GYNECOLOGIC CANCERS

"The approval of our HPV test for the cobas 6800 and 8800 Systems enables molecular laboratories to achieve the efficiency and scale they need to meet the demands of high-volume cervical screening programs..."

Treatment with olaparib demonstrated similar outcomes to standard-of-care chemotherapy treatment in patients with BRCA wild-type, platinum-sensitive, recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer in the phase II CLIO study. As such, olaparib failed to demonstrate a significant improvement in survival over chemotherapy.

Niraparib was granted Priority Review in China as a maintenance treatment of adult patients with advanced epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer who are in a complete or partial response to first-line platinum-based chemotherapy, by the National Medical Products Administration.

A 59-Year Old Woman With Stage IIIC Ovarian Cancer

In the phase III VELIA trial, the addition of veliparib to frontline induction chemotherapy expanded the number of complete responses and CA-125 responses in patients with high-grade serous ovarian cancer compared with chemotherapy alone, according to results from an exploratory analysis.

Relapse-free survival was prolonged in patients with stage III/IV ovarian cancer who received frontline maintenance treatment with Vigil immunotherapy compared with placebo. This was especially true for patients with BRCA1/2 wild-type disease, according to results from the phase II VITAL study.

Frontline niraparib in addition to bevacizumab as maintenance demonstrated impressive clinical activity in patients with advanced ovarian cancer who achieved either a complete or partial response to frontline platinum-based chemotherapy with bevacizumab, according to the phase II OVARIO trial.

Following its success in the phase III PRIMA study, frontline niraparib maintenance demonstrated positive patient-reported outcomes, as well as met biomarker-defined and other secondary endpoints, according to 3 analyses to be reported as part of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology 2020 Annual Meeting.

The FDA has granted Fast Track designation to balstilimab, an investigational anti-PD-1 agent for the treatment of patients with cervical cancer, based on comprehensive data that suggest balstilimab can fill an unmet medical need in the space, Agenus, Inc announced in a press release. In light of the new designation, the company now plans to submit 2 Biologic License Applications in 2020, for this indication and the other for the combination of balstilimab and zalifrelimab in metastatic cervical cancer.

The FDA has accepted and granted a priority review to a supplemental Biologics License Application for pembrolizumab for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients with unresectable or metastatic solid tumors with tissue tumor mutational burden-high who have progressed following prior treatment and who have no satisfactory alternative treatment options.

Carrie L. Langstraat, MD, discusses how para-aortic lymph node metastases impact survival outcomes in patients with endometrial cancers.

An association was found between a lower risk of grade 3 or higher chemotherapy toxicity with higher body mass indexes and normal albumin, a protein made in the liver, levels in older adult patients with solid tumors, according to an analysis of a prospective, multicenter study.

A sudden surge in the cases of COVID-19 due to pandemic, along with efforts to contain it, has led to multiple challenges that no country has experienced in the last several decades. The global pandemic from COVID-19 poses a unique set of challenges not only for patients with cancer who need their treatment, but also for caregivers, oncologists, and the overall care team.

Treatment with an investigational targeted anti-cancer gene-therapy agent, VB-111, in addition to paclitaxel met the pre-specified efficacy criterion of an absolute percentage advantage of 10% or higher CA-125 response rate in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, according to results from the planned interim analysis of the phase III OVAL trial.<br /> &nbsp;

Angeles Alvarez Secord, MD, discusses the key takeaways on the role of PARP inhibitors in ovarian cancer, based on data presented for 3 PARP inhibitors, olaparib, rucaparib, and niraparib.

Despite demonstrating improvement in overall survival as treatment of patients with advanced inoperable metastatic colorectal cancer, cetuximab plus chemotherapy led to significantly worse survival for patients with operable colorectal liver metastases in the perioperative setting, according to findings from randomized phase III clinical trial.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Kashyap Patel, MD, discussed the COVID-19 pandemic and the implementation of new precautions in his practice as the number of COVID-19 infected persons rises in the state.<br /> &nbsp;

Patients harboring IDH1/2 muta&shy;tions may receive benefit by the use of PARP inhibitors, with investigators initi&shy;ating clinical trials in patients across multiple different tumor types to determine the efficacy of this strategy.