Preparing for the Future of Oncology Clinical Research
Preparing for the Future of Oncology Clinical Research offers insights into prevalent trial and research developments that will most impact current clinical treatment options for various oncologic indications. Download our new white paper to learn about:
- General trends in oncology, including insights into concomitant medications’ impact on immune checkpoint inhibitors and emerging biomarkers such as ctDNA
- Therapeutic advances in the most challenging indications, including “HER2-low” breast cancer and resectable stage IIIA NSCLC
- Additional research highlights in gastrointestinal, gynecological, and genitourinary cancers as well as pediatric oncology and rare disease
View a sneak peek below
Executive Summary
The 2022 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting was held on June 3-7 in Chicago, Illinois. This is the most significant event for people working in oncology in both clinical practice and clinical research. This year’s ASCO scientific program committee members reviewed over 6,000 abstracts, and hundreds were presented as oral presentations or posters during the meeting. A significant number of these reported potentially practice-changing results that may change the current treatment guidelines and thus influence the design of clinical trial protocols.
Several abstracts included long-term follow-up results for previously reported studies, providing important survival and safety updates. Negative results traditionally do not gain much attention, but if a closely watched large study does not show benefit, it is still an important piece of information and contributes just as much to our knowledge of the disease as a positive result. In this white paper, we will discuss those presentations and abstracts that may change diagnostic and treatment approaches in oncology and what they could mean for the future of clinical research.
General Oncology
New insights into the influence of concomitant medications on immune checkpoint inhibitors
Immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy is currently a standard of care for many malignancies. Recent findings suggest that the outcomes of ICI therapy may be influenced by concomitant medications that also have immunomodulatory properties, such as corticosteroids and antibiotics. Two study teams presented findings that explored the effects of concomitant use of acetaminophen and the live bacterial product CBM588 on ICI efficacy in cancer patients.
Antoine Italiano (Institute Bergonié, France) assessed the impact of acetaminophen use on immunotherapy efficacy in patients with different types of cancer. The study showed that detectable plasma acetaminophen levels at treatment onset were associated with a worse clinical outcome in ICI-treated cancer patients and reduced treatment efficacy. Important unanswered questions remain, including the nature of the influence of the previous acetaminophen exposure, whether there is a difference between sporadic and chronic acetaminophen use, and whether there is any influence of acetaminophen on ICI-related toxicity…