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Showing 951 - 1000CheckMate 142 Updated Analysis: First-Line Nivolumab Plus Low-Dose Ipilimumab in MSI-H/dMMR Metastatic Colorectal Cancer
As a first-line regimen for patients with metastatic colorectal tumors that are microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR), the combination of nivolumab and low-dose ipilimumab yielded an objective response rate of 64%, a complete response rate of 9%, and a disease...
Beyond CDK4/6 Inhibitors: What Subsequent Treatment Is Best?
Inhibitors of cyclin-dependent kinases 4 and 6 (CDK4/6) have changed the natural history of hormone receptor–positive metastatic breast cancer. While median progression-free survival on these drugs is approximately 27 months, the disease eventually progresses and clinicians must choose a subsequent ...
More Antibody-Drug Conjugates on the Horizon for Breast Cancer
Novel antibody-drug conjugates that target actionable cell-surface markers in metastatic breast cancer will soon expand the utility of the class that already includes ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1), according to two speakers at the 2020 Miami Breast Cancer Conference. These new agents were...
Do HIV Positivity and Autoimmune Disease Preclude Treatment With Checkpoint Inhibitors?
Can patients with cancer and preexisting autoimmune disorders safely benefit from immunotherapy? The answer has been unclear, with only retrospective studies and anecdotal reports guiding oncologists. This subpopulation of patients has largely been excluded from clinical trials out of concerns over ...
What’s the Current Status of Neoadjuvant Immunotherapy?
For several tumor types, can the successes achieved with immunotherapy in the metastatic and adjuvant settings be replicated in the neoadjuvant setting? An explosion in clinical trials—with more than 300 listed on ClinicalTrials.gov—point to “yes.” “The neoadjuvant use of immunotherapy is of great ...
Gut Microbiota Emerging as Key Player in Response to Immunotherapy
The microbiome—and the foods that feed it—is emerging as an important determinant of a patient’s response to immunotherapy. Much of the research in this area comes from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, as described at the 2020 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium by...
Updates From Selected Clinical Trials in Breast Cancer
Each year, The ASCO Post asks Jame Abraham, MD, FACP, Chairman of the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Taussig Cancer Institute and Professor of Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, to offer his picks for the most important research presented at 2019 San...
Expert Point of View: Timothy A. Yap, MBBS, PhD, FRCP
Semaphorin 4D (SEMA4D, and its receptor, plexin B1) is broadly expressed in malignant tumors. Aside from other “normal functions” in tumors, SEMA4D influences the infiltration and distribution of leukocytes into the microenvironment, and its inhibition promotes functional immune infiltration....
SEMA4D Inhibition: A Novel Means of Improving Immune Response
A novel class of inhibitors may hold some promise for boosting responses to checkpoint inhibitors and for sensitizing poorly immunogenic tumors, such as pancreatic cancer, to immunotherapy. The drug targets semaphorin 4D (SEMA4D), a glycoprotein expressed on the cell membranes of many tumor types....
Expert Point of View: Jarushka Naidoo, MBBCh
Discussant of the abstract on antibiotic exposure, Jarushka Naidoo, MBBCh, Assistant Professor of Oncology and Attending Physician at the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University, said that Mr. Chu and colleagues have added to the recent literature examining concurrent use of...
Prior Antibiotic Use Linked to Poorer Survival in Patients With Advanced Melanoma Receiving Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors
Treatment with antibiotics prior to immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy may confer poorer overall survival and an increased risk of colitis in patients with advanced melanoma, according to data presented at the 2020 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium.1 The largest institutional...
Should Restrictions on Genetic Testing Be Loosened?
The loosening of restrictions on genetic testing would mean that all health-care providers could help move this needle to where it should be, according to Kevin S. Hughes, MD, a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital, Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School, and Medical Director of the...
Immunotherapy ‘Comes of Age’ in Breast Cancer
Immunotherapeutics in breast cancer will likely not be limited to late-stage triple-negative breast cancer. Earlier lines, combination regimens, and expansion into different disease subtypes should become part of this emerging landscape, according to Hope S. Rugo, MD, FASCO, Professor of Medicine...
Harvard Medical Student’s Innovation: Disinfection You Can See
In 2014, three undergrads at Columbia University had a crazy idea for a hackathon challenge: colorize bleach so health-care workers could spot missed areas on the surfaces and personal protective equipment they are trying to disinfect. Five years later, the result is a product called Highlight®,...
Oncologists on the Front Lines of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Conversation With Miriam A. Knoll, MD
During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, The ASCO Post will be interviewing oncologists on how they and their centers are dealing with the crisis. Here, we speak with Miriam A. Knoll, MD, a radiation oncologist at the John Theurer Cancer Center, Hackensack University Medical Center, ...
Irene M. Ghobrial, MD, on How COVID-19 is Changing the Conduct of Clinical Trials
Irene M. Ghobrial, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, talks about PROMISE—her screening study for people at high-risk of developing precursor conditions of multiple myeloma—and how this and other trials have been altered in the wake of the pandemic, as well as what might be considered a silver...
Bispecific Antibodies: Successes and Challenges
Bispecific T-cell engager (BiTE) antibodies, such blinatumomab, may be the most appealing type of bispecific antibodies, a class of manufactured constructs that is expected to expand into the solid tumor space, according to Hermann Einsele, MD, Professor of Medicine at the University of Würzburg,...
Expert Point of View: John M. Carethers, MD
The analysis of the National Cancer Database is one of a number of studies describing sociodemographic-related disparities in colorectal cancer outcomes, according to session Co-Chair John M. Carethers, MD, Professor and Chair of the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan,...
Studies Aim to Understand Young-Onset Colorectal Cancer
The incidence of colorectal cancer among adults younger than age 50 has risen more than 50% over the past 25 years. Researchers are attempting to understand this phenomenon, as described in several studies presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium that offered new insights....
Oncologists on the Front Lines of COVID‑19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is dramatically affecting health-care systems. This is the first in a series of interviews The ASCO Post will conduct with oncologists, to learn what they and their cancer centers are doing to deal with the crisis. In this article, we talk with John Cole, MD, a...
Expert Point of View: Daniel V.T. Catenacci, MD
The analysis by Chao et al “highlights how well patients with MSI-H tumors do, compared to microsatellite-stable patients, and how much better they do in a randomized setting, being exposed to immunotherapy as compared to standard-of-care chemotherapy…The data also show that this is a...
Selected Abstracts on Novel Treatments in Colon, Hepatocellular, and Biliary Tract Cancers
The ASCO Post has reported on the pivotal trials presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in several issues. Featured here are the findings of several additional abstracts worthy of mention. Intermittent Oxaliplatin in Stage II or III Colon Cancer As adjuvant treatment for stage II...
Study Focuses on Role of Microbes in Pancreatic Cancer
Although bacteria are predominant in the gastrointestinal tract, they also reside on and in other parts of the body, including some unexpected places, such as malignant tumors. There are numerous reports of this phenomenon, but most have not identified a functional role for the microbes. In the...
Expert Point of View: Daniel V.T. Catenacci, MD
Daniel V.T. Catenacci, MD, of the University of Chicago Medical Center and Biological Sciences, emphasized the value of the patient having microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) status as a biomarker for immunotherapy. The analysis by Chao et al “highlights how well patients with MSI-H tumors do,...
Survival Benefits Achieved With Pembrolizumab in MSI-H and CPS ≥ 10 Gastric/Gastroesophageal Junction Cancer
Post hoc subanalyses of three KEYNOTE trials established the survival benefit of pembrolizumab in advanced gastric/gastroesophageal junction cancer with microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) tumors or a programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) combined positive score (CPS) ≥ 10 (ie, the number of...
Expert Point of View: Navid Hafez, MD, MPH
Ilixadencel is essentially a dendritic cell vaccine without preloaded antigens. In the MERECA study, ilixadencel produced “a great signal,” though this approach is still very experimental, said the study’s invited discussant, Navid Hafez, MD, MPH, of Yale Cancer Center. Dr. Hafez is a member of the ...
Off-the-Shelf Dendritic Vaccine Shows Benefit in Kidney Cancer
Ilixadencel is a cell-based, allogeneic, off-the-shelf product aimed at priming the anticancer immune response when injected intratumorally. The phase II MERECA study evaluated this allogeneic dendritic cell product given with sunitinib in 88 patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma. The study ...
Brief Highlights From the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium
In addition to our regular coverage of the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, the following reports from the meeting include studies you may have missed. We hope you find them of interest. Ribociclib/Letrozole as Neoadjuvant Therapy As neoadjuvant therapy in women with high-risk hormone...
Expert Point of View: Richard L. Schilsky, MD, FACP, FSCT, FASCO
Richard L. Schilsky, MD, FACP, FSCT, FASCO, ASCO’s Chief Medical Officer and a gastrointestinal oncologist himself, was pleased to see the TAPUR study bearing fruit among patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. “Colorectal cancer is a very common disease, but we have not made much progress in...
ASCO’s TAPUR Study: Biomarker-Driven Treatment Paying Off in Colorectal Cancer
New data presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium are validating the purpose of ASCO’s Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) study, a multibasket trial that matches patients’ genomic alterations to commercially available targeted therapies. The aim is to learn...
Expert Point of View: Jarushka Naidoo, MBBCh
“The investigators of the current study tested the hypothesis that vitamin D supplementation is associated with a reduced risk of checkpoint-induced colitis by rigorously assessing 37 variables in both discovery and validation cohorts,” said invited discussant Jarushka Naidoo, MBBCh, Assistant...
Vitamin D Supplementation May Protect Against Checkpoint Inhibitor–Induced Colitis
Vitamin D supplementation prior to starting immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy may significantly reduce the odds of developing colitis, according to a study conducted at Harvard Medical School. Although this was a retrospective chart review, the association was relatively strong in the...
Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, Relays Opinions on Coronavirus
Scott Gottlieb, MD, former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), had some advice for attendees of the 37th Annual Miami Breast Cancer Conference in his keynote address at the meeting. While his formal presentation pertained to innovations in oncology drug development and...
Expert Point of View: Daniel V.T. Catenacci, MD
Daniel V.T. Catenacci, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine and Director of the Gastrointestinal Oncology Program at the University of Chicago, was the JAVELIN Gastric 100 study’s invited discussant. After offering an extensive background on the use of immunotherapy in gastric or gastroesophageal...
No Survival Benefit for Maintenance Avelumab in Advanced Gastric or Gastroesophageal Junction Cancer
In the phase III JAVELIN Gastric 100 trial, a strategy called “switch maintenance” with the immune checkpoint inhibitor avelumab after 12 weeks of first-line induction chemotherapy did not statistically improve overall survival for treatment-naive patients with HER2-negative advanced gastric or...
New POLO Data Further Support Maintenance Olaparib in BRCA1/2-Positive Pancreatic Cancer
In posters presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, POLO investigators reported that health-related quality of life was preserved during maintenance olaparib in patients with BRCA 1/2-positive pancreatic cancer, as evidenced by a low symptom burden over time.1 Other studies...
Automated Referral Process for Genetic Counseling and Testing of Patients With Pancreatic Cancer
Routine genetic counseling and multigene testing of patients with pancreatic cancer result in the detection of mutations that are actionable, not only for patients, but also for at-risk family members. At the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the use of a systemized, automated referral system that does ...
Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors in Solid Organ Transplant Recipients
As the number of solid organ transplants in the United States rises, cancer in this patient population is a growing concern. In fact, solid organ transplant recipients have an up to 50 times greater risk than the general population of developing skin cancers, and for kidney transplant recipients,...
Expert Point of View: Kevin Kalinsky, MD, MS
Commenting on SAFIR02-IMMUNO for The ASCO Post, Kevin Kalinsky, MD, MS, Associate Professor of Medicine at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, said the findings of the analysis were in accordance with other studies in metastatic breast cancer, but they came...
Mixed Results With Durvalumab Maintenance in HER2-Negative Advanced Breast Cancer
Given as maintenance therapy, the checkpoint inhibitor durvalumab significantly improved overall survival in patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer and yielded a numerical but not significant benefit as well for patients expressing programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1), in...
Expert Point of View: George A. Fisher, Jr, MD, PhD
George A. Fisher, Jr, MD, PhD, the Colleen Haas Chair in Medicine-Oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine, commented on the cell-free DNA methylation blood-based test from the Circulating Cell-Free Genome Atlas (CCGA) study. The findings presented by Dr. Wolpin, he said, “lead us to the ...
Use of Cell-Free DNA Methylation–Based Blood Test in Detecting Gastrointestinal Cancers
A noninvasive, blood-based, cell-free DNA test focused on the presence of DNA methylation appears to be highly sensitive in detecting gastrointestinal cancers and may pinpoint the tissue of origin in the vast majority of these cancers.1 The assay was developed based on findings from the...
Expert Point of View: A. Craig Lockhart, MD
The invited discussant of the IMbrave150 trial, A. Craig Lockhart, MD, Professor of Medicine, University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, applauded the study for making patient-reported outcomes a prespecified endpoint and described the value of having this information. “The U.S....
Patient-Reported Outcomes From IMbrave150: Better Quality of Life With Doublet
For the first-line treatment of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma, atezolizumab plus bevacizumab provided a significant overall survival benefit in the pivotal IMbrave150 trial. New findings from a prespecified analysis also showed numerous benefits for the doublet in terms of quality of life,...
Expert Point of View: Suzanne Lentzsch, MD, PhD
Suzanne Lentzsch, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Multiple Myeloma and Amyloidosis Service at Columbia University, offered her thoughts on venetoclax-based regimens, such as the one described by Dr. Kaufman. “Despite tremendous progress in the treatment of multiple myeloma, the...
Venetoclax Plus Dexamethasone Shows Activity in t(11;14) Multiple Myeloma
In a phase I/II study of patients with advanced multiple myeloma and t(11;14) translocations, the combination of venetoclax and dexamethasone showed strong, durable activity, even in patients refractory to daratumumab, study investigators reported at the 2019 American Society of Hematology (ASH)...
Expert Point of View: Basem M. William, MD, MRCP
Basem M. William, MD, MRCP, Director of the T-Cell Lymphoma Program and Cutaneous Lymphoma Multidisciplinary Clinic at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center–Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute, Columbus, commented on the newly reported findings...
Strong Activity Shown for Lisocabtagene Maraleucel CAR T-Cell Therapy in Aggressive Large B-Cell Lymphoma
Another CD19-directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy may be poised to enter the marketplace for aggressive relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma, based on a high rate of rapid and durable complete responses achieved with lisocabtagene maraleucel. The phase I TRANSCEND NHL...
Expert Point of View: Christopher M. Booth, MD
Patients with BRAF-mutated metastatic colorectal cancer “pose clinical challenges for us every day,” said Christopher M. Booth, MD, Professor of Medical Oncology and the Canada Research Chair in Population Cancer Care at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, the invited discussant of the...
BEACON-CRC: Quality of Life May Be Well Maintained With Targeted Treatment
For patients with previously treated metastatic colorectal cancer harboring BRAF V600E mutations, the phase III BEACON-CRC study showed the benefit for combining two or three targeted agents vs the standard of care.1 The study has now also shown a benefit for the triplet and doublet in maintaining ...
