Anita T. Shaffer

“Importantly, the separation among the curves seems to be observed over time and, indeed, survival at 2 years improves from 14% [of participants] in the control arm to 22% on the experimental arm. The magnitude of the benefit is very similar and very consistent across all the prespecified subgroups of patients analyzed, including those treated with cisplatin or those patients with liver or brain metastases.”

A technique involving BH3 profiling is emerging as a promising drug discovery tool for assessing whether a tumor is primed for cell death and would respond to anticancer therapy, according to a presentation at the 2019 Association for Molecular Pathology Annual Meeting and Expo.

The emergence of resistance mutations in patients with cancer who receive targeted therapies is an expected development that will require new diagnostic methods of identifying the mechanisms through which these alterations occur, according to Fei Dong, MD, during the 2019 Association for Molecular Pathology Annual Meeting.<br /> &nbsp;

The identification of&nbsp;<em>MET&nbsp;</em>exon 14 skipping mutations in patients with non&ndash;small cell lung cancer presents a complex diagnostic challenge that requires both DNA and RNA analysis, according to results of a University of Michigan pathology study.

A technique involving BH3 profiling is emerging as a promising drug discovery tool for assessing whether a tumor is primed for cell death and would respond to anticancer therapy, according to a presentation at the 2019 Association for Molecular Pathology Annual Meeting.

Findings from 2 studies of patients&nbsp;with operable early-stage non&ndash;small cell lung cancer showed preoperative immunotherapy had positive activity and favorable toxicity, according to a presentation at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting, and phase III clinical trials are already testing these stratgies.&nbsp;

Findings from ongoing immunotherapy studies are expected to change the treatment paradigm in breast cancer as these agents become available to larger subsets of patients, according to Hope S. Rugo, MD, and Elizabeth A. Mittendorf, MD, PhD, who presented data at the 36th Annual Miami Breast Cancer Conference&reg;&nbsp;hosted by Physicians&rsquo; Education Resource&reg;, LLC.

The need for new therapies to treat&nbsp;metastatic triple-negative breast cancer is pressing, and the development of&nbsp;antibody-drug conjugates represents a promising new strategy for these patients,&nbsp;according to Aditya Bardia, MD, MPH.

At the&nbsp;<em>36th Annual&nbsp;</em>Miami Breast Cancer Conference^&reg;, a panel of experts discussed the use of 2 FDA-approved PARP inhibitors for patients with HER2-negative advanced or metastatic breast cancer whose tumors are positive for germline&nbsp;<em>BRCA1/2&nbsp;</em>mutations.

An independent assessment conducted as part of the pivotal, international phase III REFLECT trial confirmed positive responses demonstrated by&nbsp;lenvatinib (Lenvima)&nbsp;as a first-line therapy for patients with HCC.

Patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma who were treated with second-line regorafenib (Stivarga)&nbsp;experienced a prolonged overall survival benefit, according to a 2-year updated analysis of key findings from the pivotal RESORCE trial.

Novel immunotherapy combinations are currently under investigation for the treatment of patients with&nbsp;hepatocellular carcinoma, with several promising phase III trials incorporating checkpoint inhibitors now underway. Finding successful ways to combine these therapies is among the most significant trends emerging&nbsp;as part of the next wave of discovery in the field, according to experts.

Second-line therapy with cabozantinib demonstrated efficacy in treating patients with&nbsp;hepatocellular carcinoma who also had a history of hepatitis B virus infection, according to findings from a subgroup analysis of the phase III CELESTIAL trial.&nbsp;

Strong efficacy signals and a tolerable safety profile were observed with the combination of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) and bevacizumab (Avastin) in the first-line treatment of patients with&nbsp;unresectable or metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma, according to preliminary findings presented at the 2018 International Liver Cancer Association Annual Conference.

According to a presentation during the 2018 International Liver Cancer Association Annual Conference, the rapid development of novel therapies for patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma has dramatically expanded systemic treatment options over the last 2 years. This has created a need for new sequencing strategies in HCC.&nbsp;

According to phase III findings presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, a 4-drug chemotherapy combination, modified FOLFIRINOX, dramatically improved survival compared to standard gemcitabine in the postoperative setting for patients with resected pancreatic cancer. This major advance may set a new standard of care in a challenging disease.

Duke researchers discussed findings from 2 studies at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, which revealed chemotherapy and hormone-targeting treatment may be more beneficial to black men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer compared with their white counterparts.

Combining the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) with the novel IDO inhibitor&nbsp;BMS-986205 generated promising response rates&nbsp;in patients with advanced cervical or bladder cancers and similar adverse effects to what is seen with anti&ndash;PD-1 monotherapy, according to findings of an early-phase clinical trial presented by Jason J. Luke, MD, during the&nbsp;SITC 32nd Annual Meeting.

Mutations in FLT3 have long been recognized in a portion of patients with acute myeloid leukemia. Yet it took more than 15 years until an agent targeting FLT3 mutations came to fruition with the FDA approval of midostaurin in April 2017, marking about 40 years since the last new agent was approved to treat patients with AML.

According to early results from the phase III APHINITY trial, the addition of pertuzumab (Perjeta) to standard postoperative trastuzumab (Herceptin) therapy for patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer slightly improved the rate of recurrence overall but had a greater benefit for individuals with higher-risk disease.

Reducing oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy by half could benefit patients with low-risk advanced colon cancer receiving chemotherapy after surgery. The 50% decrease would not notably increase their recurrence risk and would decrease the chances of developing neuropathy,&nbsp;according to findings presented at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Earlier intervention with abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) lowered the risk of death by nearly 40% for men with high-risk advanced or metastatic prostate cancer who were newly diagnosed or had not yet received hormone therapy in findings from 2 clinical trials presented at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting.

The combination of trastuzumab (Herceptin) and lapatinib (Tykerb) resulted in a 30% objective response rate (ORR) in heavily pretreated patients with HER2-positive metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC), suggesting a new targeted therapy strategy for later lines of treatment that supports testing for the aberration.

Aromatase inhibitor (AI) therapy may pose a risk of cardiovascular disease to postmenopausal women with early-stage breast cancer, raising the possibility of a long-term complication in an era of growing survivorship when patients are treated with estrogen-targeting drugs for years.

An attempt to strengthen neoadjuvant treatment of patients with locally advanced HR-positive and HER2-positive breast cancer by adding estrogen deprivation therapy to a standard regimen failed to significantly improve response rates.

In a study that sheds light on acquired resistance mechanisms to anticancer therapies, the genomic landscape of recurrent metastatic estrogen receptor (ER)&ndash;positive breast cancer differed significantly from the mutational profile of primary disease.

Treatment with pembrolizumab improved overall survival by 2.9 months compared with chemotherapy for patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma whose disease progressed after prior treatment.

Early evidence suggests that the combination of locoregional therapy with an immune checkpoint inhibitor is a safe and effective strategy to pursue for patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), according to a leading liver immunology expert.

Although there are no drugs yet that target TP53 mutations in any tumor type, a recent analysis of a non&ndash;small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) sample set raises the prospect that a more detailed understanding of this aberration could eventually help direct therapy.

Two competing methods of delivering locoregional therapy to patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) both have advantages and may be most successful in subgroups of individuals with intermediate-stage disease, according to experts who debated the relative merits of the techniques at the 2016 International Liver Cancer Association (ILCA) conference.