Linda R. Mileshkin, MBBS, MD, of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, discusses phase III findings from the OUTBACK trial, which showed that adjuvant chemotherapy given after standard cisplatin-based chemoradiation for women with locally advanced cervical cancer did not improve either overall or progression-free survival (Abstract LBA3).
Toni K. Choueiri, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses phase III results from KEYNOTE-564, which evaluated the safety and efficacy of pembrolizumab in the adjuvant treatment of patients with renal cell carcinoma who have undergone nephrectomy for intermediate-high or high-risk disease or no evidence of disease (Abstract LBA5).
Martin Reck, MD, PhD, of LungenClinic, discusses a 2-year update of the CheckMate 9LA study, which sought to determine whether nivolumab plus ipilimumab combined with two cycles of chemotherapy is more effective than four cycles of chemotherapy alone as a first-line treatment for patients with stage IV non–small cell lung cancer (Abstract 9000).
Ian Chau, MD, of Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, discusses first results of the CheckMate 648 study, which showed that nivolumab plus chemotherapy and nivolumab plus ipilimumab both demonstrated superior overall survival vs chemotherapy alone in patients with advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. These regimens may represent potential new first-line treatment options (Abstract 4001).
Brian K. Link, MD, of the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, reviews three abstracts on state-of-the-art therapies for mantle cell lymphoma: bendamustine, rituximab, lenalidomide and bortezomib; treatment patterns and outcomes for previously untreated patients; and venetoclax, lenalidomide, and rituximab in newly diagnosed disease (Abstracts 7503, 7504, and 7505).
Nicholas J. Short, MD, of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses early results from a phase II study which showed that combining ponatinib and blinatumomab in patients with Philadelphia chromosome–positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia may prove to be an effective chemotherapy-free regimen that might reduce the need for allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (Abstract 7001).
