A phase I/Ib study found that the addition of andecaliximab, a monoclonal antibody that inhibits matrix metalloproteinase 9, to modified fluorouracil (5-FU), leucovorin, and oxaliplatin (mFOLFOX6) showed activity in gastric and or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) carcinoma. Based on these...
A subset of patients with aggressive prostate cancer are carriers of germline BRCA2 mutations, which are also linked to hereditary breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and pancreatic cancer. Study findings also showed family members of patients with prostate cancer who carry BRCA2 and DNA-repair...
In a phase III trial (HOVON 105/ALLG NHL 24) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Bromberg et al found no significant benefit of the addition of rituximab to high-dose methotrexate-based chemotherapy in patients with newly diagnosed primary central nervous system (CNS) lymphoma. Study Details In the...
In a French phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Mariette et al found that a hybrid minimally invasive surgical procedure was associated with reduced postoperative complications vs transthoracic open esophagectomy in patients with resectable cancer of the middle or lower ...
On January 14, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved cabozantinib (Cabometyx) tablets for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who have been previously treated with sorafenib. The FDA’s approval of cabozantinib was based on results from the phase III CELESTIAL trial....
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Reck et al, an updated analysis of the phase III KEYNOTE-024 trial indicates continued overall survival benefit of first-line pembrolizumab vs platinum-based chemotherapy in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with a...
As reported in JAMA Oncology by Shah et al, the phase II KEYNOTE-180 trial has shown that pembrolizumab produces durable responses in some patients with pretreated locally advanced or metastatic esophageal adenocarcinoma or squamous cell carcinoma. Study Details In the trial, 121 patients with...
In a trial with a modified primary endpoint due to slow accrual reported in JAMA Oncology, Bex et al found that deferred cytoreductive nephrectomy after sunitinib did not improve 28-week progression-free rate (PFR) vs immediate nephrectomy followed by sunitinib in patients with metastatic renal...
In an analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Halabi et al found that overall survival was improved for black men vs white men receiving regimens containing docetaxel and prednisone for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. As noted by the investigators, several studies...
In a report from the Children’s Oncology Group published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Fonseca et al found that relapse in children and adolescents with nongerminomatous malignant germ cell tumors (MGCTs) was most frequently identified by tumor markers rather than imaging. Study...
Nearly three-quarters of patients with young-onset colorectal cancer are diagnosed with an advanced stage of the disease, a significantly higher percentage than has been reported for their more mature peers, according to a report from the Colorectal Cancer Alliance. The findings of...
New research has found that quality of life for people with cancer is reduced by an accumulation of low-level toxicities just as much as it is from high-level adverse events. Additionally, patient-reported outcomes were more likely to reflect the impact on a patient’s physical well-being than ...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Moore et al, the phase III SOLO-1 trial has shown that maintenance with olaparib, following complete or partial response to platinum-based chemotherapy, significantly prolonged progression-free survival vs placebo in...
In a UK phase III trial (Myeloma XI) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Jackson et al found that lenalidomide maintenance was associated with improved progression-free survival but not overall survival among patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma with at least minimal response to induction...
In a phase III trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Gounder et al found that sorafenib improved progression-free survival vs placebo in patients with progressive, symptomatic, or recurrent desmoid tumors. As noted by the investigators, there is no current standard of care for...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Dignam et al, analysis of outcomes in the phase III NRG/RTOG 9202 trial indicates that the time interval to biochemical failure (IBF) could serve as a surrogate endpoint for clinical outcomes in patients receiving radiotherapy plus long-term...
In the Italian phase II REGOMA trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Lombardi et al found that regorafenib was associated with improved overall survival vs lomustine in patients with relapsed glioblastoma. In the open-label trial, 119 patients from 10 Italian sites were randomly assigned between...
As reported by Denham et al in The Lancet Oncology, 10-year results of the phase III TROG 03.04 RADAR trial have shown that 18 months of androgen suppression plus radiotherapy is more effective than 6 months of androgen suppression plus radiotherapy in locally advanced prostate cancer, but no...
In a phase III Canadian and French trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Conroy and colleagues in the Canadian Cancer Trials Group and the Unicancer-GI–PRODIGE Group found that adjuvant modified FOLFIRINOX (fluorouracil, leucovorin, irinotecan, oxaliplatin) produced better...
On December 21, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved ravulizumab-cwvz (Ultomiris) for adult patients with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH). PNH is a rare bone marrow failure disorder that manifests with hemolytic anemia, thrombosis, and peripheral blood cytopenias....
THE FDA recently granted Breakthrough Therapy designation to brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) for previously untreated systemic anaplastic large cell lymphoma or other CD30-expressing peripheral T-cell lymphomas (PTCL), including angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma and PTCL not otherwise specified, in ...
THE U.S. FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION (FDA) accepted a new drug application and granted Priority Review to quizartinib, a FLT3 inhibitor, for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory FLT3-ITD–positive acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The FDA is expected to make a decision on...
MINIMALLY INVASIVE radical hysterectomy for women with early-stage cervical cancer has been associated with reduced rates of disease-free and overall survival in the phase III LACC randomized noninferiority trial comparing minimally invasive and open abdominal radical hysterectomy. The results...
On November 21, 2018, venetoclax (Venclexta) was granted accelerated approval for use in combination with azacitidine or decitabine or low-dose cytarabine for the treatment of newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in patients aged ≥ 75 years or who have comorbidities that preclude the use of ...
FOUR AND A HALF YEARS AGO, author Neil Canavan attended a scientific conference to learn what he could about the then-emerging field of immunotherapy for cancer. After a presentation by Zelig Eshhar, PhD, principal investigator in the Department of Immunology at the Weizmann Institute of Science...
At the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress, important studies were presented for every cancer type. Here, The ASCO Post offers some snapshots of lung cancer studies that may inform approaches to treating this common cancer, which—despite the advances in recent years—remains...
AS REPORTED in The New England Journal of Medicine by Scott J. Antonia, MD, PhD, of H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, and colleagues, the phase III PACIFIC trial has shown significantly improved overall survival, a coprimary endpoint, with the programmed cell death ligand 1...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) accepted a supplemental biologics license application (sBLA) and granted Priority Review for atezolizumab (Tecentriq) in combination with carboplatin and etoposide for the first-line treatment of patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer. The...
The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress featured an assortment of study findings, many with far-reaching clinical implications for the treatment of patients with various cancers. Many of these trials were covered in-depth in recent issues of The ASCO Post. Here, we present...
For patients with advanced melanoma, the concept of treating to disease progression does not always apply. With many patients responding to checkpoint inhibition for years, when can treatment be safely discontinued? This important clinical question was addressed at the European Society for Medical...
TWO STUDIES recently reported in The New England Journal of Medicine indicate that minimally invasive radical hysterectomy is associated with poorer survival outcomes than open abdominal radical hysterectomy in women with early-stage cervical cancer. As reported by Pedro T. Ramirez, MD, of The...
The addition of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) to a chemoradiotherapy regimen yielded complete response rates of 85% in patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. These findings from a phase Ib study were presented at the 2018 Society for...
Treatment with nivolumab (Opdivo) did not improve response rates or survival over standard chemotherapy in patients with metastatic small cell lung cancer (SCLC) who relapsed following first-line treatment, according to findings presented by Reck et al at the European Society for Medical...
Updated data of the OpACIN study, which studied combined ipilimumab (Yervoy) plus nivolumab (Opdivo) administered as neoadjuvant or adjuvant therapy in patients with high-risk stage III melanoma, demonstrated high response rates upon neoadjuvant therapy and promising long-term clinical outcome,...
Overall survival (OS) was improved across all subgroups of patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who received atezolizumab (Tecentriq) compared with chemotherapy, including poor prognostic factors that were evaluated in an analysis of data from the OAK trial. Additionally, this...
In patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma who are not eligible for stem cell transplantation, the addition of daratumumab (Darzalex) to lenalidomide (Revlimid) and dexamethasone significantly reduced the risk of death or disease progression by 44%, according to a late-breaking abstract...
As reported at the recent San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium and in The New England Journal of Medicine by von Minckwitz et al, an interim analysis of the phase III KATHERINE trial has shown that adjuvant trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1; Kadcyla) improved invasive disease–free survival vs...
As reported by Mamounas et al in The Lancet Oncology, the phase III NRG Oncology/NSABP B-42 trial has shown no disease-free survival benefit with 5 years of letrozole (Femara) vs placebo after 5 years of aromatase inhibitor–based therapy in women with hormone receptor–positive...
In a phase III trial reported at the recent American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting & Exposition and in The New England Journal of Medicine by Woyach et al, ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and ibrutinib/rituximab (Rituxan) were associated with superior progression-free survival vs...
At a press conference where the ECOG-ACRIN E1912 presentation and related issues were discussed, session moderator Aaron T. Gerds, MD, MS, of the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Center, was quite enthusiastic about these results. “I believe these results should change clinical practice....
First-line therapy with the combination of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and rituximab (Rituxan) reduced disease progression by two-thirds compared with standard chemotherapy using fludarabine, cyclophosphamide, and rituximab (FCR) in younger patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to...
In patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer and residual disease after neoadjuvant chemotherapy, adjuvant treatment with trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1; Kadcyla) reduced the risk of invasive disease by 50% over trastuzumab (Herceptin).1 The phase III KATHERINE study was presented at the 2018...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Kater et al, high undetectable minimal residual disease (MRD) rates persisted after the end of venetoclax (Venclexta)/rituximab (Rituxan) treatment in the phase III MURANO trial in relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), and were ...
Patients with previously treated, advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who received pembrolizumab (Keytruda) showed significantly longer overall survival (OS) compared to those treated with docetaxel, Herbst et al reported at the ESMO Immuno-Oncology Congress 2018 in Geneva,...
In a noninferiority phase III trial (NRG Oncology RTOG 1016) reported in The Lancet, Gillison et al found that radiotherapy plus cetuximab (Erbitux) was associated with poorer overall survival vs radiotherapy plus cisplatin in patients with human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive oropharyngeal...
In the phase III KEYNOTE-040 trial reported in The Lancet, Cohen et al found that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was associated with a “clinically meaningful prolongation of overall survival” vs investigator’s choice of standard therapies in patients with previously treated recurrent or ...
A seven-gene assay could improve care for patients with gastroesophageal cancer by predicting their likelihood of relapse after chemotherapy and surgery. These findings were published by Smyth et al in Annals of Oncology. A team at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London, and The Royal...
In the Canadian phase III AVERT trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Carrier et al found that the oral factor Xa inhibitor apixaban reduced the risk of venous thromboembolism vs placebo among intermediate- to high-risk ambulatory patients with cancer starting chemotherapy but was...
An overall survival analysis of the PALOMA-3 trial reported by Turner et al in The New England Journal of Medicine found that the addition of the cyclin-dependent kinase 4/6 (CDK4/6) inhibitor palbociclib (Ibrance) to fulvestrant (Faslodex) improved survival among patients with hormone...
As reported by Horwitz et al in The Lancet, the phase III ECHELON-2 trial showed that brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) plus cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, and prednisone (CHP) improved progression-free and overall survival vs cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone (CHOP) in...