LUGANO, Switzerland - You are still on time to register as Press representative for the ESMO Immuno Oncology Congress 2017 to be held in Geneva, 7-10 December 2017. Press registration will give you access to European and global experts presenting the latest exciting news in this rapidly evolving area, including: a further piece of the puzzle regarding the use of checkpoint inhibitors in the treatment of 1st line non small cell lung cancer; the use of I-O agents in combination with other therapies; updates in melanoma, head&neck and other tumour types; patient selection and predictive biomarkers; resistance to therapy and future approaches; personalised vaccines, cancer neoantigens and the use of bacteria.
Immunotherapy, which engages the patient’s own defences to fight cancer, has substantially changed the landscape of cancer treatment in the last few years. The ESMO Immuno Oncology Congress offers a dedicated platform in Europe to keep professionals up to date with the most recent and significant developments in the field. The event is the premier I-O meeting in Europe for basic, translational and clinical researchers, immunologists, oncology clinicians and other professionals, attracting one thousand attendees who will benefit from a broad and varied programme as well as focused sessions dedicated to different tumour types and key aspects of this treatment modality.
Take a look at the full congress programme
The ESMO Immuno Oncology Congress will provide rich material for journalists in this exciting field that is bringing new hope to patients.
The official ESMO Immuno Oncology Congress Press Conference will take place on Thursday, 7 December at 12:15 CET at the Palexpo Convention Centre in Geneva, hosted by Prof Rolf A. Stahel, Congress Co-Chair, Chair of the Cancer Center Zurich, University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland and will deal with:
- The role of immunotherapy in the armamentarium of oncologists: what works, where and for whom
- Innovative research which may be the key to understanding why only a limited number of patients respond to checkpoint inhibitors today
- IMpower150 phase III study: the initial analysis of this study designed to show the difference between carboplatin + paclitaxel + bevacizumab, with or without atezolizumab in 1L non-squamous metastatic NSCLC – an important advancement in the use of immunotherapy in first-line treatment of metastatic non-small cell lung cancer?
- Immunotherapy: with or without side-effects? Which ones? How to deal with them?
- First-of-its-kind analysis of the global immuno-oncology clinical landscape from pre-clinical development to regulatory approval
- Cancer immunotherapy is here to stay: can we afford it? The role of philanthropy in supporting immuno-oncology
Speaker panel:
- Prof Martin Reck, first author and presenter of the IMpower150 trial, Head of the Oncology Department, LungenClinic Grosshansdorf, Germany
- Prof Solange Peters, ESMO Press Officer, Head of Medical Oncology and Chair of Thoracic Malignancies, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV), Lausanne, Switzerland
- Prof Laurence Zitvogel, ESMO Immuno-Oncology Awardee and keynote lecturer, Director of the Department of Immuno-Oncology, Gustave Roussy Cancer Centre and Director of U1015 INSERM Tumour Immunology and Immunotherapy Laboratory at INSERM, Paris, France
- Prof John Haanen, Congress Co-Chair, Head of the Division of Medical Oncology and Senior Staff Scientist of the Division of Immunology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Prof Aiman Shalabi, Cancer Research Institute’s chief medical officer and director of the Anna-Maria Kellen Clinical Accelerator
- Prof George Coukos, Congress Co-Chair, Director of the Lausanne Branch, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Chief of the Service of Immuno-oncology and Director of the Oncology Department, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV) and Professor of Oncology, University of Lausanne (UNIL), Lausanne, Switzerland
Press releases will be issued closer to the congress on various abstracts and other subjects.
Deciding who will benefit from immunotherapies is a key issue: at the ESMO Immuno Oncology Congress you will be able to learn about biomarkers and immune profiling both from the “state-of-the-art” and “glimpse-into-the-future” perspectives. (1)
Watch Sergio Quezada on the role of innovative biomarkers and imaging
The ESMO Immuno Oncology Congress will also offer sessions on the role of imaging as one set to make a significant contribution to the development of biomarkers, including a compelling lecture on “The trafficking of leucocutes in inflammation.”
Immunotherapy is a relatively recent weapon in the oncology armamentarium: understanding of its medium- to long-term impact is still incomplete (2). A full session will explore the management of the side-effects and toxicity of these new treatments, whether as monotherapies or combinations. (3)
The keynote lectures will spotlight two of the most prominent and promising researchers in the field of cancer immunotherapy in Europe:
- "Introducing the gut microbiome into the complexity of anticancer immuno surveillance" by Prof Laurence Zitvogel (Director of the Department of Immuno-Oncology, Gustave Roussy Cancer Centre and Director of U1015 INSERM Tumour Immunology and Immunotherapy Laboratory at INSERM, Paris, France).
Zitvogel, who will be awarded the first ESMO Award for Immuno-Oncology for her outstanding achievements in the area of cancer immunotherapy, will present her innovative research which shows an interaction between intestinal microbiome and the anti-tumour activity of cancer treatments which may be the key to understanding why only a limited number of patients respond to checkpoint inhibitors today; - "Learning from tumour microenvironment to inform therapy" by Prof George Coukos (Director of the Lausanne Branch, Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and Chief of the Service of Immuno-oncology, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV) and University of Lausanne (UNIL), Lausanne, Switzerland).
Tumours often mutate in order to hide from the immune system. Understanding what goes on in the intricate microenvironment around tumours will allow oncologists to predict how they will respond and, in the long run, identify the right treatment for the right patient.
Register now to get all congress information, meet leading investigators present the latest data and explain the potential of cancer immunotherapy and its implication for clinical practice today and in the near future.
References
- ESMO has recently publishedthe ESMO Biomarker Factsheet on Tumour Mutational Load to help clinicians predict therapeutic response to immune checkpoint blockade.
- T. W. Chen, A. R. Razak, P. L. Bedard, L. L. Siu, A. R. Hansen; A systematic review of immune-related adverse event reporting in clinical trials of immune checkpoint inhibitors, Annals of Oncology, Volume 26, Issue 9, 1 September 2015, Pages 1824–1829, https://doi.org/10.1093/annonc/mdv182
- In July 2017 ESMO published an ESMO Clinical Practice Guideline on Management of toxicities from Immunotherapy; the related ESMO Patient Guide “Immunotherapy-related side effects and their management” will be released at the ESMO Immuno Oncology Congress.
- J. B. A. G. Haanen, F. Carbonnel, C. Robert, K. M. Kerr, S. Peters, J. Larkin, K. Jordan. Management of toxicities from immunotherapy: ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up, Annals of Oncology, Volume 28, Issue suppl_4, 1 July 2017, Pages iv119–iv142, https://doi.org/10.1093/annonc/mdx225
Contact
ESMO Press Office
E-mail: media@esmo.org
Official hashtag for ESMO Immuno Oncology Congress 2017: #ESMOImmuno17