intergoup 1609 trial compares ipi versus interferon- but data not out yet).