AACR Virtual Annual Meeting 2020 I
Expert Point of View: Siwen Hu-Lieskovan, MD, PhD
Formal discussant of KEYNOTE-555, Siwen Hu-Lieskovan, MD, PhD, of Huntsman Cancer Institute, Salt Lake City, commented on the advantages of the new schedule. “Along with the promise of prolonged survi...
KEYNOTE-555 Supports 6-Week Pembrolizumab Dosing Schedule in Melanoma
A less-frequent, more-convenient dosing schedule for pembrolizumab (400 mg every 6 weeks) was deemed safe and effective in patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma, according to interim data ...
Expert Point of View: Susan Domchek, MD, and Aditya Bardia, MD, MPH
“PARP inhibitors are a major advance in the treatment of BRCA1- and BRCA2-mutated tumors, including prostate, breast, ovarian, and pancreatic cancers,” said discussant Susan Domchek, MD, Director of t...
Talazoparib Yields No Overall Survival Benefit in EMBRACA Trial Update
The poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitor talazoparib did not improve overall survival in women with metastatic HER2-negative breast cancer and mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, according to ne...
Expert Point of View: David G. Huntsman, MD
Study discussant David G. Huntsman, MD, Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Contextual Genomics, noted the positive predictive value of DETECT-A was 19%, which increased to 41% with the addition of p...
Study Shows Blood Test Can Identify Multiple Cancers in Asymptomatic Women
A large, “first-of-its-kind” trial showed that a blood test could identify cancers in women with no history of cancer and who were asymptomatic. Of about 10,000 women enrolled in the study, 134 had po...
Expert Point of View: David G. Huntsman, MD
Discussant of the CCGA study, David Huntsman, MD, Founder and Chief Medical Officer of Contextual Genomics, said: “Screening is the peak [for the number of people who could benefit from early detectio...
Study Finds Blood Test Detects Cancer and Tissue of Origin in Those With or Suspected to Have Cancer
A blood test based on cell-free DNA was able to detect cancer as well as the site of origin in patients with a clinical suspicion of cancer, according to results of the Circulating Cell-Free Genome At...
Expert Point of View: Yvonne Chen, PhD, and Joseph Alvarnas, MD
Formal discussant Yvonne Chen, PhD, Associate Professor of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the issue of toxicity was important, sinc...
Off-the-Shelf CAR T-Cell Therapy Makes Inroads in Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy known as TruUCAR GC027 may prove to be useful in the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) ...
IMbassador250 Trial: No Survival Benefit With Atezolizumab and Enzalutamide in Metastatic Prostate Cancer
The addition of the checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab to enzalutamide failed to improve overall survival compared with enzalutamide alone in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer in...
Evolving Insights Into COVID-19 and Cancer Care
Pulling together the 2020 American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Annual Meeting in less than 1 month was a Herculean task, and an important component was producing a session on COVID-1...
Expert Point of View: Pamela N. Munster, MD
Formal I-SPY 2 trial discussant, Pamela N. Munster, MD, Professor in the Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, found the study promising but said confirmatory trials are nee...
Andrew X. Zhu, MD, PhD, on Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Atezolizumab Combined With Bevacizumab
Andrew X. Zhu, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses an exploratory analysis seeking to identify tumor-based molecular biomarkers that may be associated with clinical response or resis...
Qi Liu, PhD, on NSCLC: Pneumonitis, Immunotherapy, and Chemotherapy
Qi Liu, PhD, of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, discusses data that suggest that patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer who had a past medical history of pneumonitis were more likely...
Jennifer K. Litton, MD, on Breast Cancer: EMBRACA Trial on Talazoparib vs Chemotherapy
Jennifer K. Litton, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses study results of talazoparib vs chemotherapy in patients with BRCA1/2-mutated HER2-negative advanced breast canc...
Edward B. Garon, MD, on Metastatic NSCLC: GEOMETRY mono-1 Trial of Capmatinib
Edward B. Garon, MD, of the University of California, Los Angeles, David Geffen School of Medicine, discusses results from a small study in METex14-mutated advanced non–small cell lung cancer and brai...
Edward B. Garon, MD, on NSCLC: Long-Term Use of Pemetrexed Plus Platinum With Pembrolizumab
Edward B. Garon, MD, of the University of California, Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine, discusses KEYNOTE-189 trial findings that showed adding pembrolizumab to pemetrexed plus platinum—whi...
Nickolas Papadopoulos, PhD, on Liquid Biopsy to Screen for Multiple Cancer Types
Nickolas Papadopoulos, PhD, of Johns Hopkins Medicine, discusses a first-of-its-kind prospective study that evaluated a screening blood test in more than 10,000 older women with no history of cancer. ...
Byoung Chul Cho, MD, PhD, on NSCLC: Genetic Mutations and Immunotherapy vs Chemotherapy in KEYNOTE-042
Byoung Chul Cho, MD, PhD, of Yonsei Cancer Center and Severance Hospital, discusses the STK11 and KEAP1 mutations in non–small cell lung cancers, and their relationship to the efficacy of pembrolizuma...
Expert Point of View: Charles L. Sawyers, MD
Charles L. Sawyers, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, commented on the SWOG S1320 study presented at the 2020 American Association for Cancer Research Virtual Annual Meeting. “...
AACR 2020: Continuous Dosing of Dabrafenib Plus Trametinib Improves Progression-Free Survival vs Intermittent Dosing in Advanced Melanoma
Continuous dosing with dabrafenib and trametinib improved progression-free survival in patients with BRAF-mutated advanced melanoma compared with an intermittent-dosing strategy, according to results ...
Kimlin T. Ashing, PhD, on Tobacco and Vape Shops in Neighborhoods With Lower-Income and Minority Populations
Kimlin T. Ashing, PhD, of City of Hope National Medical Center, discusses analyses that showed neighborhoods with lower-income and minority populations had a greater number of tobacco and vape shops, ...
Ryan J. Sullivan, MD, on Advanced Solid Tumors: Antitumor Activity With COM701 Plus Nivolumab
Ryan J. Sullivan, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, discusses early results on COM701, a first-in-class immune checkpoint inhibitor, which showed preliminary antitumor activity as a...
Grant A. McArthur, MBBS, PhD, on Melanoma: IMspire150 Trial of Atezolizumab, Cobimetinib, and Vemurafenib
Grant A. McArthur, MBBS, PhD, of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, discusses phase III results from a study of previously untreated patients with BRAF V600 mutation–positive advanced melanoma. His te...
Steven J. O’Day, MD, on Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: Clinical Benefit With Pembrolizumab Plus Imprime PGG
Steven J. O’Day, MD, of the John Wayne Cancer Institute, discusses phase II results for the combination of pembrolizumab with a novel innate immune activator, Imprime PGG, as second-line treatment for...
Expert Point of View: Charles Sawyers, MD
“The hypothesis of combining kinase inhibitors with checkpoint inhibitors could be a fantastic idea,” said formal study discussant Charles Sawyers, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New ...
AACR 2020: Triplet Regimen Improves Progression-Free Survival in Advanced Melanoma in IMspire150 Trial
The addition of the checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab to two targeted therapies (the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib and the MEK inhibitor cobimetinib) as initial therapy improved outcomes compared with th...
AACR 2020: Atezolizumab Alone or in Combination With Cobimetinib for Biliary Tract Cancer
A randomized multicenter study of a combination of immunotherapy with a targeted therapy improved cancer control for some patients with biliary tract cancer, according to research presented by Yarchoa...
Lajos Pusztai, MD, PhD, on Breast Cancer: I-SPY2 Trial on Durvalumab, Olaparib, and Paclitaxel
Lajos Pusztai, MD, PhD, of Yale Cancer Center, discusses study results on durvalumab in combination with olaparib and paclitaxel as neoadjuvant treatment in patients with high-risk HER2-negative stage...
AACR 2020: I-SPY2 Trial: Durvalumab/Olaparib/Paclitaxel ‘Graduates’ in HER2-Negative Breast Cancer
The I-SPY2 trial found that the combination of the checkpoint inhibitor durvalumab, the PARP inhibitor olaparib, and the taxane paclitaxel followed by doxorubicin/cyclophosphamide as neoadjuvant thera...
AACR 2020: Mortality Rate in Patients With Thoracic Cancers Infected With COVID-19
First results from the TERAVOLT (Thoracic cancERs international coVid 19 cOLlaboraTion) registry for thoracic cancers—presented by Marina C. Garassino, MD, at the American Association for Cancer Resea...
AACR 2020: Outcomes of COVID-19 Infection in Patients With vs Without Cancer: Analysis From 14 Hospitals
In a multi-institutional Chinese study reported at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Virtual Annual Meeting in the COVID-19 and Cancer Session and in Cancer Discovery, Dai et al foun...
AACR 2020: Cell-Free DNA Liquid Biopsy May Provide an Early Detection Test for Patients With Suspected Cancer
The Circulating Cell-free Genome Atlas Study is a large multicenter, case-controlled, observational study of 15,254 participants, 56% with cancer and 44% without cancer, with longitudinal follow-up to...
AACR 2020: Study Finds Vape Shops Are Mostly Concentrated in Low-Resource, Minority Communities
An analysis investigating the socioecologic context of tobacco and vape shops in Los Angeles has found that vape shops are more likely to be concentrated in low-resource communities. The communities a...
AACR 2020: Continuous vs Intermittent Dabrafenib/Trametinib Dosing in Patients With BRAF-Mutated Melanoma
A randomized clinical trial offers evidence that a combination of two targeted melanoma drugs, when given continuously, improves progression-free survival when compared with intermittent treatment, ac...
AACR 2020: ctDNA May Be a Prognostic Biomarker of Disease Recurrence in Patients With Lung Cancer
The TRACERx study investigated phylogenetic tracking and minimal residual disease (MRD) detection using circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) profiling following resection in patients with stage I to III non–...
AACR 2020: Final Overall Survival Results From the Phase III EMBRACA Trial
New data from the phase III EMBRACA trial showed the poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor talazoparib did not produce a statistically significant overall survival benefit for patients with lo...
