Clinical breakthroughs and novel modalities dominate discussions at ASCO 2025

The American Society of Clinical Oncology’s (ASCO) annual meeting is the world’s largest cancer care conference. Held this year in Chicago, the event hosted a variety of oncology professionals, life sciences insiders, and patient advocates for five days of educational sessions and clinical symposiums.

The Definitive Healthcare team ran a booth at the conference, giving us a front-row seat to some of the top subjects of discussion—including those in the various sessions as well as the ones brought up casually on the exhibition floor.

Couldn’t attend or need a recap? We’ve got you covered.

Bladder cancer gets “dizzying” new developments

At a session at ASCO 2025, Jonathan Rosenberg, MD, chief of genitourinary oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, said, “For the first 15 years of my career, we had nothing new [in bladder cancer care].”

Now, in 2025, “the pace of change has been dizzying.” Some of those changes include emerging treatment regimens—like enfortumab vedotin and pembrolizumab—which show “outstanding responses” in trial patients who would otherwise be considered terminal.

New treatment option offers hope for aggressive breast cancers

Around 1 in 5 cases of breast cancer are HER2-postive, meaning the cancer cells contain elevated levels of HER2 proteins. Providers and patients living with this aggressive form of breast cancer may find a new treatment option in the form of trastuzumab deruxtecan (T-DXd) plus pertuzumab.

As explained at ASCO 2025, the DESTINY-Breast09 trial found that T-DXd plus pertuzamab offered a nearly 14-month improvement in median progression-free survival compared to the current standard treatment regimen.

Exercise could reduce colon cancer recurrence

Colon cancer is considered highly treatable and usually curable when it remains confined to the bowel, but recurrence occurs in around 1 in 3 patients. Those looking to reduce their risk of recurrence could do so with simple exercise, according to a study discussed at ASCO 2025.

A large Canadian trial of around 900 colon cancer survivors found that structured exercise after chemo led to a 7% survival rate boost over eight years. This low-tech “treatment” outperforms the 5% benefit demonstrated by oxaliplatin, a platinum-based chemotherapy option.

Phase 3 trials target platinum-resistant ovarian cancer

Platinum-resistant ovarian cancer (referring to ovarian cancer that returns within six months of finishing platinum-based chemotherapy) is complex, with few treatment options and a generally poor prognosis. However, phase 3 trials for relacorilant plus nab-paclitaxel (ROSELLA) showed that the treatment significantly improved biomarker-free survival rates among patients.

Liquid biopsies deliver rapid results, raising survival rates

A DNA blood test could save countless lives by helping direct cancer patients toward personalized treatments, according to doctors from England’s National Health Service (NHS).

Lung and breast cancer patients in England will be given access to liquid biopsies capable of detecting miniscule amounts of tumor DNA, offering rapid diagnoses and genetically tailored treatment options. As outlined at ASCO 2025, initial trials showed immense potential. Now, the NHS hopes to bring the testing to around 20,000 patients each year and is planning to explore the test’s efficacy for other forms of cancer.

Artificial intelligence elevates diagnostics

AI has enabled care teams to perform lightning-fast medical imaging processing and recommend more effective treatments. Recent trials have found additional diagnostic uses for the technology, specifically in the identification of targeted cancer therapies.

One AI tool discussed at ASCO 2025 improved pathologists’ accuracy in identifying breast cancers with low levels of HER2 that would otherwise be misclassified as HER2-free. Accurately identifying levels of HER2 enables physicians to deliver more effective treatments and improve patients’ survival rates.

Another AI tool developed by American, English, and Swiss researchers is helping to identify men with prostate cancer who are most likely to benefit from abiraterone. This powerful hormone therapy can cut the risk of death in half for patients with specific biomarkers, but because it’s associated with slightly higher risks of diabetes and heart attack, oncologists are careful about prescribing the treatment to patients who demonstrate the greatest likelihood of improving from it.

See the oncology landscape clearly

ASCO 2025 crammed more content in five days than we could possibly cover in five blogs—let alone a single recap.

Want a clear view of the oncology landscape? Our platform delivers on-demand access to the latest intelligence in oncology and the life sciences, as well as robust data and analytics on procedures, diagnoses, providers, and patients in the oncology space.

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