Australian researchers shine on the European stage
23 October 2023
Over the weekend the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress brought together world leading oncology clinicians and researchers to share, discuss and collaborate on the latest advances in cancer.
This year three Peter Mac medical oncologists had the honour of being selected on the Scientific Committee to determine the most impactful and important topics to be discussed in their area of expertise.
Peter Mac medical oncologists Dr Richard De Boer, Associate Professor Shahneen Sandhu and Professor Clare Scott helped guided the topics of discussion in early-stage breast cancer genitourinary tumours and prostate cancer and gynaecological cancers.
Professor Jayesh Desai, Associate Director Clinical Research, Peter Mac said that it is an honour for the individuals and a testament to the high-level of research being conducted at Peter Mac to have three clinician researchers selected on the Scientific Committee for a European Meeting.
“Associate Professor Shahneen Sandhu has also been invited as a discussant for an important proffered paper session on genitourinary tumours and prostate cancer which highlights how well regarded her advice and knowledge are in this area.
“It is also exciting to see one of our trainee doctors, Adel Shahnam, presenting a poster for the first time on his research into time to deterioration of quality of life as a surrogate marker of overall survival,” said Professor Desai.
Professor Sherene Loi, group leader and medical oncologist in the Breast Service at Peter Mac, presented the first results from a phase III clinical trial investigating immunotherapy in early-stage oestrogen receptor (ER)-positive HER2-negative breast cancer as part of the late breaking abstracts session.
“Our trial called CheckMate-7FL showed that adding an immunotherapy treatment called nivolumab to the treatment plan significantly increased the rate of pathological complete response and improved outcomes, especially in patients with breast cancers expressing high levels of immune cells called PD-L1,” said Professor Loi.
“This study demonstrates for the first time that immunotherapy can be used in patients with high risk aggressive newly diagnosed ER-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, the most common breast cancer type and one that commonly occurs in younger women.”
Associate Professor Arun Azad, medical oncologist and translational researcher at Peter Mac, presented at a symposium that covered the results of three important practice changing clinical trials in prostate cancer.
Associate Professor Azad said the three trials evaluated hormonal agents currently used in the clinic (either abiraterone or enzalutamide) in combination with various treatments that inhibit the poly-ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) enzyme, which is important in repairing DNA damage in cancer cells.
“The trials showed a significant benefit for combining abiraterone or enzalutamide with a PARPi in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) patients with mutations in DNA repair genes.”
Peter Mac had a key role in these practice-changing clinical trials. Both Associate Professors Sandhu and Azad were on the Trial Steering Committee for two of the trials and were senior authors on the publications in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and The Lancet.
Professor Linda Mileshkin, Director of Medical Oncology at Peter Mac presented at a late breaking abstract session as well as a satellite symposium on her research into improved outcomes for people with cancer of an unknown primary.
She said that the results from the CUPISCO trial are an exciting development for Cancer of Unknown Primary (CUP) patients and noted that it was really gratifying to see this after investing a lot of her time to improving outcomes for this patient group.
“The clear benefit from molecularly- guided therapy in the investigational arm means that this should be a new standard of care for CUP patients.
“We need to find a way to make both the molecular testing as well as the relevant targeted therapies available for CUP patients to access,” said Professor Mileshkin.
In the ESMO presidential symposium Professor Ben Solomon, medical oncologist at Peter Mac, presented the results of a global trial examining the effects of a treatment called alectinib in people with ALK positive early stage lung cancer.
“We have previously seen the benefits of targeted therapies in patients with advanced lung cancer. This trial is an international phase III study which looks to see if the use of targeted therapy with oral drugs can improve outcomes in patients with early stage lung cancer,” said Professor Solomon.
There were plenty of Peter Mac researchers at the congress sharing ideas and bringing home new ideas to help improve outcomes for Australian cancer patients.