At the 2026 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago, researchers from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center unveiled results that could reshape treatment for some of the body's most stubborn cancers—starting with a drug that delayed tumor regrowth more than six times longer than placebo in patients with dedifferentiated liposarcoma.
The findings matter because liposarcoma, an aggressive cancer of fat cells that grows deep in the abdomen, has left patients with few options. Surgery remains the best treatment, yet the cancer returns in two of five patients, often within two years. Chemotherapy can slow growth for just two to four months. For these previously treated patients facing recurrence or spread, abemaciclib (Verzenio) represents a genuine breakthrough.
In the phase 3 SARC041 trial presented as a late-breaking abstract, Dr. Mark A. Dickson of MSK showed that abemaciclib extended median progression-free survival to 9.7 months in 54 patients, compared with just 1.5 months for the 54 patients who received placebo. Even more striking: one in ten patients on abemaciclib experienced tumor shrinking—something described as very rare with existing therapies for this cancer. The median overall survival was not reached for those receiving abemaciclib, compared with 24.5 months in the placebo group.
What makes abemaciclib work is its precision. Nearly all dedifferentiated liposarcoma cases are driven by overexpression of a gene called CDK4, a protein that fuels unchecked cancer cell growth. Abemaciclib blocks this driver directly. The drug is already approved for certain breast cancers, and success had been seen with a related drug, palbociclib. But abemaciclib has a clinical advantage: it lowers blood counts less severely, allowing continuous dosing rather than the stop-start schedule required by palbociclib, potentially enabling more efficient cancer cell targeting.
Even patients randomized to placebo benefited when they were later allowed to receive abemaciclib after disease progression. Their median progression-free survival stretched to 3.4 months, with some experiencing decreased tumor size. Side effects—chiefly diarrhea and lowered blood cell counts—were manageable and similar between groups. Given these results, abemaciclib has the potential to become standard of care for a patient population with few other options.
The liposarcoma data represent just one of several breakthroughs MSK researchers shared at ASCO 2026. The center also presented findings from the EMERALD-3 trial, a phase 3 multinational study showing that the addition of dual immunotherapy to chemoembolization markedly improved progression-free survival in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma—liver cancer that cannot be surgically removed but has not spread beyond the organ. Chemoembolization works by delivering tiny chemotherapy-impregnated beads directly to the hepatic artery, blocking blood supply while enhancing the activation of the immunotherapies. As Dr. Ghassan K. Abou-Alfa, a gastrointestinal medical oncologist at MSK, noted, the dual immunotherapy approach independent of additional anti-VEGF therapy significantly extended progression-free survival.
These presentations underscore a broader shift in cancer care: moving beyond one-drug-at-a-time approaches toward combinations that exploit multiple pathways to defeat disease. For patients with liposarcoma and hepatocellular carcinoma—both historically difficult to treat—these breakthroughs offer real hope.