Mark J. Levis, MD, PhD, on Acute Myeloid Leukemia: Gilteritinib in FLT3-Mutated Disease
2019 ASCO Annual Meeting
Mark J. Levis, MD, PhD, of The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University, discusses the effect of gilteritinib on survival in patients with FLT3-mutated relapsed/refractory AML who have common co-mutations or a high FLT3-ITD allelic ratio, and the importance of FLT3-ITD testing at diagnosis and again at relapse (Abstract 7000).
Josep Tabernero, MD, PhD, of the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, discusses phase III findings of the KEYNOTE-062 study showing that, for some patients with advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancer, pembrolizumab may improve survival and may be an effective alternative to chemotherapy, with fewer side effects (Abstract LBA4007).
Yoland C. Antill, MD, of Cabrini Health, discusses phase II data on the effect of durvalumab, a PD-L1 inhibitor, as a single agent in the setting of recurrent or advanced endometrial cancer. Her research compares the response in mismatch repair–deficient and –proficient tumors (Abstract 5501).
Hope S. Rugo, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, and Peter Schmid, MD, PhD, of Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, discuss ongoing trials of immunotherapy for early triple-negative breast cancer; immunotherapy in other disease subtypes such as estrogen receptor–positive and HER2-positive; and checkpoint inhibition in PD-L1–negative disease.
Hani M. Babiker, MD, of the The University of Arizona, discusses an emerging treatment that inhibits the mitotic spindle and disrupts tumor cell growth. The method has been approved by the FDA to treat some cancers and data show improved progression-free and overall survival (Abstracts 2055, 8551, e14658, e14668, e15653, e20069, e15766).
Joseph A. Sparano, MD, of the Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein Cancer Center, discusses how clinical risk stratification provides additional prognostic information to the 21-gene recurrence score and may be used to identify premenopausal women for more effective antiestrogen therapy (Abstract 503).