ESMO 2021 – Solid Tumors – virtual
Lecture Board: Daniel Catenacci, MD; Chiara Cremolini, MD, PhD; Sara A. Hurvitz, MD; Krishnansu S. Tewari, MD; Romain Varnier, MD;
Medical Writer: Florence Boulmé, PhD; Eva Eckelhart, PhD
Publishing Editor: Anna Fenzl, PhD
Preface
For the second time, the ESMO scientific meeting took place virtually from 16th - 21st September 2021. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, the ESMO committee received an increased number of submitted abstracts compared to last year.
New horizons in colorectal cancer
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of cancer death worldwide. About 20 % of CRC patients are diagnosed at the metastatic stage (mCRC), with a 5-year survival rate of 14 %.
Colorectal cancer – personalized medicine for a heterogeneous disease
Metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC), a major cause of death in the Western world, continuous to have a 5-year survival rate below 15 %, with microsatellite stable (MSS) mCRC representing the greatest clinical challenge due to its poorly characterized immune microenvironment and immune response.
Novel approaches in gastric/gastroesophageal cancer
Gastric cancer (GC) is the fifth most common cancer and the third leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Although gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer, a form of gastric cancer arising in the area of the digestive tract where esophagus and stomach connect, has a lower prevalence than GC, it is continuously rising.
Highlights in cervical cancer
In 2020, more than 600,000 new cases of cervical cancer were diagnosed. Its mortality rate reached 57 % with more than 340,000 deaths; cervical cancer was the ninth leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide and therefore a concerning global health issue. In young women (aged 15 to 44 years), it is the second most common cancer and cause of cancer death.
Emerging landscape and treatment options in breast cancer
Breast cancer (BC) is the most common malignancy and the leading cause of cancer death worldwide in women; in 2020, almost 2.3 million people were diagnosed, and more than half a million died from BC.
EXPERT VIDEOS
All video interviews from ESMO Solid Tumors 2021
Yelena Y. Janjigian talks about the practice-changing results obtained in the CheckMate 649 trial and how the proportion of patients with advanced gastric cancer and esophageal adenocarcinoma who receive multiple treatment lines rather than just one or two can be increased. Biomarker-targeted therapies, precision medicine approaches for advanced G/GEJ cancers, the significance of chemotherapy as well as the duration of maintenance therapy are discussed, too.
Chiara Cremolini gives an overview of strategies that might become available in the future to enhance the efficacy of immunotherapies in the setting of microsatellite-stable metastatic colorectal cancer, how to increase the proportion of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who receive multiple treatment lines, the optimal continuum of care in 2021 in metastatic colorectal cancer and how to predict progressive disease.
Javier Cortés highlights the superiority of trastuzumab deruxtecan compared to trastuzumab emtansine in patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer and the resulting future therapy algorithm, potential combinations in the management of patients with HER2-negative breast cancer and the clinical relevance of immunotherapy-based approaches in the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer.
Ian Chau depicts the most interesting trial results in the field of esophageal cancer at the ESMO 2021 congress, gives an outlook on personalized approaches in the setting of esophageal squamous-cell carcinoma with regard to biomarkers for checkpoint inhibitors as well as potential further improvements of the prognosis of patients with esophageal cancer.
Ken Kato summarizes combination regimens currently investigated in the neoadjuvant treatment of patients with esophageal cancer and outlines how immunotherapy has changed the first-line treatment standards in patients with esophageal squamous-cell carcinoma and which further developments are expected for the first-and second-line setting in the future.
The ESMO congress has provided amazing new data on gastroesophageal cancer, and great contributions by different authors all over the world have been presented. Patients with advanced gastric cancer used to have a median overall survival of less than 1 year when treated with conventional chemotherapy. For the first time, this was prolonged to more than 1 year due to the addition of checkpoint inhibition.