The prospect of markedly raising chemotherapy response rates and extending patient survival has been held out by scientists reporting a new AI-powered digital tool to optimize cancer management for individual patients.

The tool creates a “digital twin” for each patient that makes it possible to predict response to specific treatment regimens and confidently predict outcomes, according to findings from a study reported by scientists at the EORTC-NCI-AACR 2024 Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics Symposium.

The prospect of a minimally toxic, chemotherapy-free cure for hepatoblastoma is held out by findings from a mouse model using the small-molecule drug WNTinib that inhibits the Wnt signaling pathway involved with cancer growth.

Lead author Ugnė Balaševičiūtė, a pre-doctoral researcher in Translational Research of the Hepatic Oncology Group led by Josep M. Llovet, Professor at the Institut D'Investigacions Biomediques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS) in Barcelona, Spain, reported that the CTNNB1 (catenin beta-1 protein) gene targeted by WNTinib was expressed in 90 percent of all hepatoblastomas. Hopes were high that a safer alternative to chemotherapy in humans was on the way.

A chemotherapy-free combination of two anti-human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (anti-HER2) agents brought clinically meaningful responses to patients with bile duct cancers testing positive for HER2 or with mutated HER2 in research from Japan reported at the EORTC-NCI-AACR 2024 Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics Symposium held in Barcelona, Spain.

In the SGNTUC-019 Phase II basket study of 217 patients, who had a variety of previously treated solid tumors with HER2 overexpressed, amplified, or mutated, a combination of tucatinib with trastuzumab brought significant clinical responses among those with biliary tract tumors in addition to those with breast cancer.

The fibroblast growth factor receptor-3 (FGFR-3) inhibitor TYRA-300 has been found safe with dose-dependent responses and disease control in the Phase I SURF301 trial. The study included 41 patients who had been heavily pre-treated for their advanced solid tumors with activating FGFR3 mutations/fusions, bringing the hope of avoiding toxicities from the use of non-specific pan-FGFR inhibition.

The findings were reported by Ben Tran, MBBS, FRACP, at the 2024 EORTC-NCI-AACR 2024 Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics Symposium held in Barcelona, Spain. Tran is a Medical Oncologist and Associate Professor at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre Melbourne, Australia. He also is Chair of the Germ Cell Tumour Subcommittee for the Australian and New Zealand Urological and Prostate Cancer Trials.

The mini-protein radiopharmaceutical AKY-1189, designed to deliver the alpha-emitting isotope Actinium-225 (225Ac) to tumors expressing the Nectin-4 transmembrane protein, has been found to achieve favorable dosing to tumors, while minimizing exposure to non-target tissues, including the kidney.

Data on the biodistribution and tumor uptake of the drug were reported at the 2024 EORTC-NCI-AACR 2024 Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics Symposium held in Barcelona. Researcher Machaba Mike Sathekge, PhD, Professor and Head of the Department of Nuclear Medicine at the University of Pretoria and Steve Biko Academic Hospital in South Africa. He is also CEO of Nuclear Medicine Research Infrastructure and Chairman of the South African Medical Research Council.

In a Phase I study with 318 patients in China and Australia the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) IBI354 was found to be safe and have promising efficacy in patients whose breast and other solid tumors tested positive for HER2 or were categorized as “HER2-low.”

At ESMO Congress 2024, the study also reported a low rate of interstitial lung disease in patients treated with the ADC. Oncology Times correspondent Peter Goodwin talked with Christina Teng, PhD, the presenting author of the new research from Scientia Clinical Research and the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney, Australia.

Sustained responses and long-term overall survival have resulted from checkpoint inhibitor therapy for advanced melanoma, transforming the prognosis for as many as half of patients. This is according to 10-year survival outcomes from the Phase Ill CheckMate 067 trial of nivolumab plus ipilimumab in advanced melanoma that were reported at the ESMO Congress 2024.

At the conference, Oncology Times reporter, Peter Goodwin, caught up with James Larkin, FRCP, PhD, Professor and Medical Oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London.