ASCO Follow-Ups

Very quick post. I wanted to share a couple of follow-up or analysis pieces from ASCO.

About this time (maybe 3 weeks after ASCO is over), we start to see some commentaries and analysis from the conference. One of the many oncology websites will ask one or more cancer experts to comment on what they thought as most important or impactful from ASCO.

I have two to share with you. The first was sent to me by William, a long-time reader whose wife is a Follicular Lymphoma patient. It's from the website Healio, and features a very brief interview with Dr. Matthew Matasar from Rutgers Cancer Institute. In the video, he mentions several important presentations from ASCO, including the one that I mentioned before on Epcoritamab. He confirms that bi-specifics are getting a lot of Lymphoma experts excited.

The other link is for a podcast from ASCO that highlights developments in blood cancer research. The podcast features a conversation between Dr. John Sweetenham from UT Southwestern's Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center and Dr. Marc Braunstein from NYU's Perlmutter Cancer Center. 

Dr. Braunstein also mentions the Epcoritamab presentation as being particularly significant. He walks through the results of the study, pointing out the great numbers for effectiveness and mentioning the side effects. As he says, "I think the addition of epcoritamab certainly shows high overall response rates and we'll need randomized data to confirm the efficacy, but it's definitely encouraging in high-risk follicular lymphoma patients." In other words, a larger clinical trial will be necessary that provides a direct comparison to current treatments to really show how good it is. 

But, once again, both realize how important bi-specifics are becoming for Lymphoma.

I'm sure there will be more analysis of the ASCO conference to come, and my guess is that the Epcoritamab presentation will continue to be a part. I'm hoping that some others will get a mention as well, though as I've been saying, Follicular Lymphoma was not a prominent subject this year.

But there's still plenty to talk about. More to come soon.