Anita T. Shaffer

In 2011, the development of ipilimumab, a novel antibody targeting the CTLA-4 immune checkpoint, helped launch the modern era of anticancer immunotherapy.

Although molecularly targeted therapies have transformed the treatment paradigm for NSCLC, the kaleidoscope of genomic alterations that affects subsets of patients is straining the limits of current diagnostic and clinical discovery approaches.

Despite a high-profile clinical disappointment, the TIGIT immune checkpoint remains an important target for anticancer therapy, with research programs testing novel agents moving forward in non–small cell lung cancer and a range of other tumor types.

Research groups in the United States and Europe are seeking to build the knowledge base about invasive lobular carcinoma in hopes that therapy can be tailored for patients with this diagnosis.

Efforts to target the folate metabolism network have entered a new stage, with the approval of a novel therapy directed at folate receptor–α and the potential for additional agents aimed at that target in solid tumors.

The PI3K cell-signaling network has been an important therapeutic target in oncology research for nearly 40 years ago, but the use of PI3K inhibitors in hematologic malignancies has come under scrutiny amid concerns about efficacy and safety.

The treatment of patients with breast cancer is making noteworthy strides in several clinical settings, with recent trial results showing overall survival improvements for advanced and metastatic disease.

At the start of his career, Weijing Sun, MD, FACP, was motivated to explore potential new treatments for gastrointestinal malignancies, and is now an internationally known GI cancer expert.

Twelve years after key research into immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy first made a splash at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, evidence continues to mount that supports the durability of these agents in a range of cancers.

New systemic regimens are being integrated into the treatment paradigm for resectable non–small cell lung cancer in the neoadjuvant and adjuvant settings, expanding options for patients with earlier-stage disease who face a challenging prognosis.

Encouraging response rates to a dual-targeted regimen in patients with recurrent or refractory malignant brain tumors with BRAF V600E mutations were reported in 2021, representing a new potential targeted therapy strategy against glioblastoma.

the development of PD-1/PD-L1 immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy underwent a course correction in 2021, with the withdrawal of a range of indications due to study results that failed to reach thresholds for confirming clinical benefit.

Although there has been dramatic progress in the treatment landscape for metastatic melanoma over the past decade, many patients whose tumors harbor NRAS mutations have not shared in the improved outcomes.

The tide is starting to turn toward more effective frontline systemic therapies for patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma as a result of the introduction of a novel immune-oncology combination.

Patritumab deruxtecan, a novel antibody-drug conjugate, is emerging as a promising HER3-directed therapy in patients with non–small cell lung cancer and perhaps other solid malignancies.

Circulating tumor DNA, tumor mutational burden, and homologous recombination deficiency are 3 emerging biomarkers for tailoring therapy need further clinical and technical clarity to support robust use in daily practice.

After nearly two decades of successfully developing therapies directed at molecular aberrations in non–small cell lung cancer, investigators are exploring a new generation of novel targets, including some not specifically associated with driver mutations.

The combination of navitoclax and ruxolitinib simultaneously inhibits 2 key mechanisms that promote myelofibrosis, resulting in an improvement in symptom control and positive changes in response biomarkers in patients with high-risk disease.

Six indications for immune checkpoint inhibitors granted under the FDA’s accelerated approval process that later failed confirmatory clinical trials are being reassessed as the agency continues an industry-wide evaluation of the pathway.

Margetuximab represents an effective new therapeutic option that can be combined safely with a chemotherapy drug of choice for patients with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer who have undergone multiple lines of prior treatment.

Sagar Lonial, MD, discussed key facets of belantamab mafodotin and potential next steps.

ALLO-715, an off-the-shelf chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy that targets B-cell maturation antigen, elicited responses in heavily pretreated patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma in early findings from a first-in-human study presented at the 2020 ASH Meeting.

An explosion of therapeutic options for chronic lymphocytic leukemia has resulted in challenging questions about sequencing therapies for patients who progress after frontline treatment with little data to guide optimal therapy selection.

The treatment landscape for multiple myeloma is poised to enter a new era of innovation with the development of therapies that target B-cell maturation antigen, which is highly expressed on plasma and MM cells.

Molecularly targeted therapies showed practice-changing results for patients with biomarker-driven lung, colorectal, and ovarian cancers in phase 3 randomized clinical trial findings.

The addition of durvalumab to standard chemotherapy continued to demonstrate an improvement in overall survival for patients with treatment-naïve extensive-stage small cell lung cancer.

The release of new evidence that CDK4/6 inhibition results in survival gains for patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer marks a new milestone for the therapeutic approach and may help set the stage for expanding use of these agents into earlier clinical settings.

Now, investigators are combining BRAF inhibitors with other targeted therapies in an effort to establish a new chemotherapy-free standard in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

Neoadjuvant immunotherapy demonstrated substantial activity with a favorable toxicity profile in findings from 2 studies of patients with operable early-stage non–small cell lung cancer reported at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting.

The development of antibody-drug conjugates represents a promising strategy for patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, with early clinical trial results suggesting that novel agents could eventually change the landscape for this patient population.