Immuno-Oncology

Richard S. Finn, MD, associate professor of Medicine at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, discusses both recent advances in the treatment of patients with liver cancer, as well as the future role that immunotherapy stands to have in this field.

Naiyer Rizvi, MD, discusses pivotal clinical trials of immunotherapy agents for patients with lung cancer and expresses his optimism regarding the treatment for the field.

The PD-L1 inhibitor atezolizumab has been found to be non-toxic and has demonstrated a major survival advantage in patients with metastatic urothelial bladder cancer.

Although lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related mortality in the United States and 5-year survival rates are low at 17.8%, the grim picture for this tumor type is starting to shift to a more hopeful one as its biology is becoming better understood, facilitating treatment selection and providing researchers with new therapeutic targets.

Jedd D. Wolchok, MD, PhD, chief, Melanoma and Immunotherapeutics Service, Department of Medicine and Ludwig Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the safety profile in the CheckMate-067 trial, which examined nivolumab combined with ipilimumab in treatment-naïve patients with advanced melanoma.

Anthony B. El-Khoueiry, MD, associate professor of Clinical Medicine, USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the rationale for evaluating nivolumab in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Mark Ball, MD, chief urology resident, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, discusses the eventual role that immunotherapy will play in the treatment landscape of renal cell carcinoma (RCC), as well as patient selection to receive immunotherapy as a single agent or in combination.

Edward S. Kim, MD, chair, Solid Tumor Oncology and Investigational Therapeutics, Donald S. Kim Distinguished Chair for Cancer Research, Levine Cancer Institute, Carolinas HealthCare System, discusses combination therapies in the treatment of patients with lung cancer.

Ghassan K. Abou-Alfa, MD, discusses research into the use of the immunotherapeutic vaccinia virus Pexa-Vec as a frontline treatment for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma.

Nivolumab continues to post durable responses in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma regardless of whether they had hepatitis B or C or whether they had received prior treatment with sorafenib.

Michael A. Postow, MD, medical oncologist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the current treatment landscape in melanoma.

James Stevenson, MD, medical oncologist at Cleveland Clinic, discusses the potential of immunotherapy agents as treatment for patients with squamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Jorge A. Garcia, MD, discusses the final survival data from the phase III METEOR trial, which was the basis for cabozantinib's (Cabometyx's) FDA approval, as well as the role the agent will now play along with nivolumab (Opdivo) in advanced RCC.

The FDA has granted a priority review to a supplemental biologics license application for pembrolizumab (Keytruda) as a first-line treatment for patients with PD-L1–positive non–small cell lung cancer.

David F. McDermott, MD, director of the Biologic Therapy Program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, discusses the findings of the phase III CheckMate-025 trial of nivolumab (Opdivo) versus everolimus (Afinitor) in renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

An assay that would evaluate the immune status of patients with colon cancer is poised to become the first of a series of Immunoscore tests for various tumor types.

Yvonee Saenger, MD, discusses ongoing developments with immunotherapy in melanoma.

Saeed Rafii, MD, PhD, medical director, Sarah Cannon Research Institute, United Kingdom, discusses novel immunotherapy approaches for the treatment of patients with bladder cancer.

Atezolizumab (Tecentriq) improved survival compared with docetaxel in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer following the failure of platinum-based chemotherapy.