Precision Medicine in Oncology®

In this first episode of OncChats: Examining LIFU–Aided Liquid Biopsy in Glioblastoma, Manmeet Singh Ahluwalia, MD, MBA, FASCO, and Michael W. McDermott, MD, explain how low-intensity focused ultrasound works and the rationale for examining its use in cancer and other conditions.

When administered at doses of 90 μg/kg or higher, the novel DLL3-targeting T-cell engager, BI 764532, was found to have an acceptable toxicity profile and to elicit encouraging responses in patients with DLL3-positive small cell lung cancer and neuroendocrine carcinoma.

Experts in the field share the abstracts they found to be the most practice changing at this year’s ASCO Annual meeting.

The FDA has approved olaparib (Lynparza) plus abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) and prednisone or prednisolone for the treatment of patients with deleterious or suspected deleterious BRCA-mutated metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, as determined by an FDA-approved companion diagnostic test.

The combination of panitumumab and standard-of-care trifluridine-tipiracil rechallenge delivered a progression-free survival benefit vs trifluridine-tipiracil alone in the third-line setting in patients with refractory RAS wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer, meeting the primary end point of the phase 2 VELO trial.

Latinx patients with cancer had a low rate of tumor genomic profiling, partially due to structural and cultural barriers, according to findings from a qualitative study presented during the 5th Annual Regional SPEECH Conference and Retreat.

Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare has approved quizartinib in combination with standard cytarabine and anthracycline induction and standard cytarabine consolidation and as maintenance monotherapy in patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia whose tumors harbor FLT3-ITD mutations.

CLDN18.2 has become a promising target for the treatment of patients with digestive malignancies, such as gastric cancer, gastroesophageal junction cancer, esophageal cancer, and pancreatic cancer, because of its limited expression in healthy tissues and abnormal overexpression in a range of malignancies.

Ilyas Sahin, MD, details the preclinical findings from the study and highlighted how these data could help inform future studies for the treatment of patients with MDM2-overexpressing solid tumors.

Dana B Cardin, MD, MSCI, discusses the rationale for exploring KRAS as a therapeutic target in pancreatic cancer.

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.

The FDA has granted 510K clearance to Bladder EpiCheck for use as a noninvasive method for surveillance of tumor recurrence in previously diagnosed patients with non–muscle invasive bladder cancer, in conjunction with cystoscopy.

The FDA has approved FoundationOne® Liquid CDx as a companion diagnostic for mobocertinib in patients with locally advanced or metastatic non–small cell lung cancer harboring EGFR exon 20 insertion mutations.

Treatment with adagrasib monotherapy led to clinically meaningful activity and a manageable safety profile in patients with KRAS G12C–mutated solid tumors.

Ilyas Sahin, MD, discusses the investigation of milademetan in combination with imipridone ONC201 as a synergistic combination in solid tumors.

VT3989, a first-in-class YAP/TEAD inhibitor, showcased durable antitumor activity and tolerability in patients with malignant mesothelioma and other solid tumors harboring NF2 mutations, according to data from a phase 1 trial presented at the 2023 AACR Annual Meeting.

The FDA has placed a partial clinical hold on the phase 1 trial evaluating the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and early clinical activity of FHD-609 in patients with advanced synovial sarcoma and SMARCB1-deleted tumors.

Joshua K. Sabari, MD, shares how the unique pharmacokinetics and mechanism of action for LY3537982 supported its investigation in the LOXO-RAS- 20001 study, findings presented at AACR, and how this research could address unmet needs in patients with KRAS G12C–mutant solid tumors.

A genome-wide methylome enrichment platform demonstrated efficacy in detecting early-stage, low-shedding cancers with limited circulating tumor DNA.

Shannon N. Westin, MD, MPH, FACOG, shares preclinical data that provided the impetus for the SOLAR trial of olaparib and selumetinib in patients with RAS-mutated gynecologic cancers, key findings from the dose-escalation and -expansion portions of the research, and next steps with the combination.

In the setting of cancer, cytokines contribute to cells’ antitumor response, cell damage, inflammation, angiogenesis, metastasis, and other cellular processes that enable tumor survival

Andre Goy, MD, discusses advances in the field of oncology that prompted the development of the Hennessy Institute, how early cancer detection can improve patient outcomes, and the importance of employing accessible cancer prevention strategies.

The evaluation of diagnostic quality in precision medicine should almost certainly be assessed by standards different from those used in drug development.

Siamak Daneshmand, MD, shed light on the phase 2 THOR-2 study evaluating different cohorts of patients with recurrent NMIBC, key findings from cohorts 2 and 3, and how ongoing research seeks to move the needle forward with novel drug delivery methods.