The FDA now requires use of an approved companion diagnostic test to determine PD-L1 levels in the tumor tissue of cisplatin-ineligible patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer prescribed treatment with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) or atezolizumab (Tecentriq).
<div>The combination of the MEK inhibitor refametinib and sorafenib improved overall survival and overall response rate compared with refametinib alone in patients with <em>RAS</em>-mutated hepatocellular carcinoma, according to an analysis of a pair of phase II proof-of-concept studies.</div>
In an interview with <em>Targeted Oncology</em> prior to the FDA approval of nivolumab in SCLC, Paul A. Bunn Jr, MD, discusses the potential agents for the treatment of SCLC, the challenges in treating this patient population, and the ongoing search for biomarkers to guide treatment decisions.
New guidelines issued by the US Preventive Services Task Force recommend that women aged 30 to 65 years who are at average risk for cervical cancer can choose to receive a Pap smear alone every 3 years or screening with the high-risk human papillomavirus test alone or cotesting every 5 years.
The presence of biomarkers including SDF-1, VEGF-A, and sVEGFR1 and 2 at baseline were associated with poorer progression-free survival and overall survival in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma treated with sunitinib prior to nephrectomy.
Mutations of <em>TP53</em> and <em>WHSC1 </em>predicted poorer overall survival in patients with mantle cell lymphoma, according to results from next-generation whole-exome sequencing of 16 Chinese patients. The presence of these mutations may provide physicians with an important biomarker in this patient population.
No one doubts that molecular testing has rapidly improved care for patients with colorectal cancer, Stanley R. Hamilton, MD, told his audience at the 2nd Annual International Congress on Oncology Pathology.
Targeting EZH2, the catalytic subunit of the multiprotein PRC2, may represent an attractive therapeutic objective in malignant lymphoma, Vincent Ribrag, MD, told his audience at the American Association for Cancer Research’s inaugural Advances in Malignant Lymphoma meeting.
Treatment with chimeric antigen receptor B-cell maturation antigen T cells induced substantial antitumor activity in patients with heavily treated relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma, according to results from a first-in-human clinical trial.
The European Union has approved PF-05280014 (Trazimera), a biosimilar for trastuzumab (Herceptin), to treat patients with HER2 overexpressing metastatic or early breast cancer and HER2 overexpressing metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma.
Magtrace and Sentimag Magnetic Localization System, which uses magnetic detection to identify sentinel lymph nodes for surgical removal in women undergoing mastectomy for breast cancer, has gained approval from the FDA.
Filgrastim-aafi, a filgrastim biosimilar, has been approved by the FDA to treat side effects associated with cancer treatment, including febrile neutropenia and severe neutropenia, according to an announcement from Pfizer, the manufacturer of the biosimilar.
Anthony R. Mato, MD, MSCE, discusses the next steps for umbralisib and the biggest challenges still facing patients with CLL.
The combination of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and rituximab (Rituxan) produced durable remissions in patients with relapsed/refractory mantle cell lymphoma, according to 4-year follow-up results from a single-arm phase II clinical trial.
Patients aged ≥62 years with melanoma were more likely to respond to treatment with pembrolizumab than younger patients, according to results published in <em>Clinical Cancer Research. </em>Investigators at The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia concluded that the risk for progression following anti–PD-1 therapy declined by 13% with each decade of life.
Sunitinib alone was noninferior for median overall survival compared with sunitinib plus cytoreductive nephrectomy in patients with synchronous metastatic renal cell carcinoma, according to findings from the phase III noninferiority CARMENA trial.
An updated analysis of obinutuzumab alone or in combination with chemotherapy for patients with treatment-naïve or relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia detected no new safety signals. Investigators in the phase IIIb GREEN trial also found overall response rates greater than 80% at 3 months post-treatment in some patients.
An overall response rate of 39% was induced with the combination of the CDK4/6 inhibitor palbociclib and cetuximab in patients with platinum-resistant, HPV-unrelated recurrent/metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.
Immune checkpoint inhibitors, alone or in combination, are associated with increased incidence of some cardiovascular toxicities in patients with cancer, according to results from a cross-trial pooled analysis presented in a poster at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.
Regorafenib (Stivarga) improved overall survival and progression-free survival compared with lomustine (Gleostine) for patients with glioblastoma that recurred following surgery and treatment with the Stupp regimen, according to updated results presented in a poster at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.
The anticancer immunotherapy vaccine SL-701, when used with immunostimulants, induced antitumor activity in patients with relapsed/refractory glioblastoma both alone and in combination with bevacizumab, according to updated phase II results from the 2-stage STML-701-0114 trial presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.
Things are looking up in the world of adjuvant therapy for patients with gastrointestinal cancers, according to Diane Reidy-Lagunes, MD. During her presentation, Reidy-Lagunes outlined the current state-of-the-art in GI cancer care, with findings from pivotal studies in gastric, pancreatic, biliary, and colorectal cancers.
The 16-gene Leukemic-MCL16 (L-MCL16) Assay reliably distinguished between classic and indolent mantle cell lymphoma subtypes in patients with leukemic presentation, according to results published in <em>Blood</em>. Combined with genomic complexity, the assay was prognostic for overall survival.
Multiple pivotal studies have led to CDK4/6 inhibitors such as ribociclib, abemaciclib, and palbociclib becoming the standard of care for women with metastatic ER-positive/HER2-negative breast cancer. Speaking at the 11th European Breast Cancer Conference in Barcelona, Spain, Nicholas C. Turner, MD, PhD, a consultant medical oncologist with The Royal Marsden Hospital NHS Trust, explained how tumors resist treatment with CDK4/6 inhibitors and how that resistance can be overcome.
Promising antitumor activity was seen in patients with heavily pretreated HER2-positive breast cancer with or without brain metastases with the use of tucatinib in combination with capecitabine, trastuzumab, or both agents, according to phase Ib findings published in <em>The Lancet Oncology</em>.
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) induced a median overall survival (OS) of 32.7 months versus 15.9 months for ipilimumab (Yervoy) in patients with unresectable stage III-IV melanoma, according to 4-year survival results from the KEYNOTE-006 trial presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.
The combination of the VEGFR/FGFR inhibitor lenvatinib and the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab induced a confirmed overall response rate of 26.9% (95% CI, 11.6%-47.8%) in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma, according to results from a 2-part, phase Ib trial.
The indication for the Orbis Paxman Hair Loss Cooling System has been expanded by the FDA to include the prevention of chemotherapy-related alopecia in patients with solid tumors, according to Paxman, the maker of the device. The system was previously approved to treat chemotherapy-related alopecia in patients with breast cancer.
According to updated findings from the phase III ASPECT trial presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, a combination of 2 over-the-counter drugs can reduce the risk for high-grade dysplasia or esophageal cancer in patients with Barrett’s esophagus if taken for at least 7 years. These results also demonstrated that high-dose esomeprazole in combination with a low-dose aspirin was associated with delaying all-cause mortality.
According to findings from the phase III CARMENA trial presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, sunitinib monotherapy demonstrated noninferiority compared with cytoreductive nephrectomy in combination with sunitinib in patients with synchronous metastatic renal cell carcinoma.