Too often the access to quality biomarkers is undermined by poor knowledge on the need for quality assurance. Relying on the assumption that biomarkers bring ‘innovation’ without claiming quality may be appealing to some, perhaps not really to medical conservatives – and not to patients, for sure. 

Survival benefit with first-line pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy in persistent, recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer

Immune chemo-sensitisation results show potential for this approach in the treatment of advanced CRC, but greater understanding of response characteristics is required in future clinical trials

The ESMO Congress 2021 has started today with three sessions on developmental therapeutics, including immunotherapy. The overarching theme in these sessions is the improvement of checkpoint inhibitor-based immunotherapy and a new flavour of synthetic lethality in molecularly pre-defined solid tumours.

Manageable toxicity profile and signs of clinical benefit seen with gavocabtagene autoleucel in treatment-refractory mesothelin-expressing solid tumours

Genomic landscaping suggests molecular divergence between cancer subtypes and across disease stages, but molecular similarities between White and Asian populations

Prospective evidence from a multicentre study support the need for a more personalised immuno-oncology approach based on sex and gender differences

Preliminary data indicate tolerability and disease control with bexmarilimab in hard-to-treat solid tumours