Wayne Kuznar

The triplet of nivolumab, ramucirumab and paclitaxel showed promising antitumor activity with durable responses in a phase II study of patients with advanced gastric cancer.

The efficacy of larotrectinib has been confirmed in patients with heavily pretreated TRK fusion–positive gastrointestinal cancers.

Pembrolizumab monotherapy in the first and later lines of therapy leads to more durable responses and meaningfully improves overall survival compared with chemotherapy in patients with advanced gastric/gastroesophageal junction cancer with a high number of PD-L1–expressing cells in the tumor, lymphocytes, and macrophages.

In the first 11 months following the FDA approval of the CDK4/6 inhibitor abemaciclib as a single agent and in combination with endocrine therapy for the treatment of hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer, it is being used heterogeneously, including in patients with characteristics indicative of worse prognosis.

A high absolute lymphocyte count at baseline appears to be an independent predictor for longer overall survival in patients with metastatic breast cancer who are treated with eribulin mesylate.

The combination of pertuzumab and trastuzumab plus paclitaxel is commonly being used in the community for the treatment of patients with HER2-positive breast cancer, and appears to be as effective as pertuzumab and trastuzumab plus docetaxel according to real-world findings from a retrospective cohort study.

REGN1979 demonstrated antitumor activity with an acceptable safety profile in heavily pretreated patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The addition of CP-0610 to ruxolitinib (Jakafi) in JAK inhibitor-naïve patients with myelofibrosis induced splenic and symptomatic responses as early as 12 weeks.

Enasidenib significantly improves complete remission and overall response when combined with azacitidine compared with azacitidine alone in patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia with IDH2 mutations.

Vecabrutinib, a reversible, noncovalent Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor, exhibited evidence of clinical activity in adults with B-cell malignancies without producing any grade ≥3 treatment-related adverse events.

The CD19-directed CAR T-cell therapy lisocabtagene maraleucel showed promising clinical activity and manageable toxicity in heavily pretreated patients with high-risk chronic lymphocytic leukemia or small lymphocytic lymphoma, all of whom had progressed on ibrutinib.

Steroid use while cytokine release syndrome and neurologic toxicities are at grade 1, instead of waiting until grade 3, reduces the rate of CAR T-cell treatment–related CRS and neurologic events.

CD19-directed CAR T-cell therapy induced a high rate of rapid and durable complete responses in patients with aggressive relapsed/refractory large B-cell lymphoma.

The triplet of acalabrutinib (Calquence), venetoclax (Venclexta), and obinutuzumab (Gazyva; AVO) is highly active as frontline therapy for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

With extended follow-up, progression-free survival continues to be superior with the combination of ibrutinib and rituximab compared with fludarabine, cyclophosphamide, and rituximab for patients ≤70 years with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Updated results from the phase I/II MEDIOLA study strengthen the case for combining olaparib and durvalumab in patients with metastatic breast cancer and relapsed ovarian cancer with germline BRCA mutations. The updated data were featured in two separate presentations at the 2019 ESMO Congress.

Evidence is increasing that blood-based biomarkers have predictive utility in advanced non–small cell lung cancer. Going further, blood-based next-generation sequencing appears to have clinical utility in selecting targeted treatment in this setting.

Larotrectinib demonstrated a clinically meaningful improvement in progression-free survival compared with time to progression on prior treatment in patients with TRK fusion–positive cancers using a measure known as the growth modulation index.

Durvalumab added to etoposide and platinum-based chemotherapy as a first-line treatment for patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer delays development of new lesions and improves patient-reported outcomes compared with etoposide and platinum-based therapy alone.

The combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab appears to have durable clinical activity in patients with recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer.

Nivolumab extended overall survival compared with chemotherapy in patients with previously treated advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

A case series presented at the 2019 ESMO Congress highlighted the activity of afatinib in patients with NRG1-positive tumors.

An exploratory biomarker substudy of Impassion130 demonstrated clinical activity of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) and nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) in a subgroup of patients with triple-negative breast cancer who had immune cell PD-L1 expression by the SP142 immunohistochemistry assay, regardless of the site of the tumor sample.

With follow-up of nearly 2 years, the addition of atezolizumab to first-line carboplatin plus etoposide for the treatment of extensive stage small cell lung cancer continues to demonstrate improved overall survival compared with placebo plus CP/ET.

A numerical improvement in overall survival was realized with the addition of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) to ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1; Kadcyla) compared with T-DM1 alone.

Adding the investigational glutaminase inhibitor telaglenastat to everolimus extends progression-free survival compared with everolimus alone in patients with heavily pretreated advanced renal cell carcinoma.

Atezolizumab (Tecentriq) monotherapy improved overall survival compared with platinum-based chemotherapy as a first-line treatment of certain patients with wild-type non–small cell lung cancer.

More than one-third of patients with previously treated locally advanced or metastatic cholangiocarcinoma with an FGFR2 rearrangement or fusion had durable objective responses to treatment with pemigatinib.

The combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) led to durable intracranial responses in patients with metastatic melanoma and asymptomatic brain metastases.

Despite local therapy, many patients with locoregional recurrence of melanoma during or after adjuvant anti–PD-1 therapy relapse again.