Miguel Bronchud, Co-Founder at Regenerative Medicine Solutions, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“New treatment for a rare cancer: For the first time in a phase III trial, targeting of CDK4 yielded a statistically significant and clinically meaningful benefit in patients with advanced dedifferentiated liposarcoma that had returned after surgery.
- The CDK4/6 inhibitor abemaciclib improved median progression-free survival by an absolute 8.2 months as compared to placebo, and reduced deaths by 45%.
- Median progression-free survival was 9.7 months with abemaciclib vs. 1.5 months with placebo (HR, 0.38; P < .001).
Dickson MA, et al: SARC041: A phase III randomized double-blind study of abemaciclib vs placebo in patients with advanced dedifferentiated liposarcoma. 2026 ASCO Annual Meeting. Abstract LBA2. Presented May 31, 2026.
The rare and poor prognosis advanced dedifferentiated liposarcoma, a rare and aggressive soft-tissue sarcoma, remains orphan of specific and effective targeted therapy BUT now it seems that CDK4/6 inhibitor abemaciclib significantly reduces the risk of disease progression or death by 62% as compared with placebo in the randomized phase III SARC041 study.
Mark Dickson, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, presented the study findings during the Plenary Session at the 2026 ASCO Annual Meeting.
Median progression-free survival reached 9.7 months in patients randomized to receive abemaciclib vs 1.5 months in the placebo arm (hazard ratio [HR], 0.38; P < .001). At 6 months, 60% of patients in the abemaciclib arm were progression-free compared to 22% of the placebo arm. At 12 months, these rates were 39% and 13%, respectively.
Dr. Dickson explained how abemaciclib was chosen for investigation. He noted that nearly all cases of dedifferentiated liposarcoma have high level amplification of a section of chromosome 12 that contains the gene CDK4, which drives tumor growth.
“Our group has shown that CDK4 inhibitors block the growth of liposarcoma cells both in vitro and in xenografts. These observations launched the first investigator-initiated clinical trials of CDK4 inhibitors in liposarcoma, back in 2010,” he said.
Subsequent research showed better outcomes and less toxicity with abemaciclib than palbociclib, another CDK4/6 inhibitor, because abemaciclib is more selective for CDK4 and also can be dosed continuously.
Therefore, the Sarcoma Alliance for Research through Collaboration (SARC), a group whose goal is to accelerate progress in ultra-rare tumors, selected abemaciclib for SARC041.
They chose placebo for the control arm because conventional chemotherapy conveys toxicity without much benefit.
Other articles featuring Miguel Bronchud on OncoDaily.