Articles related to Oncology, Surgical

Dr. Mohyudding summarizes key findings ASCO reports, including updates on teclistamab in CAR-T, the DETERMINATION trial assessing auto-transplantation, cilta-cel (covered by HCN here), and the ATLAS study evaluating carfilzomib with lenalidomide and dexamethasone as maintenance vs. lenalidomide alone.

This report provides longer-term results from the CARTITUDE-1 trial of ciltacabtagene autoleucel (cilta-cel) in heavily pretreated patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. This update covers 97 patients at a median follow up of ~28 months. The overall response rate was 97.9%, with an 82% stringent complete response across both standard and high-risk subgroups. These longer-term data from CARTITUDE-1 in triple-class exposed patients with RRMM demonstrate deep and durable responses to cilta-cel over time, including in high-risk subgroups.

Three-hundred-twenty-four (324) patients with stage II or III rectal adenocarcinoma were treated with induction chemotherapy followed by chemoradiotherapy (INCT-CRT) or chemoradiotherapy followed by consolidation chemotherapy (CRT-CNCT). Patients then underwent total mesorectal excision (TME) or were assigned to a watch-and-wait status on the basis of tumor response. Three-year TME-free survival was 41% in the INCT-CRT group and 53% in the CRT-CNCT group. Organ preservation is achievable in half of the patients with rectal cancer treated with total neoadjuvant therapy, without an apparent detriment in survival.

Recent trends in locally advanced rectal cancer treatment have focused on risk-stratification of patients and tailoring treatment to achieve the best outcome while limiting the impact on long-term quality of life. There has been increasing interest in watch-and-wait approaches to achieve organ preservation. This article provides an overview of some major developments in the multimodal treatment of locally advanced rectal cancer, reviews controversial issues of the watch-and-wait approach and opportunities to personally tailor and reduce treatment, and provides an algorithm example of how such a personalized, tailored, adaptive, and reduced treatment could look like in the future.

This multicenter, open-label, randomized phase III trial conducted in Japan compared 3 versus 6 months of postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with curatively resected stage III colon cancer. Study participants received either a modified fluorouracil, leucovorin, and oxaliplatin, regimen, or capecitabine and oxaliplatin (CAPOX) regimen. Five-year OS rates were comparable between the two groups: 87.0% in the 3-month treatment group and 86.4% in the 6-month treatment group. Peripheral sensory neuropathy lasting longer than 5 years was twice as common in the 6- compared with 3-month treatment group (16% v 8%, respectively) and in those receiving mFOLFOX6 compared with CAPOX (14% v 11%, respectively).

In a small study of the PD-1 blocker dostarlimab, 100% of patients with locally advanced mismatch repair–deficient Stage II or III rectal adenocarcinoma experienced remission. The study participants were treated with dostarlimab monotherapy infused every three weeks for six months. The original intent was to follow dostarlimab with chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, but that turned out to be unnecessary.Read the study summary here.