It was great to be back in Barcelona for a record breaking ESMO with over 33,000 delegates, 600 expert presenters and more than 5000 submitted abstracts. Some key takeaways;
- Immunotherapy has re-emerged as a key focus, with a spotlight on its long-term use, perioperative regimens in early-stage cancers, and new data supporting expanded tumor treatment types. It was great to see potential new standards of care for underserved and often excluded patient populations.
- PD-1 inhibitors have significantly transformed melanoma treatment outcomes, with recent 10-year data showing significant survival rate improvements. From a personal perspective this is particularly gratifying have been involved at the beginning.
- Immunotherapy is being explored in early-stage cancers, with new data showing survival benefits in triple-negative breast cancer, liver cancer, and cervical cancer. The necessity of post-surgery immunotherapy (adjuvant therapy) remains a debated topic.
- Challenges remain in expanding the success of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors to other checkpoint inhibitors but there is still a lot of hope and potential avenues
- Despite setbacks in new checkpoint inhibitor development, industry investment is shifting toward novel treatment modalities like antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs).
Overall an exciting ESMO with several potential new standards of care and treatment modalities emerging!
