Caroline Seymour

Findings from the pivotal phase 3 PACIFIC and ADAURA trials have not only led to paradigm shifts and served as the basis for ongoing research for patients with unresectable and resectable non–small cell lung cancer, respectively, but have emphasized the importance of distinguishing treatment options based on the presence or absence of an oncogenic driver.

Conflicting results from the phase 3 monarchE, PENELOPE-B, and PALLAS trials have thrown the role of adjuvant CDK4/6 inhibition into question in patients with high-risk, early-stage hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer.

Ribociclib plus endocrine therapy improved overall survival and post-progression outcomes in pre- or postmenopausal patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer irrespective of age.

Daratumumab plus lenalidomide and dexamethasone, or plus bortezomib and dexamethasone each led to higher rates of minimal residual disease negativity compared with lenalidomide plus dexamethasone or bortezomib plus dexamethasone alone in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma who were enrolled in the phase 3 POLLUX and CASTOR trials, translating to prolonged, durable remissions.

Arsen Osipov, MD, discusses the potential for ongoing research with immunotherapeutic approaches in gastrointestinal malignancies, including CAR T-cell therapy, bispecific T-cell engagers, and vaccines.

Marianne Davies, NP, DNP, MSN, BSN, discussed the potential severity of immune-related adverse effects and detailed recommended management strategies for patients receiving checkpoint inhibitors, especially in lung cancer.

Thermal ablation was shown to be a safe and effective treatment for patients with localized gynecologic tumors in the lungs, abdomen, and pelvis, according to findings from a retrospective analysis published in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology.

In a 5 to 4 vote, the FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee voted to oppose maintaining the accelerated approval of nivolumab monotherapy for patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma who received prior treatment with sorafenib.

In an 8 to 0 vote, the FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee voted to support the accelerated approval of pembrolizumab monotherapy for patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma who received prior treatment with sorafenib.

In a 6 to 2 vote, the FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee voted against maintaining the accelerated approval of pembrolizumab for the treatment of patients with PD-L1–positive recurrent or advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma who have received 2 or more lines of therapy.

In a 10 to 1 vote, the FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee voted to support the accelerated approval of atezolizumab for the frontline treatment of patients with cisplatin-ineligible locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma.

In a 5 to 3 vote, the FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee voted to uphold the accelerated approval of pembrolizumab for the frontline treatment of patients with cisplatin-ineligible and carboplatin-ineligible locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma.

Triaging individuals with the highest likelihood of cancer detection with their clinical indication and individual risk factors during periods of reduced capacity could be an efficient way of identifying the most cancers with the least examinations compared with a non–risk-based approach.

The FDA's Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee voted 7 to 2 in support of maintaining the indication of atezolizumab in combination with nab-paclitaxel as a treatment for adult patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer whose tumors are PD-L1 positive.

The CheckMate 274 trial may have captured attention during the 2021 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, but immunotherapy is not the only promising approach under study in urothelial carcinoma.

Jacob Sands, MD, discussed current approaches to the treatment of patients with early-stage and locally advanced non–small cell lung cancer.

Tazemetostat as a single agent or in combination with zanubrutinib demonstrated antitumor activity in mantle cell lymphoma cell lines with intrinsic resistance to BTK inhibitors, suggesting that the agent could be a promising therapeutic option for patients with primary relapsed/refractory disease.

The combination of atezolizumab, carboplatin, and etoposide, as well as durvalumab, etoposide, and platinum chemotherapy, each have shown survival improvements vs chemotherapy alone as frontline therapy in patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer.

Selpercatinib demonstrated a favorable safety profile, characterized by low-grade treatment-emergent adverse effects, manageable early onset toxicity, and low rates of treatment discontinuation, in patients with RET-altered advanced solid tumors.

The presence of pathogenic or likely pathogenic germline variants in cancer predisposition genes, which were identified in approximately 1 in 5 patients with neuroblastoma and were mostly inherited, was shown to correlate with worse event-free survival and overall survival vs the absence of germline variants.

Sequential chemotherapy and immunotherapy became the preferred standard of care in patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma, based on findings from the phase 3 JAVELIN Bladder 100 trial.

Hye Sook Chon, MD, teases out some of the differences between the data with PARP inhibitors in the frontline maintenance setting and shed light on ongoing research with combinations that could broaden their utility in patients with advanced ovarian cancer.

Robert Dreicer, MD, discusses the optimal use of checkpoint inhibitors in urothelial carcinoma.

Conflicting results regarding the benefit of adjuvant CDK4/6 inhibition in early-stage hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer have prompted many questions regarding patient selection and treatment duration, which many hope will be answered with ongoing biomarker research.

Axel Grothey, MD, discusses the potential applications for ctDNA in CRC and shed light on the updated analysis from the pivotal IMbrave150 trial in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma.

Somatic KMT2A rearrangements, RAS/MAPK mutations, RUNX1 and TP53 alterations, and MECOM overexpression were all found to be common oncogenic drivers of pediatric therapy-related myeloid neoplasms, arising predominantly after exposure to cytotoxic therapy and identifiable at least 1 year prior to morphologic evidence of neoplasm.

Data from the phase 3 CheckMate-9ER trial has not only confirmed the advantage of cabozantinib plus nivolumab in terms of progression-free survival, overall survival, and responses vs sunitinib in the frontline treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma, but it has served as additional incentive to push the needle even further with research aimed at evaluating triplet regimens in the frontline setting and response-guided sequencing strategies.

Combinations of checkpoint inhibitors and VEGF TKIs, as well as dual checkpoint blockade, are affording patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma greater potential for disease control and deep, long-lasting responses, underscoring the need for biomarkers of response to combination regimens and single-agent TKIs, the latter of which still play a role for select populations.

The frontline combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab plus 2 cycles of chemotherapy demonstrated an improvement in overall survival vs chemotherapy alone in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer regardless of tumor mutational burden status in the tissue or blood.

Dostarlimab demonstrated durable antitumor activity in patients with mismatch repair deficient and MMR proficient endometrial cancer, regardless of investigator assessment or blinded independent central review and immune-related RECIST or RECIST v1.1 criteria.