Immuno-Oncology

Joachim G. J. V. Aerts, MD, PhD, discusses the rationale for conducting the phase 3 DENIM trial in patients with mesothelioma, highlighting the importance of focusing investigational efforts onto the dendritic cells.

Pembrolizumab as adjuvant therapy led to a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in disease-free survival compared with observation in patients with localized muscle invasive urothelial cancer and locally advanced urothelial cancer.

Second-line treatment with NT219 alone and in combination with cetuximab demonstrated safety and tolerability, and the combination produced confirmed partial responses in patients with recurrent and/or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

The addition of PDS0101 to pembrolizumab resulted in a 2-year overall survival rate of 74% in patients with unresectable, recurrent, or metastatic, HPV16-positive head and neck squamous cell carcinoma who were naïve to an immune checkpoint inhibitor.

Immunotherapy has become a valuable tool for the treatment of patients with various types of lymphomas because of its ability to specifically target cancer cells, particularly those in blood cancers.

The first-line combination of pembrolizumab, lenvatinib, pemetrexed, and platinum-containing chemotherapy did not meet the dual primary end points of overall survival and progression-free survival compared with pembrolizumab plus pemetrexed and platinum-containing chemotherapy in patients with metastatic, nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer in whom EGFR-, ALK- or ROS1-directed therapies were not indicated.

Treatment with the combination of enfortumab Vedotin and pembrolizumab led to an improvement in overall survival and progression-free survival compared with chemotherapy in previously untreated patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer who were eligible for cisplatin- or carboplatin-containing chemotherapy.

Neoadjuvant treatment with nivolumab plus platinum-based chemotherapy, followed by surgery and adjuvant nivolumab monotherapy, generated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in event-free survival vs neoadjuvant chemotherapy plus placebo, followed by surgery and adjuvant placebo, in patients with resectable stage IIA to IIIB non–small cell lung cancer.

The European Commission has approved tislelizumab monotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with unresectable, locally advanced or metastatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma after prior platinum-based chemotherapy.

The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use has recommended the approval of pembrolizumab as adjuvant treatment for adult patients with non–small cell lung cancer who are at high risk of recurrence following complete resection and platinum-based chemotherapy.

Neoadjuvant treatment with the combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab led to responses and was well tolerated in patients with resectable hepatocellular carcinoma.

The Safety Monitoring Committee determined that prespecified criteria for pathologic complete response were met with the use of the PD-1 inhibitor tislelizumab alone or in combination with APL-1202 as neoadjuvant therapy in patients with muscle invasive bladder cancer.

Nathaniel Myall, MD, clinical assistant professor, medicine - oncology, Stanford Medicine, discusses efficacy findings from 3 clinical trials investigating combination immunotherapy and chemoimmunotherapy treatment approaches in patients with non–small cell lung cancer.

James Chih-Hsin Yang, MD, PhD, discusses the implications of the phase 3 KEYNOTE-789 trial and what directions investigators can examine in the future to help fill the unmet need for patients with TKI-resistant, EGFR-mutated metastatic non–small cell lung cancer.

James L. Gulley, MD, PhD, reviews the safety and efficacy of PRGN-2009 alone and in combination with bintrafusp alfa in HPV-associated cancers and explains how this kind of approach may address an unmet clinical need.

Bernard Doger de Spéville, MD, PhD, discusses the investigation of eftilagimod alpha plus pembrolizumab in the TACTI-002 trial, including prior evidence supporting this approach, the trial’s design and primary objective, and the combination’s efficacy and safety in both the head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and non–small cell lung cancer cohorts.

Martin Cannon, PhD, details the history of investigating immune checkpoint inhibitors in patients with ovarian cancer and expands on the questions that need to be answered to potentially improve the activity of these agents in this patient population.

Martin Cannon, PhD, discusses explanations for the lack of success with immune checkpoint inhibitors in ovarian cancer, and how to potentially improve responses to immunotherapy approaches in this tumor type.

Great Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency has approved subcutaneous atezolizumab for all indications in which the intravenous formulation of the drug has been approved, including select types of lung, bladder, breast, and liver cancers.

The European Commission has approved pembrolizumab for use in combination with trastuzumab, fluoropyrimidine- and platinum-containing chemotherapy for the first-line treatment of adult patients with locally advanced unresectable or metastatic, HER2-positive gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma whose tumors express PD-L1 with a combined positive score of at least 1.

The addition of pembrolizumab to COPDAC-28 consolidation may augment responses to treatment in pediatric and young adult patients with high-risk classical Hodgkin lymphoma who experience a slow early response to frontline chemotherapy.

Pedro Barata, MD, MSc, discusses important considerations regarding the relationship between immunotherapy treatment and the gut microbiome when treating patients with kidney cancer.

The combination of pembrolizumab and lenvatinib demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival and objective response rate but failed to improve overall survival compared with pembrolizumab plus placebo as frontline therapy for patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

The combination of cabozantinib and atezolizumab led to a statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival compared with a second novel hormonal therapy in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer and measurable soft tissue disease following 1 prior novel hormonal therapy, meeting one of the primary end points in the primary analysis of the phase 3 CONTACT-02 trial.

Patients with mismatch repair–deficient and/or microsatellite instability metastatic colorectal cancer experienced a progression-free survival benefit with longer disease control following treatment with avelumab compared with standard second-line chemotherapy.