Immuno-Oncology

Joel Neal, MD, PhD, assistant professor of Medicine (Oncology), Stanford University Medical Center, discusses exciting advancements in the field of lung cancer over the past few years.

Janice Mehnert, MD, medical oncologist, director, Phase I and Developmental Therapeutics Program, Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, discussing promising biomarkers for patients to receive immunotherapy across tumor types.

Heather A. Wakelee, MD, associate professor of Medicine (Oncology), Stanford University Medical Center, regent, International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) discusses updated efficacy findings from the BIRCH trial, which was a phase II study of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) for patients with PD-L1–selected advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Wakelee discussed these findings during an interview at the 2016 IASLC Multidisciplinary Symposium on Thoracic Oncology.

Although checkpoint blockade inhibitors targeting the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway are currently dominating the oncology community's attention, there are many other exciting approaches to anticancer immunotherapy being explored in a range of solid tumors

The FDA-approved fixed dose of 200 mg of pembrolizumab administered once every 3 weeks yielded durable responses in patients with recurrent and/or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Barbara A. Burtness, MD, discussed the potential role for immunotherapy in frontline head and neck cancer, as well as the possible benefit of using it in combination with standard treatments, including radiation and chemotherapy.

Elizabeth Plimack, MD, discusses some of the most impressive advancements with immunotherapy agents in the fields of renal cell carcinoma and bladder cancer, as well as remaining questions with the use of these treatments.

Barbara Burtness, MD, professor of Medicine, Yale Cancer Center, discusses some of the ongoing trials currently examining the use of immunotherapy to treat patients with head and neck cancer.

The European Medicines Agency has validated a type II variation application for use of nivolumab (Opdivo) as a treatment for patients with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic urothelial carcinoma who have progressed following platinum-based chemotherapy.

Karen Kelly, MD, associate director for Clinical Research, Jennifer Rene Harmon Tegley and Elizabeth Erica Harmon Endowed Chair in Cancer Clinical Research, professor of Medicine, UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, UC Davis Health System, discusses the toxicity profile of the therapies used in the CheckMate-227 trial.

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.