John N. Lukens, MD, on Advanced Melanoma: Antibiotics, Survival, and Colitis in Patients Receiving Immunotherapy
2020 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium
John N. Lukens, MD, of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, discusses his finding that taking antibiotics within 3 months of starting treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors may lead to inferior overall survival in patients with stage III or IV melanoma. The antibiotics were also linked to a higher incidence of severe immune-mediated colitis (Abstract 56).
Jacob J. Adashek, DO, of the University of South Florida and Moffitt Cancer Center, discusses data on combining immunoregulatory inhibition and targeted gene therapy, which may offer patients better outcomes (Abstract 10).
Elizabeth A. Mittendorf, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, summarizes a session she co-chaired on utilizing the immune system in neoadjuvant trials to treat melanoma, breast, and lung cancers.
Jarrett Failing, MD, of the Mayo Clinic, discusses his study data, which show some agreement between the expression of human leukocyte antigens in primary non–small cell lung cancer with brain metastasis. His findings may have some bearing on resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors (Abstract 43).
Kevin Tyan, of Kinnos, and currently a medical school student at Harvard University, discusses his study findings, which showed that patients with melanoma who are treated with immunotherapy had a significantly lower risk of developing colitis if they also took vitamin D ( Abstract 89).
Philippa G. Corrie, PhD, of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, discusses a review of 2,322 patients with metastatic melanoma receiving first-line immune checkpoint inhibitors as standard of care in England between 2014 and 2018 (Abstract 55).
