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Vicky Makker, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses phase III findings showing that lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab may improve overall and progression-free survival, as well as overall response rate, compared with treatment of physician’s choice for advanced endometrial cancer. These results were achieved regardless of mismatch repair status following platinum-based chemotherapy (ID #10191).
William J. Gradishar, MD, of Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, discusses the latest recommendations from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network for treating patients with triple-negative breast cancer; data on early-stage and advanced disease; and the role of checkpoint inhibitors, antibody-drug conjugates, and PARP inhibitors.
An observational study of 10,592 patients from the National Cancer Database with stage IIB/IIC melanoma who had undergone surgical resection demonstrated a significant survival advantage with immunotherapy. The research was presented by Wong et al at the Society of Surgical Oncology 2021...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Taofeek K. Owonikoko, MD, PhD, and colleagues, the phase III CheckMate 451 trial showed no improvement in overall survival with combined nivolumab and ipilimumab vs placebo as maintenance therapy for extensive-disease small cell lung cancer. Study ...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Eric P. Winer, MD, FASCO, and colleagues, the phase III KEYNOTE-119 trial showed no significant improvement in overall survival with pembrolizumab vs investigator’s choice of chemotherapy in the second- or third-line treatment of metastatic triple-negative...
High tumor mutational burden (TMB) was useful for predicting clinical responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors only in a subset of cancer types, according to a study published by McGrail et al in Annals of Oncology. The findings suggest that TMB status may not be reliably used as a universal...
With three new HER2-targeted therapies approved in the past 15 months alone, the treatment landscape for patients with metastatic breast cancer has become increasingly crowded. In the third-line setting and beyond, there are now at least eight HER2-targeted agents approved by the U.S. Food and Drug ...
If clinicians could stop mutations of the KRAS gene—which are present in more than 90% of pancreatic cancer cases and drastically reduce the response to immunotherapy—the chances of improving treatment for the disease would be increased. A collaborative study published by Ischenko et al in Nature...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Toni K. Choueiri, MD, and colleagues, the phase III CheckMate 9ER trial has shown that the combination of nivolumab and cabozantinib improved progression-free survival and overall survival vs sunitinib in first-line treatment of patients with...
Recently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that the agency will hold a public meeting of the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee on April 27 to 29 to discuss six indications granted accelerated approval that have since reported results from confirmatory trials that have not...
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Oncology, Lalani et al found that higher body mass index (BMI) was associated with better overall survival among patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma receiving anti–PD-1/PD-L1–based immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment. No association of...
The ASCO Post reached out to Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, FACP, FASCO, Chief of Medical Oncology and Associate Cancer Center Director for Translational Research at Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital, New Haven, for his thoughts on the LCMC3 trial of neoadjuvant atezolizumab.1 Dr. Herbst led...
Neoadjuvant treatment with single-agent atezolizumab in patients with stage IB to IIIB lung cancer resulted in a major pathologic response rate of 21% and a pathologic complete response rate of 7%, in the primary analysis of the Lung Cancer Mutation Consortium 3 (LCMC3) study.1 The findings were...
Belantamab mafodotin-blmf combined with pomalidomide and dexamethasone led to a very good partial response or better in approximately three-quarters of patients with multiple myeloma that was double-class or triple-class refractory, according to Suzanne Trudel, MSc, MD, FRCPC, of Princess Margaret...
“It has been a long time coming to see a positive randomized phase III study with a checkpoint inhibitor in relapsed mesothelioma,” said the study’s invited discussant, Rina Hui, MBBS, PhD, Clinical Professor of Medicine, Crown Princess Mary Cancer Centre, Westmead Hospital, University of Sydney,...
For the first time, a treatment has been shown to improve overall survival in heavily pretreated patients with relapsed malignant mesothelioma. In the phase III CONFIRM trial, single-agent nivolumab led to a significant improvement in both overall and progression-free survival, according to...
In updated results from the pivotal DESTINY-Breast01 trial, trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki (T-DXd) demonstrated high rates of durable responses consistent with prior results, with encouraging progression-free survival and overall survival in patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer. These...
Hossein Borghaei, DO, of Fox Chase Cancer Center, discusses phase I results from a study of AMG 757, an experimental bispecific T-cell–engager (BiTE) immune therapy aimed at the DLL3 molecular target in patients with small cell lung cancer. At this early stage, results show clinical efficacy and safety, with 37% of 51 evaluable patients exhibiting disease control (Abstract OA11.03).
Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, announced on March 8 that the company is voluntarily withdrawing the U.S. indication for atezolizumab (Tecentriq) in patients with prior platinum-treated metastatic urothelial carcinoma. This decision was made in consultation with the U.S. Food and Drug...
On March 5, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta) for adult patients with relapsed or refractory follicular lymphoma after two or more lines of systemic therapy. ZUMA-5 Approval in follicular lymphoma was based on a...
The addition of pembrolizumab to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and radiotherapy (ie, total neoadjuvant therapy) failed to improve a rectal cancer–specific surrogate for survival in patients with locally advanced disease in the phase II NRG-GI002 trial.1 As reported at the 2021 Gastrointestinal Cancers...
In the pivotal phase II KarMMa study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Nikhil C. Munshi, MD, and colleagues found that the B-cell maturation antigen–directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy idecabtagene vicleucel produced high response rates in patients with...
Researchers have created a new technique that may help to uncover mechanisms cancer cells use to evade immunotherapies, which could lead to the development of more effective treatments. Investigators tested their new technique with cancer cells and matching immune cells from patients with melanoma...
As reported in a letter to the editor in The New England Journal of Medicine by Elise A. Chong, MD, and colleagues, long-term follow-up of a single-center trial of tisagenlecleucel showed maintained responses in a high proportion of patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma ...
Tracy L. Rose, MD, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, discusses phase II results of gemcitabine and split-dose cisplatin plus pembrolizumab as neoadjuvant therapy prior to radical cystectomy for patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer. The trial showed this combination treatment is generally safe and may improve pathologic downstaging, but further study is warranted (Abstract 396).
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by McDermott et al, findings in a cohort of the phase II KEYNOTE-427 study showed that pembrolizumab monotherapy produced durable responses as first-line treatment for advanced non–clear cell renal cell carcinoma. In a separate cohort of the study,...
I had my first experience with cancer when I was just 3 or 4 years old and complained to my mother that my “tummy hurt.” I was diagnosed with Wilms tumor, the same cancer my 18-month-old brother died of before I was born. I remember being in the hospital for weeks at a time and being known by...
Pooled results of two phase I studies, reported in The Lancet by Reuben Benjamin, MBBS, of the Department of Haematological Medicine, King’s College Hospital, London, and colleagues, indicate that the genome-edited donor-derived allogeneic anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell product...
To complement The ASCO Post’s continued comprehensive coverage of the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition, here are several abstracts selected from the meeting proceedings focusing on the assessment and treatment of patients with B-cell and T-cell non-Hodgkin...
In a single-institution study reported in JAMA Oncology, Valero et al found that response rates to anti–PD-1 or anti–PD-L1 treatments in patients with microsatellite-stable (MSS) solid tumors were generally higher among those with high tumor mutational burden (TMB) defined as ≥ 10...
Elizabeth R. Plimack, MD, of Fox Chase Cancer Center, discusses phase III results from the KEYNOTE-426 study—specifically, an exploratory subgroup analysis of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma who were randomly assigned to receive pembrolizumab plus axitinib and completed 2 years of treatment (Abstract 327).
In the phase III MITO16b/MANGO–OV2/ENGOT–ov17 trial, investigators found that treatment with a carboplatin-based doublet plus bevacizumab beyond disease progression significantly improved progression-free survival vs a carboplatin-based doublet alone in women with platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Manish A. Shah, MD, and colleagues, the phase III GAMMA-1 trial showed no improvement in overall survival with the addition of andecaliximab to modified oxaliplatin, leucovorin, and fluorouracil (mFOLFOX6) in the first-line treatment of...
The randomized phase II NEOSTAR trial, which examined single-agent and combined neoadjuvant immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy in patients with stage I to III non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), found combination therapy produced a significant clinical benefit (as assessed by major pathologic...
A post hoc analysis of the phase II DREAMM-2 trial showed single-agent belantamab mafodotin-blmf to be efficacious and tolerable in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma treated with at least three prior therapies, investigators reported at the 2020 American Society of Hematology...
Belantamab mafodotin-blmf combined with pomalidomide and dexamethasone led to a very good partial response (VGPR) or better in approximately three-quarters of patients with multiple myeloma that was double-class or triple-class refractory, according to Suzanne Trudel, MSc, MD, FRCPC, of Princess...
Ajay K. Nooka, MD, MPH, FACP, Associate Professor of Hematology and Medical Oncology at Emory University and Medical Director, Winship Research Informatics Shared Resource at Winship Cancer Institute, Atlanta, considered the presentations on bispecific T-cell–engaging antibodies in myeloma to be...
B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) is the most frequent target of immunotherapies in relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma, but bispecific T-cell–engaging antibodies with novel targets are also achieving promising results. Studies presented at the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual...
Sagar Lonial, MD, FACP, the Anne and Bernard Gray Family Chair in Cancer, Chair and Professor of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, commented on the APOLLO trial for The ASCO Post. “APOLLO is a highly awaited study, as the use of daratumumab plus...
The first phase III study to evaluate the subcutaneous form of daratumumab has met its primary endpoint, investigators of the APOLLO trial reported at the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition.1 The triplet of daratumumab, pomalidomide, and low-dose dexamethasone ...
Marco Ruella, MD, of Perelman School of Medicine and Scientific Director of the Lymphoma Program, University of Pennsylvania, commented on this study on CD58 aberrations: “This is a very important study because it describes a possible new mechanism for relapse after CAR-T19 immunotherapy in...
Engineering chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells to overcome CD58 loss may be a way to boost responses in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) who do not respond to treatment with axicabtagene ciloleucel and other CAR T-cell therapies, according to a study presented at the 2020...
James Essell, MD, Medical Director of the Blood Cancer Center, The Jewish Hospital-Mercy Health Cincinnati Cancer and Cellular Therapy Center, and Chair of Cellular Therapy, observed that axicabtagene ciloleucel compares favorably with other chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell products being...
In the phase II ZUMA-5 trial, the cellular immunotherapy axicabtagene ciloleucel led to responses in 92% of patients with indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), researchers reported at the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition.1 Axicabtagene ciloleucel has improved ...
Results from a phase II study presented by Nicholas J. Short, MD, and colleagues at the 2020 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting & Exposition showed that first-line treatment with a regimen of chemotherapy combined with the monoclonal antibody blinatumomab resulted in increased...
The world of hematologic malignancies continues to move forward at a robust pace despite the challenges of the COVID era. Although some areas of clinical trials and basic research suffered short-term stoppages or delays due to the pandemic, the studies presented at the 2020 American Society of...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Martine Piccart, MD, PhD, and colleagues, the preplanned second interim analysis of overall survival in the phase III APHINITY trial showed no significant benefit of the addition of adjuvant pertuzumab to chemotherapy plus trastuzumab after a...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Khurana et al found that up to 24% of patients with newly diagnosed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) receiving standard immunochemotherapy are excluded from participation in clinical trials on the basis of organ function eligibility...
Monika Joshi, MD, of Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute, discusses phase II results from the DUART study, which explored the efficacy of concurrent durvalumab, a checkpoint inhibitor, and radiation therapy followed by adjuvant durvalumab in patients with localized urothelial cancer of the bladder (Abstract 398).
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by McDermott et al, findings in a cohort of the phase II KEYNOTE-427 study showed that pembrolizumab monotherapy produced durable responses as first-line treatment for advanced clear cell renal cell carcinoma. In a separate cohort of the study,...