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A triplet therapy combining two immune checkpoint inhibitors with the standard of care azacitidine has shown promising results for treatment of relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML), according to the findings of a phase II study conducted at The University of Texas...
In an update to the global JULIET clinical trial, the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy tisagenlecleucel (Kymriah) led to long-lasting remissions in patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). The most recent results from the trial were presented by...
In a pharmacovigilance study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Salem et al found that immune checkpoint inhibitors can cause “severe and disabling inflammatory cardiovascular immune-related adverse events” that need to be considered in patient care and clinical trial design. Study...
In an international phase III trial (HR-NBL1/SIOPEN) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Ladenstein et al found that the addition of interleukin (IL)-2 to dinutuximab beta did not improve event-free survival in children and young people with high-risk neuroblastoma. Study Details The current report...
For the past 50 years or more, oncologists have designed their treatment plans around the three pillars: surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Now, with a series of recent successes, immunotherapy is rapidly reemerging as the fourth pillar in the oncologic armamentarium. Despite major advancements...
ASCO and the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) have released a joint statement with 12 clinical trial reporting recommendations that address the unique efficacy, toxicity, and combination/sequencing aspects of immuno-oncology (IO) treatments. These recommendations, jointly published in the ...
A combination of the chemotherapy drug azacitidine with the immune checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) demonstrated an encouraging response rate and overall survival in patients with relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML), according to findings from a phase II study published...
Allison S. Betof Warner, MD, PhD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the rationale for immunotherapy and combination treatments, identifying the agents that lead to toxicities, and ways to manage them.
Betty R. Ferrell, PhD, of City of Hope, discusses the many advances in immunotherapy and the drugs’ effect on patients’ quality of life, including psychological well-being.
Elizabeth Jane Cathcart-Rake, MD, of the Mayo Clinic, discusses the frequency of side effects from immunotherapy, the need to closely monitor those receiving this treatment, and the role of clinicians in educating their patients on toxicities (Abstract 184).
In patients with stage III melanoma, a reduced-dose neoadjuvant immunotherapy combination was well tolerated and led to high pathologic response rates, in the phase II OpACIN-neo trial presented at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress.1 “Neoadjuvant ipilimumab (Yervoy) at...
In the JAVELIN Renal 101 phase III study, the combination of the immune checkpoint inhibitor avelumab (Bavencio), a programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) blocking antibody, plus the tyrosine kinase inhibitor axitinib (Inlyta) significantly improved progression-free survival in previously untreated...
An overall survival advantage has now been shown for first-line immunotherapy in recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer, researchers reported at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress.1 In the phase III KEYNOTE-048 trial, treatment with the anti–programmed cell death...
In previously untreated patients with metastatic colorectal cancer and tumors demonstrating microsatellite instability–high (MSI-high) or mismatch repair deficiency (dMMR), immunotherapy with nivolumab (Opdivo) and low-dose ipilimumab (Yervoy) produced a durable clinical benefit in the...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Kluger et al, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) showed activity in brain metastases in patients with melanoma enrolled in a phase II study. The study included 23 patients with melanoma with one or more asymptomatic untreated 5- to 20-mm brain metastasis...
FIRST-LINE TREATMENT options for advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) include single- agent immunotherapy for patients with a programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) tumor proportion score of at least 50% or in combination with chemotherapy in unselected patients.1-3 Single immunotherapy is...
IN A STUDY reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kathryn C. Arbour, MD, of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and colleagues found that baseline treatment with corticosteroids was associated with poorer efficacy of programmed cell death protein 1/programmed cell death ligand 1...
ATEZOLIZUMAB (TECENTRIQ), an anti–program cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) antibody, combined with carboplatin/ etoposide as first-line treatment for extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) improved overall and progression-free survival and may represent a new standard of care, according to...
“BACILLUS CALMETTE-GUÉRIN (BCG) failures are quite common, with a 66% recurrence rate at 5 years, and about 25% of patients will have disease progression,” explained formal discussant Shahrokh Shariat, MD, Chair of the Department of Urology at Medical University, Vienna, and Adjunct Professor at...
THE ANTI–PROGRAMMED cell death protein 1 (anti–PD-1) checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was found to have antitumor activity in patients with high-risk non–muscle invasive bladder cancer who were nonresponsive to bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), according to the preliminary results of the ...
“IMPASSION130 IS a positive study of immuno-oncology that brings breast cancer into the immunotherapy era,” said the invited discussant of the trial, Giuseppe Curigliano, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Oncology at the University of Milan and Chair of Early Drug Development at the Institute of...
IMMUNOTHERAPY APPEARS to be the new upfront standard of care for patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, based on a late-breaking presentation at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress1 and simultaneously published in The New England Journal of Medicine.2 In ...
In a phase Ib study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Advani et al found that the combination of rituximab (Rituxan) and the CD47-blocking monoclonal antibody Hu5F9-G4 (or 5F9), a macrophage immune checkpoint inhibitor, was active in patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. CD47, which is ...
In the Italian phase II PURE-01 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Necchi et al found that neoadjuvant pembrolizumab (Keytruda) before radical cystectomy in muscle-invasive bladder carcinoma produced complete pathologic response (pT0) in 42% of patients, with pT0 being more common...
The information contained in this Clinical Trials Resource Guide includes actively recruiting clinical studies focused on immunotherapies in lung cancer. These trials are studying combination therapies, radiotherapy plus immunotherapy, cancer vaccines, identifying biomarkers to immunotherapy...
As reported by Hauschild et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, longer-term follow-up of the phase III COMBI-AD trial has confirmed improved relapse-free survival with adjuvant dabrafenib (Tafinlar) plus trametinib (Mekinist) vs placebo in resected BRAF V600–mutant stage III melanoma. In...
The combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and low-dose ipilimumab (Yervoy) could become a new first-line treatment in patients with microsatellite instability–high (MSI-H), mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) metastatic colorectal cancer, following results from the CheckMate-142 trial reported ...
Neoadjuvant treatment with a combination of the immune checkpoint inhibitors nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) achieved major pathological responses in mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) early-stage colon cancers, according to results reported by Chalabi et al at the European...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology and at the European Society for Medical Oncology 2018 Congress by Hodi et al, the 4-year follow-up of the phase III CheckMate 067 trial has shown a continued overall survival benefit with first-line nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) or nivolumab alone vs ...
David Raben, MD, of the University of Colorado, discusses overall survival with durvalumab vs placebo after chemoradiotherapy in stage III non–small cell lung cancer (Abstract LBA10).
Caroline Robert, MD, PhD, of Gustave Roussy Cancer Centre, discusses managing toxicities of immunotherapy, including neurotoxicity, and treating beyond acute adverse events.
Caroline Robert, MD, PhD, of Gustave Roussy Cancer Centre, discusses two high-impact studies in stage III melanoma treatment: an update of the COMBI-AD trial examining dabrafenib and trametinib; and neoadjuvant ipilimumab and nivolumab therapy.
In an analysis of the phase III GALLIUM trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Trotman et al found that end-of-induction fluorodeoxyglucose positron-emission tomography (PET) after first-line immunochemotherapy appeared to better predict treatment outcomes than contrast-enhanced computed tomography ...
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) improved survival in patients with head and neck cancer that has recurred or metastasized in the KEYNOTE-048 trial, according to late-breaking results from the study reported by Burtness et al at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress (Abstract...
Tony Mok, MD, of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, discusses two important studies in non–small cell lung cancer: FLAURA, which looked at the first-line activity of osimertinib and the mechanisms of resistance; and ALESIA, which examined crizotinib dosing.
Suresh S. Ramalingam, MD, of the Emory University School of Medicine, summarizes the top-line lung cancer results reported at this year’s ESMO Congress, including the role of targeted treatment for early stage NSCLC, combining immunotherapy for surgically resectable disease, and immunotherapy for small–cell lung cancer as well as unresectable NSCLC.
Laurence Albiges, MD, PhD, of Gustave Roussy, discusses data from the global, phase III JAVELIN trial that compared axitinib plus avelumab vs sunitinib, which could lead to a new standard of care in renal cell carcinoma (Abstract LBA6_PR).
A combination of the immune checkpoint blocker avelumab (Bavencio) plus the tyrosine kinase inhibitor axitinib (Inlyta) improved progression-free survival (PFS) in previously untreated patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC) in the phase III JAVELIN Renal 101 study, according to results...
The Cancer Research Institute honored three scientists for their work in immunology and cancer immunotherapy at the group’s annual gala held recently in New York. Padmanee Sharma, MD, PhD, Professor of Genitourinary Medical Oncology and Immunology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer...
In the age of big data, cancer researchers are discovering new ways to monitor the effectiveness of immunotherapy treatments. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy developed a new way to use bioinformatics as a gathering tool to determine how a...
Lisa A. Carey, MD, of the University of North Carolina, and Sherene Loi, MD, PhD, of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, discuss the phase III IMpassion 130 trial testing the first-line combination of the PD-L1 inhibitor atezolizumab plus nab-paclitaxel in metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (Abstract LBA1_PR).
A combination of immunotherapy and chemotherapy improves survival in some patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, according to late-breaking results from the IMpassion130 trial reported by Schmid et al at the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress (Abstract...
Cora N. Sternberg, MD, of San Camillo-Forlanini Hospital and the Israel Englander Institute of Precision Medicine at Weill Cornell, discusses results from the phase III CheckMate-025 study on nivolumab vs everolimus for mRCC; the CheckMate-214 study on nivolumab, ipilimumab, and sunitinib for treatment-naive advanced or metastatic clear-cell RCC; and immunotherapy for urothelial cancer for both first- line cisplatin-ineligible and second-line therapy after cisplatin chemotherapy.
Ronald de Wit, MD, PhD, of the University Medical Center Rotterdam, discusses phase II findings on the efficacy of pembrolizumab in bacillus Calmette-Guérin–unresponsive bladder cancer with high risk for disease progression.
Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD, of the NYU Langone Perlmutter Cancer Center, discusses how long people with melanoma should be treated with PD-1 blockade and the data on remission rates.
Johan F. Vansteenkiste, MD, PhD, of Catholic University Leuven, summarizes a session he co-chaired that included discussion of translating advances in stage IV disease to nonmetastatic lung cancer, TKI approaches in early-stage disease, and integrating immunotherapy and TKIs in stage III disease management.
Martin Reck, MD, PhD, of the LungenClinic, discusses recent updates on biomarkers beyond PD-L1 expression; mechanisms and management of resistance; as well as combinations and novel approaches in lung cancer.
Ezra E.W. Cohen, MD, of the University of California, San Diego, discusses the effectiveness of anti–PD-1 therapy in patients with recurrent head and neck cancer and the studies that might help predict who will benefit, how to combine agents, and ways to reduce long-term toxicity.
Matti S. Aapro, MD, of the Genolier Cancer Centre, discusses the optimal treatment and supportive care for older patients with cancer, including the importance of maintaining dose density and intensity as well as monitoring toxicity.
The addition of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) to a standard platinum doublet as first-line therapy improved overall and progression-free survival in patients with metastatic squamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), in the primary analysis of KEYNOTE-407.1,2 Furthermore, it did not seem to matter...