Lung, breast, bowel cancers dominate ASCO social media conversation among HCPs
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ASCO Annual Meeting, held in person for the first time since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, took place June 3-7 in Chicago.
ASCO — also accessible virtually via live or on-demand sessions — provided a great platform for health care professionals (HCP) to learn about the latest developments in oncology while reconnecting with their peers.
We used CREATION Pinpoint to isolate the voice of HCPs online and explore the social media conversations they had globally during the conference.
The overall volume of conversation among HCPs appeared comparable to that of the all-virtual ASCO Annual Meeting in 2021, declining by approximately 2% but still attracting much attention with more than 26,000 HCP social media posts during the 5-day conference.
HCP focus: Lung, breast, bowel cancers
Much of the social media conversation centered on ASCO’s primary focus — the release and presentation of new clinical trial data from oncology.
The three topics most frequently discussed by HCPs were lung cancer, breast cancer and bowel/colorectal cancer.
The DESTINY-Breast04 trial — which compared fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (Enhertu; AstraZeneca, Daiichi Sankyo) with physician’s choice of treatment for HER2-low metastatic breast cancer — drove the largest spike in the conversation.
The results attracted the attention of many HCPs, who called the results “unprecedented,” “practice changing” and an “important moment in the history of this disease.”
HCPs celebrated both the efficacy of the drug — as researchers reported a significant increase in survival — and its manageable safety profile.
Several lung cancer trials piqued the interest of HCPs.
These included the NADIM-2 trial, which assessed neoadjuvant nivolumab (Opdivo, Bristol Myers Squibb) with chemotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer. The regimen appeared associated with positive response rates, and HCPs indicated this could become a new standard of care.
HCPs also reacted to trials that did not demonstrate as positive an outcome as hoped for, such as the randomized phase 3 SKYSCRAPER-02 trial.
The trial evaluated the addition of tiragolumab (Genentech), a novel immune checkpoint inhibitor, to the anti-PD-L1 monoclonal antibody atezolizumab (Tecentriq, Genentech) and chemotherapy as first-line treatment for extensive-stage small cell lung cancer. The addition of tiragolumab did not provide a survival benefit.
Most discussed product: Trastuzumab deruxtecan
Unsurprisingly given the success of the DESTINY-Breast04 trial, trastuzumab deruxtecan was the most frequently discussed product among HCPs throughout ASCO.
The second most mentioned product was dostarlimab (Jemperli, GlaxoSmithKline), discussed in the context of a small phase 2 study in which all 16 evaluated patients with mismatch repair-deficient locally advanced rectal cancer achieved a clinically complete response to single-agent therapy.
The publication of the study in The New England Journal of Medicine was the most shared resource among HCPs during ASCO.
HCPs were thrilled to see the effectiveness of dostarlimab in this area, with oncologist Mark A. Lewis, MD, director of gastrointestinal oncology at Intermountain Healthcare, describing the outcome as “absolutely incredible.”
Nivolumab came in third, with HCPs talking about the product in the context of many lung cancer studies, including NADIM-2.
Four HCPs drive discussions
Four HCPs were particularly active on social media during ASCO, each posting more than 400 times during the meeting.
They were: Cristiane Decat Bergerot, PhD, director of the department of psycho-oncology at. CETTRO Cancer Research Hospital in Brazil and visiting scholar at City of Hope; Gilberto Lopes, MD, FASCO, MBA, associate director for global oncology and interim chief for the division of medical oncology at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at University of Miami; Dipesh Uprety, MD, thoracic oncologist and assistant professor in the department of medical oncology at Karmanos Cancer Institute; and Santhosh Ambika, MD, hematologist-oncologist at Cancer Care Specialists and Renown Health Oncology.
Although volume of posts is only one metric related to HCP influence on social media, these individuals were key in driving discussions among their peers and reacting to data as they were presented.
Each author displayed their own content preferences and digital behaviors throughout the conference.
Bergerot took a general approach to the conference, covering all cancer types and often choosing to share abstracts from the ASCO program guide, whereas Uprety focused on the lung cancer aspects of the congress and preferred to give his own thoughts using images from the presentations.
References:
The following were presented at ASCO Annual Meeting; June 3-7, 2022; Chicago:
Cercek A, et al. Abstract LBA5.
Modi S, et al. Abstract LBA3.
Provencio-Pulla M, et al. Abstract 8501.
Rudin CM, et al. Abstract LBA8507.
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