As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Daniel P. Petrylak, MD, and colleagues, the phase III RANGE trial has shown no significant improvement in overall survival with the addition of ramucirumab to docetaxel in patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma previously treated...
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Priority Reviews for treatments in extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC), non–muscle invasive bladder cancer, and BRAF V600E–mutant colorectal cancer. The Agency also recently issued multiple Breakthrough Therapy designations and ...
To complement The ASCO Post’s comprehensive coverage of the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here are several abstracts selected from the meeting proceedings focusing on novel therapeutic regimens for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). For full details of these...
In early 2019, pembrolizumab was approved for the adjuvant treatment of patients with melanoma with involvement of lymph node(s) following complete resection.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on findings in the double-blind EORTC 1325/KEYNOTE-054 trial (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier...
Updated data from the phase III ALTA-1L trial were presented by D. Ross Camidge, MD, PhD, of the University of Colorado Cancer Center, Aurora, during the Presidential Session at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Asia Congress 2019 in Singapore.1 The trial evaluated brigatinib vs...
Following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, cyclophosphamide significantly reduced grades II to IV acute and chronic extensive graft-vs-host disease compared with conventional immunosuppression, investigators reported during the Plenary Session at the 2019 American Society of...
After receiving acupuncture treatment 3 days a week during the course of radiation treatment, patients with head and neck cancer experienced less dry mouth, according to study results published by Garcia et al in JAMA Network Open. The results are from the first randomized, placebo-controlled,...
On November 21, 2019, the Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor acalabrutinib was approved for the treatment of adults with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL).1,2 The review resulting in approval was conducted under Project Orbis, an initiative of the U.S....
In the phase III Gynecologic Cancer Intergroup ICON8 trial reported in The Lancet, Clamp et al found that first-line weekly dose-dense chemotherapy did not improve progression-free survival vs standard 3-weekly chemotherapy in a predominantly European population with epithelial ovarian cancer....
In patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, two novel dual-target chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell strategies are yielding early and durable responses, with seemingly less cytokine-release syndrome and neurotoxicity than first-generation CAR T-cell products, according to the...
Few grade 3 or higher immune-related adverse events were observed in patients treated with first-line durvalumab plus platinum/etoposide for extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (SCLC), according to findings from the safety analysis of the phase III CASPIAN study presented by Özgüroğlu et al at...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Richard S. Finn, MD, and colleagues, the phase III KEYNOTE-240 trial has shown no statistically significant progression-free or overall survival benefit with pembrolizumab vs placebo in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma who were...
The addition of the poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor veliparib to carboplatin/paclitaxel chemotherapy significantly improved progression-free survival in patients with advanced HER2-negative breast cancer and germline BRCA mutation compared with placebo plus chemotherapy, according to...
Glioblastoma multiforme, colorectal cancer, and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma represent some of the most difficult-to-treat cancers and collectively cause more than 114,000 deaths each year in the United States. A trio of recently published basic research studies in these cancers have found...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Peter Schmid, MD, and colleagues, the prespecified second interim analysis of overall survival in the phase III IMpassion130 trial has shown no overall survival benefit with the addition of atezolizumab to nab-paclitaxel as first-line treatment of unresectable, ...
Lung cancer specialist Julie R. Brahmer, MD, MSc, comes from a long line of Midwest farmers who still run a family operation. “I’m originally from what I would call the middle of nowhere in Nebraska. My father is a sixth-generation farmer, and my mother is a nurse. I was inclined toward medicine at ...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Brian I. Rini, MD, and colleagues, the phase III TIVO-3 trial has shown a statistically significant increase in progression-free survival with tivozanib vs sorafenib as a third- or fourth-line treatment for advanced renal cell carcinoma. Study Details The...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Paiva et al examined the applicability of International Myeloma Working Group (IMWG) criteria for next-generation flow cytometry assessment of minimal residual disease (MRD) in multiple myeloma. They found that the IMWG flow MRD-negative...
Gerardo Antonio Umanzor Funez, MD, of Liga Contra El Cáncer, discusses phase III findings on intravenous (IV) paclitaxel and oral paclitaxel plus encequidar (a novel P-gp inhibitor), the first orally administered taxane regimen shown to be superior to the IV formulation in terms of response and...
Patients with metastatic breast cancer who received an oral formulation of paclitaxel had better response and survival and less neuropathy than patients who received intravenous paclitaxel, according to results of a phase III trial presented at by Umanzor et al at the San Antonio Breast Cancer...
A large meta-analysis of patients with breast cancer showed that residual cancer burden after neoadjuvant chemotherapy is an accurate long-term predictor of recurrence and survival across all breast cancer subtypes, according to data presented by Yau et al at the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer...
Priyanka Sharma, MD, of the University of Kansas Medical Center, reviews new phase III data on adding oral fluoropyrimidine to adjuvant endocrine therapy, the current standard of care, in the setting of hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative primary breast cancer (Abstract GS1-09).
Miguel Martín, MD, PhD, of the Gregorio Marañón Institute and GEICAM, discusses phase III study findings that showed no improvement in progression-free survival with palbociclib plus endocrine therapy vs capecitabine in patients with hormone receptor–positive/HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer...
The addition of the checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and as adjuvant therapy increased the rates of pathologic complete response in patients with triple-negative breast cancer who had lymph node involvement, according to results from the KEYNOTE-522 trial, which were...
Data from the 6-year analysis of the APHINITY trial showed that adding pertuzumab to the previous standard treatment of trastuzumab plus chemotherapy after surgery continued to reduce the risk of recurrence and death in patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer, according to findings...
A 10-year follow-up study of patients with breast cancer who had been treated with accelerated partial-breast irradiation (APBI) after surgery showed that their rates of disease recurrence were similar to those of patients who had received whole-breast irradiation (WBI), according to data presented ...
A phase II study by Gavilá et al evaluating the efficacy of the combination of the CDK4/6 inhibitor ribociclib and the aromatase inhibitor letrozole in combination as a neoadjuvant treatment in patients with high-risk luminal B breast cancer has found that the therapy produced response rates...
Saad Z. Usmani, MD, of the Levine Cancer Institute, discusses phase III study findings suggesting that the combination of carfilzomib/dexamethasone/daratumumab represents an efficacious new regimen for patients with relapsed or refractory disease, including those refractory to lenalidomide...
Jeff P. Sharman, MD, of the Willamette Valley Cancer Institute and US Oncology Research, discusses phase III findings from the ELEVATE TN study, which showed that acalabrutinib plus obinutuzumab and acalabrutinib monotherapy improved progression-free survival in patients with treatment-naive...
Patrick A. Brown, MD, of Johns Hopkins University, discusses phase III findings from a Children’s Oncology Group Study showing that blinatumomab was superior to chemotherapy in terms of efficacy and tolerability for young patients as a post-reinduction therapy in the setting of high- and...
Andrew H. Wei, MBBS, PhD, of The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, discusses phase III findings on oral azacitidine (CC-486), the first treatment used in the maintenance setting shown to improve both overall and disease-free survival in patients with acute myeloid leukemia that is in remission following...
The postoperative combination of S-1, an oral fluoropyrimidine-based drug, with endocrine therapy improved invasive disease–free survival and 5-year invasive disease–free survival estimates in patients with hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, according to results from the...
Treatment with an investigational oral form of azacitidine, CC-486, improved overall survival in older patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who were in remission following standard induction chemotherapy with or without consolidation therapy, according to a phase III study...
In a phase II trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Joyce F. Liu, MD, MPH, and colleagues found evidence of the activity of combined nivolumab and bevacizumab in relapsed ovarian cancer, with activity appearing to be greater in platinum-sensitive disease. Study Details In the trial, 38 women with...
In a cohort biomarker study reported in JAMA Oncology, Jeanne Tie, MD, and colleagues showed that the circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA)-positive status after surgery and chemotherapy was associated with an increased risk of disease recurrence in patients with stage III colon cancer. Study Details The...
Patients with cancer who report on their own quality of life can provide information important in predicting the outcome of their disease, according to researchers from the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC). Until recently, reports from clinicians on issues such as...
On December 4, 2019, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved atezolizumab (Tecentriq) in combination with chemotherapy (nab-paclitaxel and carboplatin) for the first-line treatment of adults with metastatic nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with no EGFR or ALK genomic...
On April 19, 2019, pembrolizumab was approved for use in combination with the small-molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor axitinib for the first-line treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma.1,2 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on findings in the open-label phase III...
There is an urgent need to develop new drugs for the treatment of urothelial cancer. Chemotherapy was the only approved treatment in advanced disease for 40 years, which was associated with response rates of between 30% and 50% in the front-line setting.1-3 However, durable remissions were...
The treatment of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-positive lung cancer changed dramatically after the results of the FLAURA trial showed improved progression-free survival with the third-generation EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor osimertinib as first-line therapy compared with...
Combination therapy with the programmed cell death ligand 1 inhibitor atezolizumab and the vascular endothelial growth factor inhibitor bevacizumab significantly improved overall and progression-free survival in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma compared with sorafenib, according...
The trastuzumab biosimilar HLX02—manufactured in China—achieved a similar overall response rate to reference trastuzumab in women with HER2-positive recurrent or previously untreated metastatic breast cancer, according to a large, randomized phase III study. Binghe Xu, MD, PhD, of the Department of ...
At the recent 2019 Symposium on Clinical Interventional Oncology (CIO) in Miami, course directors Constantino Peña, MD, FSIR, and Ripal Gandhi, MD, FSIR, FSVM, had a lot to say about this burgeoning field of oncology. In particular, interventional oncology is making inroads in therapeutic...
Two studies reported at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress 2019—ClarIDHy and FIGHT-202—demonstrated clinical benefits with novel molecularly targeted agents in the treatment of advanced cholangiocarcinoma. Currently, first-line treatment for locally advanced or metastatic...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Kazuhiko Nakagawa, MD, of the Department of Medical Oncology, Kindai University Faculty of Medicine, Osaka, and colleagues, the phase III RELAY trial has shown that the addition of the VEGFR2 inhibitor ramucirumab to the EGFR inhibitor erlotinib improved...
In patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, the addition of daratumumab to carfilzomib plus dexamethasone improved multiple outcomes, compared with carfilzomib/dexamethasone alone, in the international phase III CANDOR trial.1 “Overall, carfilzomib/dexamethasone/daratumumab was...
Clinical trials continue to demonstrate that combining immunotherapy with chemotherapy and other targeted therapies can improve survival for patients with triple-negative breast cancer, according to results presented at the 21st Annual Lynn Sage Breast Cancer Symposium in Chicago. Nearly 700...
Does nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer really exist? Although it is considered a disease category, it turns out that the definition depends on the type of imaging used. Many patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer who were categorized as “nonmetastatic” on conventional...
The ASCO Post’s Integrative Oncology series is intended to facilitate the availability of evidence-based information on integrative and complementary therapies sometimes used by patients with cancer. In this installment, Richard T. Lee, MD, describes the symptoms associated with colorectal cancer...
An unanticipated result of a randomized phase II study was the improvement in overall survival achieved with the investigational CDK4/6 inhibitor trilaciclib in women with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. The drug was not being evaluated for its anticancer effects, but rather as a means of ...