Tony Berberabe, MPH

A community can be defined by any number of characteristics. In Lonial’s case, he has built a community of physicians who’ve come together to treat patients with multiple myeloma.

December 8, 2020 — Pevonedistat in combination with azacitidine improved overall survival and prolonged event-free survival compared with azacitidine monotherapy in patients with higher-risk myelodysplastic syndrome.

December 6, 2020 — The antibody-drug conjugate belantamab mafodotin continued to showcase efficacy and tolerability in heavily pretreated patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma, inducing durable responses even in those who had previously received 7 or more lines of therapy.

December 5, 2020 - The enriched chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy bb21217 improved responses and also prolonged duration of response compared with non-enriched CAR T cells in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.

A 14-mg dose of lenvatinib showed similar safety to the standard 18-mg dose of the agent, when used in combination with everolimus in the second-line treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma, but noninferiority could not be confirmed.

Data from a subgroup analysis of the phase 2 GRIFFIN study demonstrated that adding daratumumab to lenalidomide, bortezomib, and dexamethasone improved depth of response, stringent complete response, and minimal residual disease negativity, in Black patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma.

The combination of osimertinib and bevacizumab did not prolong progression-free survival in patients with advanced adenocarcinoma who had EGFR T790M mutations compared with osimertinib alone

Early findings from a phase II efficacy and safety study may be the first step in developing a definitive rationale for sequencing targeted therapies and immunotherapies in patients with metastatic melanoma.

Improvements in disease-free survival and progression-free survival were observed in patients with progressive pancreatic or midgut neuroendocrine tumors whose frequency of dosing for lanreotide Autogel was increased from 120 mg every 28 days to every 14 days.

The use of cabazitaxel over abiraterone acetate or enzalutamide may continue as a standard of care in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who were previously treated with docetaxel and either of those 2 androgen receptor-targeted agents.

The combination of encorafenib and binimetinib demonstrated continuing benefit in overall survival and progression-free survival for patients with BRAF V600–mutant melanoma.

The chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, JNJ-4528, continued to demonstrate deep and durable responses in heavily pretreated patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma, according to updated findings from the phase 1b/2 CARTITUDE-1 (NCT03548207) trial.

The use of real-time comprehensive profiling provides valuable diagnostic information and identifies potential therapeutic targets in adults with malignancies, but this process remains widely underutilized for pediatric patients and represents a significant unmet need.

A manageable safety profile was observed for the combination of atezolizumab and the anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, axicabtagene ciloleucel, in patients with refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

Results from the GEOMETRY mono-1 study demonstrated antitumor efficacy of and deep and durable responses with capmatinib in 97 patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer who harbor MET exon 14 mutations.

Updated venous thromboembolism (VTE) guidelines issued by the American Society of Clinical Oncology now include the use of direct oral anticoagulants for patients with cancer as a preventive measure against VTE recurrence.

Michael J. Keating, MBBS, has devoted much of his career to finding means of controlling chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

A new set of recommendations for the treatment of small bowel adenocarcinoma, a relatively rare type cancer of the gastrointestinal tract, have been created by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. The guidelines are the first in the United States and second in the world to recommend treatments specific to the malignancy, which is often diagnosed at advanced stages.

Patients with neuroendocrine tumors that have metastasized to the liver derive clinical benefit from locoregional therapies, but treatment guidelines for employing these strategies must be more fully developed.

Shaji Kumar, MD, discusses the addition of the BCL-2 inhibitor venetoclax to the combination of bortezomib and dexamethasone significantly improved progression-free survival, overall response rate, very good partial response, and minimal residual disease negativity rates in the phase III BELLINI trial in relapsed/refractory patients with multiple myeloma.

Adding the CD38-directed monoclonal antibody isatuximab in combination with pomalidomide and dexamethasone improved progression-free survival in both standard-risk patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma and those with high-risk cytogenetics.

Pieter Sonneveld, MD, PhD, discusses the significance of the subgroup analysis of the phase III CASSIOPEIA trial evaluating the regimen of daratumumab, bortezomib, thalidomide, and dexamethasone in patients with high-risk multiple myeloma.

A greater focus on studying mechanisms for therapies that penetrate the blood–tumor barrier and the expansion of clinical trial eligibility criteria are opening the door for advancements that may help patients with metastatic breast cancer that has spread to the brain, according to Carey K. Anders, MD.

Radiopharmaceuticals have been integrated into the treatment paradigm for patients with neuroendocrine tumors, yet there are nuances in the clinical scenarios in which they are most effective.

The identification of appropriate biomarkers for evaluating responses to therapy would be beneficial across all stages of ovarian cancer, from early to advanced.

From 2016 to 2018, there was an 8% increase in the number of community oncology practices consolidated into hospital systems, and this trend has many independent practices struggling to avoid the same fate. Two winning strategies are emerging to help practices remain independent.

Use of a cytokine agonist in combination with BCG was highly successful in stimulating an immune response in previously BCG-unresponsive patients with carcinoma in situ high-grade nonmuscle invasive bladder cancer, according to early trial results presented by Sam S. Chang, MD, MBA, at the 2019 American Urological Association Annual Meeting.

Enzalutamide in combination with androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) in men with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer demonstrated significantly improved radiographic progression-free survival versus placebo plus ADT, regardless of baseline prostate-specific antigen levels, according to expanded findings from the ARCHES study.

Fee-for-service tends to result in a surplus of care and unnecessary medical expense, but it probably won’t disappear from the landscape soon.

Nearly 1 IN 5 women who undergoes ovarian cancer surgery is readmitted for complications, but a web-based app may improve patient monitoring so complications and adverse events can be addressed quickly by the patient’s care team.