Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved mogamulizumab-kpkc (Poteligeo) injection for intravenous use for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory mycosis fungoides or Sézary syndrome after at least one prior systemic therapy. This approval provides a new...
Studies show that triple-negative breast cancer is associated with advanced-stage disease and higher-grade tumors at the time of diagnosis, and carries an increased risk of recurrence and poorer 5-year survival rates relative to other breast cancers. This type of breast cancer accounts for...
FOR THE TREATMENT of lymphoma, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) are becoming an important class of drugs, as described at the 2018 Pan Pacific Lymphoma Conference by Brad Kahl, MD, Professor of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis.1 “We have one ADC—brentuximab vedotin...
THE EMERGENCE of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has sparked a wave of optimism in hematologic malignancies, but as experience in using CAR T-cell therapy has grown, new challenges have surfaced. A pioneer in the field, David G. Maloney, MD, PhD, enlightened attendees on these issues ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy designation for lenvatinib (Lenvima) in combination with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for the potential treatment of patients with advanced and/or metastatic non–microsatellite instability high (MSI-H)/proficient...
In a Friends of Cancer Research (Friends) meeting devoted to real-world evidence, members of the cancer community generally agreed that its use has an increasingly important role to play in gathering the data necessary to test, evaluate, and bring new therapeutic agents to market. This Friends...
The global, randomized, phase III ALTA-1L (ALK in Lung Cancer Trial of AP26113 in 1st Line) trial met its primary endpoint at the first prespecified interim analysis, with brigatinib (Alunbrig) demonstrating a statistically significant improvement in progression-free...
A joint analysis of parallel phase III trials reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Gridelli et al found no overall survival benefit of adding cisplatin to first-line treatment of elderly patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) without an EGFR mutation. Study...
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Oza et al found that quality of life (QOL) based on patient-reported outcomes (PROs) was not worsened with niraparib (Zejula) maintenance vs placebo in the phase III ENGOT-OV16/NOVA trial in women with recurrent ovarian cancer who were in response to...
The phase III IMpower132 study met its co-primary endpoint of progression-free survival and demonstrated that the combination of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) plus chemotherapy (cisplatin or carboplatin plus pemetrexed [Alimta]) reduced the risk of disease worsening or death compared to chemotherapy...
Julie M. Vose, MD, MBA, of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and David G. Maloney, MD, PhD, of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and winner of this year’s Oliver Press Memorial Award, discuss three CAR T-cell products for lymphoma treatment, comparing their efficacy, toxicity, ease of ...
Despite the fact that my father was a smoker and I watched him die a horrible death from lung cancer in the 1970s, until 4 years before my own lung cancer diagnosis in 2012, I, too, was a heavy smoker for most of my adult life. Still, cancer was the farthest thing from my mind when I made an...
Andrew D. Zelenetz, MD, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the various ways genomics can be used in diagnosing and treating non-Hodgkin lymphoma and the need for a proper support tool to help interpret the data.
Difficult-to-treat, cancer-related fatigue is a common, distressing clinical issue. It impedes daily activities, severely affecting patients’ quality of life. Compounding the problem is a lack of consensus on an effective pharmacologic intervention. Acupressure is a traditional Chinese medicine...
EARLY IN 2018, olaparib tablets (Lynparza) were granted regular approval for treatment of patients with deleterious or suspected deleterious germline BRCA-mutated, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer who have been treated with chemotherapy in the neoadjuvant, adjuvant, or metastatic setting.1,2...
In a phase II trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Autio et al found that prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)–targeted docetaxel nanoparticle (BIND-014) treatment was active in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). Study Details In the multicenter trial,...
A study published by Patil et al in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology explores the occurrence and treatment of brain metastases in stage IV ROS1-positive non–small cell lung cancer. ROS1-Positive Disease vs Other Genetic Mutations Importantly, and in contrast with the findings ...
According to the American Cancer Society, cancer is the leading cause of death for Hispanics and Asian/Pacific Islanders in the United States. However, their cancer burden is less than that of non-Hispanic whites and especially non-Hispanic blacks, who bear the most disproportionate share of the...
An analysis of cancer registry data from a California hospital system showed that women with head and neck cancer were less likely to receive intensive chemotherapy (35% vs 46%) and radiation (60% vs 70%) compared to men. Controlling for factors such as age and serious medical conditions, a...
The ASCO Post presents these brief summaries of important studies in breast cancer, presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting. Ribociclib Plus Fulvestrant in Metastatic Breast Cancer The benefit of an inhibitor of cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) added to fulvestrant has now been proven to...
It would be impossible to cover all of the important presentations from the 5,000-plus abstracts accepted for the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting. In addition to our regular meeting coverage of the top news stories, the following highlights focus on novel investigational approaches to therapy for various...
ASCO expert David Graham, MD, FASCO, of the Levine Cancer Institute in Charlotte, North Carolina, was encouraged by the IMpower131 findings. “This is one more example of how immunotherapy is making steady gains against a number of cancers. Immunotherapy has been shown to be effective in other...
Patients with advanced squamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) had a greater benefit from first-line treatment with the combination of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) plus chemotherapy vs chemotherapy alone in the randomized, phase III, IMpower131 clinical trial.1 At the landmark of 12-month...
In a study reported in JAMA Oncology, Carlo et al found a high prevalence of germline mutations in cancer susceptibility genes in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Study Details In this cohort study, conducted between October 2015 and July 2017, 254 of 267 patients with advanced...
Following concerns over many years that hormonal stimulation of the ovaries necessary for in vitro fertilization (IVF) may increase the risk of ovarian cancer, a nationwide cohort study from Denmark has now concluded that any perceived increase in risk is actually a statistical bias resulting from...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted for review a supplemental biologics license application (sBLA) for pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in combination with carboplatin/paclitaxel or nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) as a first-line treatment for metastatic squamous non–small cell lung...
In my area of research, lung cancer, precision medicine is indeed transforming the treatment of this disease and has important implications for other cancers and for the future of our patients with cancer. Today’s achievement of being able to systematically identify genomic changes that can be...
Dr. Weiss is Assistant Professor (Medical Oncology), Developmental Therapeutics, Melanoma Program, Yale Cancer Center. Dr. Sznol is Professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology); Co-Director, Cancer Immunology Program, Yale Cancer Center Co-Director, Yale SPORE in Skin Cancer, New Haven, Connecticut. ...
TUMOR MUTATIONAL burden is emerging as a predictive biomarker for the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), as well as other tumor types. However, experts say tumor mutational burden has hurdles to overcome. At the 2018 Annual Meeting of...
“TODAY WE HAVE good news, because IMpower 150 is another clear positive trial on the combination of chemotherapy with immunotherapy. This is true in terms of progression-free and overall survival, which are both statistically significant [for atezolizumab (Tecentriq) plus bevacizumab (Avastin)...
ATEZOLIZUMAB (TECENTRIQ) plus bevacizumab (Avastin) plus a platinum doublet (ABCP) improved overall survival by 22% compared with bevacizumab plus a platinum doublet (BCP) in patients with advanced wild-type (without an identified mutation) nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according...
“THIS TRIAL is a clear winner for the treatment of squamous non–small cell lung cancer [NSCLC],” stated formal discussant Charles Drake, MD, PhD, of Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, Columbia University Medical Center, New York. “The concept underlying the combination of checkpoint...
THE COMBINATION of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) plus platinum-based chemotherapy improved overall survival, response rates, and duration of response in patients with advanced squamous cell non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) compared with chemotherapy alone irrespective of programmed cell death ligand 1 ...
In the Clinic provides overviews of novel oncology agents, addressing indications, mechanisms of action, administration recommendations, safety profiles, and other essential information needed for the appropriate clinical use of these drugs. Earlier this year, apalutamide (Erleada) was approved for ...
Increasing use of a potentially life-saving treatment for metastatic cancer is leaving many vulnerable patients behind, according to a new study from Yale Cancer Center/Smilow Cancer Hospital published by Benjamin H. Kann, MD, of Yale University School of Medicine, and colleagues in the Journal of ...
Significant disparities in the quality of end-of-life lung cancer care were found among racial/ethnic minorities, with higher odds of experiencing potentially preventable medical encounters during end of life as compared with non-Hispanic whites. These findings were published by Siddharth Karanth, ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently accepted a supplemental biologics license application (sBLA) for nivolumab (Opdivo) plus low-dose ipilimumab (Yervoy) for the first-line treatment of advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients with a tumor mutational burden...
In an analysis of the LUX-Lung 8 trial in squamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) reported in JAMA Oncology, Goss et al found that outcomes among patients treated with afatinib (Gilotrif) were better for those with vs without ERBB mutations. The LUX-Lung 8 trial showed that afatinib was...
The lungs can be a difficult organ to biopsy with a needle, so the promise of identifying lung cancer through a blood-based biopsy has lung cancer experts and patients optimistic. Knowing how and when to use a liquid biopsy is critically important and led global experts at the International...
As reported at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting and in The New England Journal of Medicine by Socinski et al, the phase III IMpower150 trial has shown that the addition of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) to bevacizumab (Avastin) plus chemotherapy significantly improved progression-free and overall survival in ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently granted accelerated approval to the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for use in combination with chemotherapy as a first-line treatment for patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). KEYNOTE-021 This...
DESPITE STEADY declines in death rates in recent years, lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer deaths in wealthy countries. In a study published by Anita Andreano, MD, of the University of Milan-Ciocco, and colleagues in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology,1 Yale researchers collaborated with ...
RESEARCHERS AT the University of California (UC), Davis, have shown that patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who received their care at a National Cancer Institute (NCI) cancer center in California had a dramatically reduced risk of early mortality. Using data from the California Cancer...
The ASCO updated guidelines on the treatment of metastatic non-castrate prostate cancer penned by Morris and his colleagues1 provide valuable information annotated to the strengths of evidence in recently reported prostate cancer studies. CHAARTED, GETUG-AFU 15, LATITUDE, and STAMPEDE have...
After about 70 years with no significant progress, the landscape for men with de novo metastatic prostate cancer has changed dramatically in the past 4 years, with statistically significant and highly clinically meaningful survival improvement reported from multiple phase III trials when...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Michael J. Morris, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medicine, and colleagues, ASCO has released a clinical practice guideline on optimizing anticancer therapy in men with metastatic non-castrate prostate cancer.1 To ...
“In CheckMate 227, the benefit of nivolumab [Opdivo] plus ipilimumab [Yervoy] was the same in tumor mutational burden–high patients whether or not they were programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1)–high or –low,” said formal discussant of this paper, Naiyer Rizvi, MD, Director of Thoracic Oncology...
The combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) improved progression-free survival compared with chemotherapy as first-line treatment for patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and a high tumor mutational burden irrespective of programmed cell death ligand 1...
Ivosidenib, an isocitrate dehydrogenase-1 (IDH1) inhibitor, yielded durable and molecular remissions in some patients with IDH1-mutated advanced relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML). At a dose of 500 mg/d, ivosidenib was associated with a low frequency of grade 3 or higher...
With a growing emphasis on value in cancer care, some types of resource-intensive therapies may need to be reconsidered. One such treatment may be hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy, which showed no benefit during surgery for colorectal cancer confined to the peritoneum in the PRODIGE 7...