Virginia Powers, PhD

Cyclophosphamide administered alone or in combination with other agents is an effective prophylactic treatment for graft-versus-host disease, regardless of stem cell source, conditioning intensity, or patient age in 10/10 and 9/10 human leukocyte antigen matched unrelated donor hematopoietic stem cell transplantation recipients.

The development of high-grade acute graft-versus-host disease following hematopoietic stem cell transplantation poses the highest risk for transplant-associated thrombotic microangiopathy in pediatric patients.

Patients with multiple myeloma who relapsed following allogeneic stem cell transplantation and also failed several posttransplant therapies demonstrated a strong response to daratumumab salvage therapy.

A novel treatment of ruxolitinib combined with etanercept led to encouraging response and survival rates in patients who developed grades 3/4 steroid-resistant acute graph-versus-host disease after undergoing allogeneic stem cell transplantation.

Sequential administration of CAR T-cell therapy targeting both the CD19 and CD22 antigens demonstrated high complete remission rates and improved long-term survival in patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant.

Treosulfan added to fludarabine demonstrated an improvement in event-free and overall survival compared with busulfan/fludarabine as a treatment for patients with acute myeloid leukaemia or myelodysplastic syndrome who are scheduled for allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation but are considered ineligible for standard myeloablative conditioning.

At a median follow-up of 14.1 months, the chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy tisagenlecleucel achieved an objective response rate of 52% in adult patients with relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

The addition of elotuzumab to pomalidomide and dexamethasone cut the risk of disease progression or death by 46% compared with pomalidomide and dexamethasone alone for patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.

Quizartinib reduced the risk of death by 24% compared with salvage chemotherapy in patients with FLT3-ITD–positive relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia after first-line treatment with or without hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

A CAR T-cell therapy specific for CD22 was safe and provided high response rates for pediatric patients with B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia who had failed chemotherapy and/or a CD19-targeted CAR T-cell treatment.

A compound CLL1/CD33-targeted CAR T-cell therapy showed a complete remission with minimal residual disease (MRD) negativity in a single-patient case study from an ongoing phase I study for relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia.

The combination of obinutuzumab and chlorambucil reduced the risk of death by 24% versus rituximab plus chlorambucil in treatment-naïve patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia with comorbidities.

Durvalumab treatment over 12 months had no negative effect on key symptoms of lung cancer, physical function, global health status, or quality of life in patients with locally advanced, unresectable stage III non–small cell lung cancer who have not progressed following concurrent chemoradiotherapy.

First-line treatment with osimertinib resulted in a clinically meaningful delay in time from randomization to second progression on subsequent treatment or death, establishing the agent as a new standard of care in the frontline setting for patients with EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer.

Patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer and baseline central nervous system metastasis showed control of their CNS metastasis after receiving osimertinib in a real-world clinical setting.

Researchers from Japan recommended against further development of nivolumab for patients with previously treated unresectable or recurrent thymic carcinoma based on their findings from the phase II PRIMER study.

Frontline treatment with osimertinib led to similar improvements in quality of life, including a clinically meaningful improvement in cough, compared with a standard of care EGFR TKIs for patients with advanced EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer.

Maintenance therapy with olaparib monotherapy provides clinically significant, long-term treatment benefits and is safe in patients with platinum-sensitive relapsed serous ovarian cancer.

Patients with ovarian cancer were unified in their responses regardless of age, disease stage, or whether they had primary or recurrent disease, and were more likely to opt to receive maintenance therapy if it could offer delay of disease progression and allow patients to maintain or improve their quality of life.

Deleterious mutations in the PALB2 gene may account for the development of breast cancer in women with an elevated risk due to a family history of breast or ovarian cancer, but who test negative for the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes.

Rucaparib delayed disease recurrence in the intent to treat population and across subgroups of women with ovarian cancer.

A first-in-human study showed that the antibody drug conjugate tisotumab vedotin was well-tolerated and provided promising anti-tumor activity in patients with relapsed, recurrent, and/or metastatic cervical cancer.

The final analysis of overall survival data from the phase III AGO-OVAR 12 trial of nintedanib plus carboplatin/paclitaxel versus carboplatin/paclitaxel alone in women with chemotherapy-naive advanced ovarian cancer did not demonstrate a survival advantage with the addition of nintedanib.

Patients with relapsed ovarian cancer and a positive Arbeitsgemeinschaft Gynäkologische Onkologie (AGO) score experienced prolonged progression-free survival after undergoing a second cytoreductive surgery followed by platinum-based chemotherapy.

The therapeutic landscape is rapidly being altered by clinical trials of immunotherapy for patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma, but simply changing the way quality of life is monitored could provide dramatic improvements in overall survival.

Delivering IMRT to the bladder and pelvic nodes in patients with node-positive bladder cancer or high-risk node-negative bladder cancer is feasible with patients experiencing low toxicity and demonstrating low pelvic nodal rates of recurrence

Although immunotherapy shows great promise in meeting the need for effective treatment of muscle invasive bladder cancer, chemotherapy continues to be an important tool in treating patients with this disease and other forms of bladder and urothelial cancer.

The combination of bevacizumab plus niraparib demonstrated clinical activity in women with relapsed, platinum-sensitive epithelial ovarian cancer and had a manageable toxicity profile.

Treating primary tumors by administering targeted therapy with sunitinib (Sutent) prior to cytoreductive nephrectomy did not improve the progression-free rate at 28 weeks over a sequence of immediate CN followed by sunitinib in patients with synchronous metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

Mature results from the phase III KEYNOTE-045 study presented at the 2017 ESMO Congress demonstrated that overall survival with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) continued to improve compared to chemotherapy in patients with recurrent, advanced urothelial carcinoma.