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The theme of the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting was “Partnering With Patients: The Cornerstone of Cancer Care and Research.” From June 2 to 6 in Chicago, Illinois, and online, cancer researchers and clinicians from around the world gathered to discuss the latest cancer research and how to ensure that all people receive the cancer care they need.

In the Research Round Up series, members of the Cancer.Net Editorial Board discuss the most exciting and practice-changing research in their field presented at the meeting and explain what it means for people with cancer. In today’s episode, our guests will discuss new research in gynecologic cancers [2:06 ], multiple myeloma [9:15 ], and head and neck cancer [16:03 ].

First, Dr. Lan Coffman discusses new research in ovarian cancer, uterine cancer, and cervical cancer. Dr. Coffman is a physician-scientist and gynecologic oncologist at the Magee-Womens Research Institute and Foundation, and assistant professor in Hematology-Oncology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She is also the 2023 Cancer.Net Associate Editor for Gynecologic Cancers.

You can view Dr. Coffman’s disclosures at Cancer.Net.

Dr. Coffman: Hi, my name is Lan Coffman. I'm a physician-scientist at the University of Pittsburgh. I'm a medical oncologist that specializes in gynecologic cancers, and I'm happy to discuss research that was presented on gynecologic cancers at the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting. I do have a relevant disclosure. I participated in one of the trials I'm going to discuss, a trial called MIRASOL. I was the site principal investigator at University of Pittsburgh.

I think there were a lot of interesting studies to highlight, and I wanted to focus on studies involving ovary cancer, endometrial cancer, and cervix cancers as the main sites that we study in the gynecologic oncology world. So when we talk about ovary cancer, I think there was one really impactful study that was presented at ASCO this year, and it was called MIRASOL. And again, this is the study that I also participated in at our hospital at University of Pittsburgh. So it was a large study, so a randomized phase 3 study looking at a drug called mirvetuximab, which is an antibody-drug conjugate.

So basically, it's an antibody against a protein that is expressed on ovarian cancer cells and the protein’s called folate receptor-alpha. And that antibody basically carries a little poison. And so it's kind of like a Trojan horse. This antibody goes, finds that protein on the tumor cells, and then delivers that poison. And so this drug has been studied and actually was presented last year in a different trial called SORAYA, which showed that it had activity, meaning the drug helped to kill ovarian cancer cells, and actually led to the first approval of this drug in ovary cancer. So this trial was the confirmatory trial, so enrolling more patients to see, actually, is it better than standard-of-care chemotherapy? So this was in women with ovarian cancer that had come back and was platinum resistant, meaning the cancer started to grow within 6 months from the last platinum-based therapy. Women were eligible if they had high expression of this folate receptor-alpha, and they had to have a couple of prior lines of therapy.

And then they were randomized, so kind of chosen out of a hat to either be treated with mirvetuximab or with investigator's choice chemotherapy. So one of the chemotherapies we'd use standardly. And so that would be something like taxol, or liposomal doxorubicin, or topotecan. And basically, this study was comparing how well does mirvetuximab work compared to chemotherapy. And importantly, it showed that it improved survival, both progression-free survival, so how long it took before the disease started to grow again, but probably more importantly, actually improved overall survival, so how long a woman lived. And actually changed overall survival from about 16 and a half months compared to 12 months with chemotherapy. And so this was really important and demonstrated that mirvetuximab does actually impact women with ovarian cancer and actually helps women live longer. And that's really hard to do in this setting.

And the other nice thing about this trial was that not only did it work well, but there are actually lower side effects with it, and so less women actually had to discontinue their treatment, and they had less what we call adverse events, or basically bad things that had happened from the treatment themselves. So just telling us that this drug is actually well tolerated. Women feel well on it, even when their cancer is shrinking. So I think that was one of the most impactful studies in ovary cancer. Moving on to endometrial cancer. We recently had 2 studies, one called RUBY and one called GY018 that looked at using immunotherapy in combination with chemotherapy in endometrial cancer. And what was presented at ASCO was some follow-up from this RUBY trial, which was basically validating that this combination of adding immunotherapy actually helped. To give you a background, traditionally, women that have endometrial cancer that is advanced staged, meaning spread outside of the uterus itself or has come back, we treat it with chemotherapy.

But this study added an immunotherapy called dostarlimab in combination with our standard chemotherapy and actually showed that women were living longer with this, at least in that progression-free survival. We're still waiting on final evaluation. But at ASCO, what they reported was another independent blinded review of the data to show that even when we're really carefully looking at this data, it looks like immunotherapy helps women with endometrial cancer live longer. They also presented quality-of-life data showing that women actually feel better with the addition of the immunotherapy. So I think this is practice changing. And again, this data has been coming out over the last year or so, but I do think this will change the way in which endometrial cancer is treated.

And then the final thing I wanted to discuss would be in cervix cancer. And while there wasn't a lot of new data presented here in terms of kind of paradigm shifts or large changes, we did have final survival [data] from the KEYNOTE-826 presented, which is also using immunotherapy along with chemotherapy in cervix cancer. And so this was in women that, again, had advanced-stage cervix cancer. So it was a cervix cancer that had moved beyond the cervix itself or cervix cancer that had come back and was treated with chemotherapy along with another immunotherapy called pembrolizumab. And this was the final survival data that confirmed that the immunotherapy did help women live longer. The survival data was impressive with about a 10-month improvement in overall survival. So how long a woman lived. And so that was really confirmatory of the previous trials. So again, that emphasizes that immunotherapy is moved towards the standard of care in cervix cancer as well. I can't hit all the highlights of the impressive research coming out of ASCO 2023, this is a brief summary of some of the critical studies in gynecologic cancers.

ASCO: Thank you, Dr. Coffman.

Next, Dr. Sagar Lonial discusses new research in multiple myeloma. Dr. Lonial is a professor of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University, where he also serves as Department Chair. He is also the 2023 Cancer.Net Associate Editor for Myeloma.

You can view Dr. Lonial’s disclosures at Cancer.Net.

Dr. Lonial: Hello, I'm Dr. Sagar Lonial from the Emory School of Medicine and the Winship Cancer Institute in Atlanta, Georgia. And today I'm going to discuss some of the really exciting research in the context of multiple myeloma that was presented at the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting. In terms of my conflicts of interest, I have enrolled patients on many CAR T trials as well as bispecific trials from all of the different companies involved here. So, I do have some engagement with those trials. And one of the studies that I may talk about at the end came from our institution. So I was an investigator on that study as well.

When I think about some of the really exciting work that was presented at ASCO this year, there are really 2 big categories of trials that I think were most exciting. And the first is CAR T-cells and moving them earlier and earlier in the disease state. And what we saw at ASCO this year was the CARTITUDE-4 study, which was a randomized phase 3 trial comparing CAR T-cells versus standard treatment in the context of first or second relapsed multiple myeloma. And this was a really important study for us to hear because we know that CAR T-c