European Society for Medical Oncology 2020

Abstract

The 2020 Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) was another large meeting held solely in a virtual format due to the ongoing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) pandemic. While we all have—to a certain extent—become used to the transfer of large parts of our professional lives into the virtual world, following developments outside our own field of expertise has become more difficult. Therefore, reviews focusing on congress highlights have gained importance and in the current issue, the Magazine of European Medical Oncology (MEMO) provides a series of articles focusing on relevant results presented at the virtual 2020 ESMO congress in the fields of breast cancer, nonsmall-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), gastrointestinal and genitourinary cancers. Drs. Popper and Rumpold present data on esophageal and gastric cancer and not surprisingly, the focus lies with immunotherapy [1]. Data from CheckMate 577 were presented at a Presidential Symposium: In patients with resected esophageal or gastro-esophageal junction cancers after neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy, treatment with the immune checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab yielded a statistically significant and clinically relevant prolongation of disease-free survival (DFS) over placebo. While data on overall survival (OS) are still awaited, these data may eventually become practice changing. Data on pancreatic cancer are summarized by Dr. Bergen, and promising results of several novel targeted approaches were presented [2]. On the downside, a randomized phase II trial found no benefit for the addition of combination immunotherapy con-