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Lower levels of cancer aneuploidy were associated with more favorable outcomes after immune checkpoint inhibition in patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to data presented by Alessi et al at the virtual American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2021...
Tumor mutational burden (TMB) was an accurate predictor of response to treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors for female patients with melanoma, but not for male patients, according to results of a study presented by Sinha et al during the virtual American Association for Cancer Research...
On April 13, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to sacituzumab govitecan-hziy (Trodelvy) for patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer who previously received a platinum-containing chemotherapy and either a PD-1 or PD-L1 inhibitor....
Brian I. Rini, MD, of Vanderbilt University, discusses the IMmotion151 trial results on overall survival and the association of gene expression and clinical outcomes with atezolizumab plus bevacizumab vs sunitinib in patients with locally advanced or metastatic renal cell carcinoma (Abstract CT188).
In a phase I trial reported at the virtual American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2021 (Abstract CT018) and simultaneously published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Friedman et al found that oncolytic virotherapy with genetically engineered herpes simplex virus-1...
In a long-term follow-up of a National Cancer Institute (NCI) phase I trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Nirali N. Shah, MD, and colleagues found that autologous CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy followed by allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation can...
Patrick M. Forde, MD, of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University, discusses results from the CheckMate 816 trial, which showed that adding nivolumab to chemotherapy as a neoadjuvant treatment for patients with resectable non–small cell lung cancer improved the pathologic complete response rate to 24%, compared to 2.2% with chemotherapy alone (Abstract CT003).
Rita Nanda, MD, of the University of Chicago, discusses the latest data on novel treatment strategies for triple-negative breast cancer, including immune checkpoint, PARP, and ATK inhibitors; antibody-drug conjugates; and targeting the androgen receptor.
Neoadjuvant nivolumab plus platinum-doublet chemotherapy significantly improved pathologic complete response (pCR) rates compared with chemotherapy alone in patients with resectable stage IB to IIIA non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to results of the randomized, phase III, open-label...
Bispecific anti-CD19/CD20 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy was well tolerated and showed signs of clinical efficacy in patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell lymphoma, according to phase I clinical trial data presented by Ghafouri et al during week 1 of the virtual American...
Xin Gao, MD, a medical oncologist at Mass General Hospital and Instructor at Harvard Medical School, said these were important findings. “Analyses of patient-reported outcomes pertaining to health-related quality-of-life measures from CheckMate 9ER showed significantly improved quality-of-life...
Results of the CheckMate 9ER phase III trial showed significantly improved patient-reported outcomes in quality of life for first-line treatment with nivolumab plus cabozantinib compared with sunitinib for patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma.1 These findings are in line with the previously...
Invited discussant, Ursula Matulonis, MD, Chief of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, applauded the improved outcomes favoring lenvatinib/pembrolizumab in the confirmatory KEYNOTE-775 trial. “This represents the start of a new era in endometrial cancer...
In the first report from the pivotal phase III KEYNOTE-775/Study 309 trial, the combination of lenvatinib, a multikinase inhibitor of VEGFR1, VEGFR2, and VEGFR3 kinases, and pembrolizumab significantly improved multiple outcomes compared with standard single-agent chemotherapy in patients with...
In a single-institution study reported in JCO Oncology Practice, Menjak et al found that a nurse-led telephone surveillance program for toxicity associated with ipilimumab in patients with metastatic melanoma led to earlier identification of toxicities and earlier intervention, with an apparent...
On April 7, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted regular approval to sacituzumab govitecan-hziy (Trodelvy) for patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer who have received two or more prior systemic therapies, at least one of them...
For the treatment of breast cancer, antibody-drug conjugates are emerging as effective players that could impact all subtypes of this disease, according to Kevin Kalinsky, MD, MS, Director of the Glenn Family Breast Cancer at the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, Atlanta. In the...
In an analysis reported in JAMA Oncology, Joseph Chao, MD, and colleagues found improved outcomes with pembrolizumab treatment in patients with microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H) advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancer, irrespective of line of treatment. The findings suggest that...
In a letter to the editor published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Benoit Rousseau, MD, and colleagues presented evidence that high tumor mutational burden (TMB) alone is not sufficient to predict improved outcomes with immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy in patients with solid tumors. As...
Crystal S. Denlinger, MD, of Fox Chase Cancer Center, and Mary F. Mulcahy, MD, of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, discuss biomarkers for determining treatment; immune checkpoint inhibitors; when to employ such treatments as platinum/fluoropyrimidine and fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki; and other second- or later-line therapies such as paclitaxel, ramucirumab, irinotecan-based regimens, and trifluridine/tipiracil.
In a single-institution retrospective analysis reported in the journal Blood, Moik et al found a substantial risk of thromboembolic events in patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy for cancer, as well as an increased risk of mortality among those experiencing venous ...
Immunotherapy is not only significantly less effective in patients with liver cancer who previously had nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, but it actually may fuel tumor growth, according to a study published by Pfister et al in Nature. Nonalcoholic steatohepatitis affects as many as 40 million people...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Oncology, Patrinely et al found that chronic immune-related adverse events occurred in a high proportion of patients receiving adjuvant PD-1–targeted therapy for high-risk resected melanoma and frequently persisted even during prolonged follow-up....
On March 31, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved isatuximab-irfc (Sarclisa) in combination with carfilzomib and dexamethasone for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma who have received one to three prior lines of therapy. IKEMA The efficacy...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Cobleigh et al, the phase III NRG Oncology/NSABP B-43 trial did not show a significant reduction in ipsilateral breast tumor recurrence with the addition of adjuvant concurrent trastuzumab to radiotherapy in women undergoing lumpectomy for...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by John Kuruvilla, MD, and colleagues, an interim analysis of the phase III KEYNOTE-204 trial has shown significantly improved progression-free survival with pembrolizumab vs brentuximab vedotin in patients with relapsed or refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma....
Adjuvant nivolumab is the first therapy to provide a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in disease-free survival in patients with resected esophageal and gastroesophageal junction cancer, according to research presented by Guillaume Piessen, MD, PhD, and colleagues at...
On March 26, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved idecabtagene vicleucel (Abecma) for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma after four or more prior lines of therapy, including an immunomodulatory agent, a proteasome inhibitor, and an anti-CD38 ...
The FIGHT study’s invited discussant, Rutika Mehta, MD, MPH, a gastrointestinal oncologist at Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Florida, noted the emergence of new biomarkers and their targeted agents in HER2-negative gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancer. Two important ones are FGFR2b—now...
Gastric cancer appears to have a new druggable target: fibroblast growth factor receptor 2b (FGFR2b). Targeting FGFR2b with bemarituzumab plus chemotherapy led to clinically meaningful and statistically significant improvements in progression-free survival, overall survival, and response rate in...
The overall survival benefit for PD-L1 CPS ≥ 5 tumors in CheckMate 649 is a game-changer. An oxaliplatin doublet plus chemotherapy should become a standard of care for these patients,” according to Elizabeth Smyth, MD, an oncology consultant at Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in...
As first-line treatment for advanced gastric cancer, nivolumab plus chemotherapy leads to significantly improved progression-free and overall survival over chemotherapy alone, investigators reported during a Presidential Symposium of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Virtual Congress ...
In 2007, sorafenib became the first approved systemic therapy for hepatocellular cancers and the first agent to improve overall survival in these patients.1 In a similar multikinase inhibitor strategy, lenvatinib was found to be noninferior to sorafenib in overall survival in the same patient...
Amir A. Jazaeri, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses data on the safety and efficacy of adoptive cell transfer using autologous tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (LN-145) to treat patients with recurrent, metastatic, or persistent cervical carcinoma whose tumors have progressed on prior systemic therapy (ID # 10224).
Dana M. Roque, MD, of the University of Maryland Medical Center, discusses phase II results showing that weekly ixabepilone plus biweekly bevacizumab may improve overall response rate as well as progression-free and overall survival for women with platinum-resistant or -refractory ovarian, fallopian tube, and primary peritoneal cancers, a population in need of treatment choices.
“I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.” —Marie Curie To complement The ASCO Post’s continued comprehensive coverage of the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here are two abstracts selected from the meeting proceedings focusing on...
Antibody-drug conjugates directed against HER2, HER3, and trophoblast cell-surface antigen 2 (TROP2) are showing encouraging antitumor activity in advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to research presented during the virtual edition of the International Association for the Study...
On January 22, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the combination of nivolumab and cabozantinib as first-line treatment for patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma.1-3 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on the findings of the phase III, open-label CheckMate 9ER trial...
In just a few years, immunotherapy has risen to become a pillar of cancer care, leading to significantly improved response rates and even cures in previously intractable diseases. Leveraging the immune system to treat cancer, however, also increases the potential for serious off-target effects....
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Joaquim Bellmunt, MD, PhD, and colleagues, the phase III IMvigor010 trial showed no improvement in disease-free survival with adjuvant atezolizumab vs observation in patients with muscle-invasive urothelial carcinoma. Study Details In the open-label trial, 809...
Shaji K. Kumar, MD, of the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, discusses the latest data on treating patients with multiple myeloma, including standard-of-care induction before stem cell transplant; the role of quadruplet induction; long-term results with the combination of daratumumab, lenalidomide, and dexamethasone in those who are ineligible for stem cell transplant; CAR T-cell engagers; and the need for more research on how immunotherapy fits in the sequence of treatments.
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Bersanelli et al reported that researchers in the EuroMDS Project found that patients with myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) could be classified into eight distinct subtypes based on genomic characteristics. They also developed a new prognostic ...
On March 22, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in combination with platinum and fluoropyrimidine-based chemotherapy for patients with metastatic or locally advanced esophageal or gastroesophageal junction (tumors with epicenter 1–5 cm above the...
Emily Hinchcliff, MD, MPH, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses phase II results of durvalumab (anti–PD-L1) and tremelimumab (anti–CTLA-4) administered in combination vs sequentially for the treatment of recurrent platinum-resistant non–clear cell ovarian cancer (ID #10240).
The addition of niraparib maintenance to first-line platinum-based chemotherapy with bevacizumab demonstrated clinical benefit in patients with advanced ovarian cancer, according to data from the OVARIO study presented by Melissa M. Hardesty, MD, MPH, during the Society of Gynecologic Oncology...
Charles N. Landen, MD, of the University of Virginia, discusses results from the first clinical trial in ovarian cancer to demonstrate that neither a BRCA1/2 mutation nor a homologous recombination deficiency improves sensitivity to a therapeutic PD-L1 blockade in patients receiving atezolizumab vs placebo combined with carboplatin, paclitaxel, and bevacizumab for newly diagnosed disease (ID #10240).
Hyun C. Chung, MD, of Yonsei Cancer Center and Yonsei University College of Medicine, discusses phase II findings from the KEYNOTE-158 study, which support the use of pembrolizumab for patients with recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer that has progressed on or after chemotherapy and whose tumors express PD-L1.
Although some studies show that patients with cancer have a greater risk of health complications from COVID-19, a new study has found that recent chemotherapy or immunotherapy for gynecologic cancer does not raise the risk of hospitalization or death due to COVID-19. The study results were...
In the first report from the pivotal phase III KEYNOTE-775/Study 309 trial, the combination of lenvatinib and pembrolizumab significantly improved multiple outcomes compared to standard single-agent chemotherapy in patients with advanced, metastatic, or recurrent endometrial cancer that had...
Arlene O. Siefker-Radtke, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the changing therapeutic landscape in which atezolizumab, avelumab, and pembrolizumab have either been approved or are under review for treating urothelial bladder cancer in the metastatic, superficial, and adjuvant settings.