Ajay K. Nooka, MBBS, of Winship Cancer Center of Emory University, discusses phase II findings showing that, in patients with high-risk myeloma, maintenance therapy with carfilzomib, pomalidomide, and dexamethasone deepened responses. Measurable residual disease negativity was attained in 80% of patients.
Bobbie J. Rimel, MD, of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, and Isabelle L. Ray-Coquard, MD, PhD, of Centre Léon Bérard and the University Claude Bernard Lyon Est, discuss findings from the COLIBRI trial, which showed that, for patients with cervical squamous cell carcinoma, neoadjuvant nivolumab plus ipilimumab is safe and orchestrates de novo immune responses. The 82.5% complete response rate for primary tumors 6 months after standard chemoradiation therapy suggests favorable clinical outcomes (Abstract 5501).
Shailender Bhatia, MD, of the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, discusses phase I/II results on the efficacy of nivolumab with or without ipilimumab in patients with recurrent or metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma. The study found that, for this rare and aggressive skin cancer, nivolumab showed clinical activity in advanced disease. However, these results from CheckMate 358 do not suggest an additional benefit with ipilimumab added to nivolumab (Abstract 9506).
Narjust Florez, MD, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Heather A. Wakelee, MD, of Stanford University, Stanford Cancer Institute, discuss new data supporting neoadjuvant pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy followed by surgery and adjuvant pembrolizumab as a promising new treatment option for patients with resectable stage II, IIIA, or IIIB (N2) non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (Abstract LBA100).
Nirav N. Shah, MD, of the Medical College of Wisconsin, discusses phase II results showing that split-dose R-CHOP offers older patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) an equivalent dose intensity as R-CHOP-21 through a fractionated dosing schedule, improving tolerability. At the end of treatment for these older patients, a complete response rate of 71% was comparable to outcomes with R-CHOP in younger patients with the disease (Abstract 7554).
Rana R. McKay, MD, of the University of California, San Diego, and Brian I. Rini, MD, of Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, discuss the 5-year follow-up results with the combination of a checkpoint inhibitor plus a VEGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor as first-line treatment for patients with advanced clear cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Pembrolizumab plus axitinib continued to demonstrate improved survival outcomes as well as overall response rate vs sunitinib for patients with previously untreated disease (Abstract LBA4501).
