ASCO has released a rapid recommendation update to the guideline on chemotherapy and targeted therapy for endocrine-pretreated or hormone receptor–negative metastatic breast cancer, addressing the use of sacituzumab govitecan-hziy in patients with endocrine-resistant, hormone receptor–positive,...
As reported in The Lancet by Sara A. Hurvitz, MD, of the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, and colleagues, updated results of the phase III DESTINY-Breast03 trial showed significantly improved overall survival with...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Paula Rodriguez-Otero, MD, PhD, of Clínica Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain, and colleagues, an interim analysis of the phase III KarMMa-3 trial has shown superior progression-free survival with the B-cell maturation antigen–directed...
On February 9, 2023, dostarlimab-gxly was granted regular approval for adults with mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) recurrent or advanced endometrial cancer, as determined by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved test, whose disease has progressed on or following a prior platinum-containing...
Xin Gao, MD, Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School, Genitourinary Cancers Program, Mass General Cancer Center, commented on the results from TROPHY-U-01 cohort 2. “These data add to the overall data on the efficacy of sacituzumab govitecan in patients with metastatic urothelial cancer. This...
Treatment with the antibody-drug conjugate sacituzumab govitecan-hziy achieved an objective response rate of 32% in platinum-ineligible patients with metastatic urothelial cancer who experienced disease progression on an immune checkpoint inhibitor, according to the primary analysis of the...
In a phase II trial reported in JAMA Oncology, Locke J. Bryan, MD, and colleagues found that the combination of pembrolizumab with ICE chemotherapy (a regimen including ifosfamide, carboplatin, and etoposide) produced a high rate of complete response in patients with relapsed or refractory...
In the phase II NEOSTAR trial, adding ipilimumab to a neoadjuvant combination of nivolumab plus platinum-based chemotherapy resulted in a major pathologic response in half of all treated patients with early-stage, resectable non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). New findings from the NEOSTAR study,...
The invited discussant of KEYNOTE-859,1 Elizabeth Smyth, MD, consultant in gastrointestinal oncology at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in the United Kingdom, called the findings “practice-changing” but cautioned that better patient selection is needed to optimally apply them....
Results of the interim analysis of KEYNOTE-859 are in, and they confirm the overall survival benefit of first-line immunotherapy plus chemotherapy in advanced gastric cancer.1 Pembrolizumab plus a fluoropyrimidine- and platinum-containing doublet provided a statistically significant improvement in...
In a German-Austrian phase II study (TITAN-TCC) reported in The Lancet Oncology, Grimm et al found that a strategy of nivolumab monotherapy followed by immunotherapeutic boosting including high-dose ipilimumab in nivolumab nonresponders showed activity in patients with unresectable or metastatic...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Eng et al found that exposure to antibiotics within 1 year of starting immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy was associated with poorer survival among patients with cancer who were aged 65 years and older. Study Details The population-based...
Chemotherapy may affect the immune system’s ability to attack tumors in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, according to a new study published by Werba et al in Nature Communications. Background Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is hard to detect and treat, with a 5-year survival rate of ...
In the phase II SWOG Cancer Research Network S1801 trial reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Sapna P. Patel, MD, and colleagues found that neoadjuvant plus adjuvant pembrolizumab significantly improved event-free survival vs adjuvant pembrolizumab alone in patients with stage IIIB to...
As reported in the journal Blood by Sattva S. Neelapu, MD, and colleagues, 5-year outcomes from the the phase II ZUMA-1 trial showed that axicabtagene ciloleucel was associated with maintained response in one-third of patients with refractory large B-cell lymphoma. The estimated 5-year overall...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Network Open, Saberzadeh-Ardestani et al found that first-line pembrolizumab was associated with clinically significant prolongation of survival outcomes in mostly older patients with mismatch repair–deficient (dMMR) metastatic colorectal cancer....
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Marina C. Garassino, MD, and colleagues, 5-year follow-up in the phase III KEYNOTE-189 trial has shown maintained progression-free and overall survival benefits with the addition of pembrolizumab to pemetrexed and platinum chemotherapy in the...
Researchers have discovered that recent increases in Medicare spending on outpatient end-of-life cancer care may have been driven almost entirely by costs associated with immunotherapy, which is given to fewer than one in five patients, according to a new study published by Mantz et al in the...
Although immune checkpoint inhibitors have substantially improved clinical outcomes in many cancer types, they have also been found to induce immune-related adverse events, including myocarditis, in about 1% of patients receiving the agents, which can lead to a mortality rate of up to 50%. Current...
In the PRIMM study reported in JAMA Oncology, Bolte et al found that consumption of a Mediterranean diet was associated with a high probability of objective response and 12-month progression-free survival among patients receiving immune checkpoint blockade treatment for advanced melanoma. As stated ...
In a pooled analysis reported in JAMA Oncology, Mark A. Socinski, MD, and colleagues found that patients with nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) receiving atezolizumab who had grade 1 or 2 immune-related adverse events in clinical trials had improved overall survival vs those with no...
ASCO has endorsed a new guideline from the College of American Pathologists (CAP) on the use of mismatch repair (MMR) and microsatellite instability (MSI) testing, which could help oncologists more accurately identify patients who may be suitable candidates for immune checkpoint inhibitor ...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Rodriguez‑Otero et al, an interim analysis of the phase III KarMMa-3 trial showed superior progression-free survival with the B-cell maturation antigen–directed chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy idecabtagene vicleucel (ide-cel) vs...
Results of the interim analysis of KEYNOTE-859 are in, and they confirm the overall survival benefit of first-line immunotherapy plus chemotherapy in advanced gastric cancer. Pembrolizumab plus a fluoropyrimidine- and platinum-containing doublet provided a statistically significant improvement in...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Paolo Antonio Ascierto, MD, and colleagues, the phase I/IIa RELATIVITY-020 trial part D has shown evidence of activity of the combination of nivolumab and relatlimab in patients with advanced melanoma progressing on anti–PD-1/PD-L1 therapy. Study...
Adjuvant therapy with the immune checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab following surgery improved disease-free survival in patients with high-risk muscle-invasive urothelial carcinoma, according to new findings presented by Matthew D. Galsky, MD, FASCO, and colleagues at the 2023 ASCO Genitourinary...
Lung cancer remains the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, causing nearly 2 million deaths a year. Although treatment advances in late-stage non–small lung cancer (NSCLC) are extending survival in some patients, breakthroughs for early-stage...
In an analysis from the U.S. Lymphoma CAR T Consortium reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Wang et al found that standard-of-care treatment with brexucabtagene autoleucel in relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma since its approval in this setting has been associated with response...
The standard of care could be changing for adults with newly diagnosed BCR-ABL–negative B-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) who achieve measurable residual disease (MRD) negativity after induction chemotherapy. In the phase III E1910 trial by the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group, an...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Silvia Novello, MD, PhD, and colleagues, the 5-year update of the phase III KEYNOTE-407 trial showed continued overall survival and progression-free survival benefit with the addition of pembrolizumab to chemotherapy in the first-line treatment of...
A new ASCO guideline is available on the use of immunotherapy and biomarker testing for patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. The guideline provides recommendations related to PD-L1 and tumor mutational burden (TMB) testing, selection of therapy in the...
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) will award Carl H. June, MD, with the 2023 AACR Award for Lifetime Achievement in Cancer Research during the AACR Annual Meeting 2023, taking place from April 14 to 19 in Orlando, Florida. Dr. June is the Richard W. Vague Professor in...
On February 3, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved sacituzumab govitecan-hziy (Trodelvy) for patients with unresectable, locally advanced or metastatic, hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative (immunohistochemistry [IHC] 0, IHC 1+, or IHC 2+ with a negative in situ...
In a U.S. cohort study reported in JAMA Oncology, Voruganti et al found that the uptake of immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy for patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has been associated with “modest” improvements in overall survival, particularly among older patients. As...
In one of the first clinical trials combining immunotherapy and targeted therapy for patients with BRAF V600E–mutated colorectal cancer, researchers discovered that a combination regimen of dabrafenib, trametinib, and spartalizumab resulted in long-lasting responses. The study findings published by ...
On January 26, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for adjuvant treatment following resection and platinum-based chemotherapy in patients with stage IB (T2a, ≥ 4 cm), II, or IIIA non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). KEYNOTE-091 Efficacy was evaluated in...
Filippo Pietrantonio, MD, of Italy’s Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, discusses phase II results from the INFINITY trial of tremelimumab and durvalumab as neoadjuvant treatment of patients with microsatellite instability–high (MSI) resectable gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma (GAC/GEJAC). These results open the way to investigate nonoperative management in patients with clinical, pathologic, and molecular complete response after T300/D (300 mg of tremelimumab and 1,500 mg every 4 weeks of durvalumab) (Abstract 358).
In a study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Wang et al identified mutations linked to high tumor mutation burden in microsatellite-stable (MSS) gastrointestinal cancers that may be associated with efficacy of immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy. Study Details Molecular alterations in 48,606...
In a study reported in JACC: CardioOncology, Lavanya Kondapalli, MD, of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora, and colleagues found that cardiovascular events common in the general population were observed both prior to and after the initiation of immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy ...
In a single academic hospital network retrospective case-control study reported in JACC:CardioOncology, Charlotte Lee, MD, of Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, along with senior author Tomas Neilan, MD, MPH, of Massachusetts General Hospital and colleagues found that patients...
As reported in The Lancet Oncology by Paolo A. Ascierto, MD, of the Istituto Nazionale Tumori Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico Fondazione Pascale, Naples, and colleagues, the second interim overall survival analysis of the phase III IMspire150 trial has shown a numeric but...
Manik A. Amin, MD, of Dartmouth Cancer Center, discusses the future of immunotherapy in gastrointestinal cancers, the challenges of creating effective adoptive cell therapies, and the next generation of immune checkpoint inhibitors.
Richard S. Finn, MD, of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, discusses findings from the RATIONALE-301 study, which showed that patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treated with first-line tislelizumab had better health-related quality-of-life outcomes compared with those treated with sorafenib, particularly in terms of fatigue and physical functioning. These results, along with the effects on overall survival, response rate, and a favorable safety profile, support the benefit of tislelizumab as a potential first-line treatment option in this patient population (Abstract 495).
In a retrospective study of the real-world use of idecabtagene vicleucel reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Hansen et al found that response rates and toxicity in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma were comparable to those in the pivotal phase II KarMMa trial; the...
A combination of the next-generation immunotherapies botensilimab and balstilimab showed clinical activity in treating patients with refractory metastatic microsatellite-stable (MSS) colorectal cancer, according to new findings presented by El-Khoueiry et al at the 2023 ASCO Gastrointestinal...
On October 21, 2022, tremelimu-mab-actl was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in combination with durvalumab in the treatment of unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.1 Supporting Efficacy Data Approval was based on a comparison of overall survival in the...
In a single-center phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Ludford et al found that neoadjuvant pembrolizumab produced a high pathologic complete response rate and radiographic objective response rate in patients with localized microsatellite instability–high/mismatch...
The standard of care could be changing for adults with newly diagnosed BCR-ABL–negative B-lineage acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) who achieve measurable residual disease (MRD) negativity after induction chemotherapy. In the phase III E1910 trial by the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group, an...
Investigators discovered that PD-1 inhibition prior to surgery may be effective for patients with localized mismatch repair–deficient or microsatellite instability–high (dMMR/MSI-H) colorectal cancer, according to a study published by Xiao et al in JNCCN–Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer ...
The adoptive T-cell receptor therapy afamitresgene autoleucel—which targets the MAGE-A4 cancer antigen—achieved clinically significant results for patients with multiple solid tumor types in a phase I clinical trial, according to a novel study published by Hong et al in Nature Medicine. Initial...