On October 20-24, several from the IMPRESS-Norway team gathered in Madrid for the ESMO 2023 congress. The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) has more than 34 000 members across 170 countries, and the annual conference is an excellent arena to learn more about news/results from clinical trials and developments within cancer care, from prevention and diagnosis to new drugs and treatment options as well as palliative care and patient follow-up. ESMO is also an important arena to connect with the industry and meet their global representatives, and it is a great opportunity to present own research.
At the ESMO 2023 congress, IMPRESS-Norway presented two posters, and InPreD presented one
1235P – Enrichment of rare cancers in pragmatic precision cancer medicine trial: Experience from #IMPRESS-Norway
From abstract summary: “In our ongoing study, we see a higher number of rare cancers included for screening compared with the estimated number of rare cancers in total (50% versus 22 %). Identification of treatment alternative was comparable between rare and non-rare cancers (19 % versus 20 %). This finding is of special importance for patient groups for whom access to clinical trials is limited due to the rareness of the disease.”
706P – The IMPRESS-Norway trial: Improving public cancer care by implementing precision cancer medicine in Norway – Safety analysis of the first 186 patients included in the trial
From abstract summary: “Treatment of heavily pretreated patients remains a challenge. Majority of the AEs and SAEs reported in IMPRESS-Norway trial where not considered to be related study treatment. Current data indicated no new safety signals of concern and safety profiles are consistent with the one reported in earlier trials. We will continue to collect data on AEs and provide regular safety updates.”
213P – Unlocking cancer treatment opportunities by population-based advanced diagnostics in Norway
From abstract summary: The national Infrastructure, InPreD, secures implementation of new technology, competence building and standardised service nationwide, providing new treatment opportunities for cancer patients. Beyond strengthening the ability to implement advanced diagnostic into a public health system and identifying patients to clinical trials, it serves as a united interaction partner for national stakeholders such as governmental bodies, health authorities and industry.”
International collaboration
IMPRESS-Norway is collaborates with similar precision medicine trials in the PRIME-ROSE project. The network of DRUP-like trials in PRIME-ROSE, which IMPRESS is part of presented a poster called:
1711P – The #DRUP-like clinical trials family: a distributed European trial network for equitable access to precision medicine
Read more about PRIME-ROSE at prime-rose.eu
Meetings with industry
ESMO represents an excellent opportunity to promote IMPRESS-Norway to industry partners in order to recruit more drugs to the trial. The recruitment of patients into treatment cohort is going in a steady and fast pace. The IMPRESS-Norway team had fruitful meetings with global representatives from over ten companies in different meetings.