Immuno-Oncology

The addition of pembrolizumab to lenvatinib did not significantly improve overall survival or progression-free survival over lenvatinib alone when used in the frontline treatment of patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma, missing the dual primary end points of the phase 3 LEAP-002 trial.

Eftilagimod alpha plus pembrolizumab demonstrated promising benefits in overall survival and progression-free survival as a second-line treatment in patients with non–small cell lung cancer who progressed on anti–PD-1/anti–PD-L1 therapy.

The subcutaneous administration of atezolizumab produced non-inferior levels of the agent in the blood compared with intravenous atezolizumab in immunotherapy-naïve patients with locally advanced or metastatic non–small cell lung cancer who failed platinum-based chemotherapy.

PD-L1 and tumor mutational burden are established biomarkers for leveraging immunotherapy in non–small cell lung cancer; however, their use may not be appropriate in determining treatment decisions for all patients.

The addition of pembrolizumab to belantamab mafodotin resulted in a higher overall response rate in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma than what has been observed with the antibody-drug conjugate alone, according to results from the phase 1/2 DREAMM-4 trial.

Toni K. Choueiri, MD, explains significant findings from the long-term efficacy analysis of the KEYNOTE-564 study and highlights the significance of these data for the field of RCC.

Twelve years after key research into immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy first made a splash at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, evidence continues to mount that supports the durability of these agents in a range of cancers.

The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use has recommended the approval of the fixed-dose combination of nivolumab and relatlimab for the frontline treatment of adult and adolescents who are 12 years of age or older with advanced melanoma and a tumor cell PD-L1 expression of less than 1%.

Pembrolizumab plus concurrent chemoradiation followed by pembrolizumab maintenance did not lead to a statistically significant improvement in event-free survival vs concurrent chemoradiation alone in patients with unresected locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

The FDA has deferred action on the biologics license application seeking the approval of tislelizumab as a second-line treatment in patients with unresectable or metastatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, citing the inability to conduct required inspections in China because of travel restrictions associated with COVID-19.

Nivolumab alone or in combination with ipilimumab continued to demonstrate sustained clinical benefit as second- and first-line therapy, respectively, in patients with microsatellite instability–high and mismatch repair deficient metastatic colorectal cancer.

Thierry André, MD, discusses the results of the phase 1 GARNET study with dostarlimab and the significance of these findings for patients with mismatch repair–deficient/microsatellite instqability–high solid tumors.

Neoadjuvant treatment with durvalumab plus platinum-based chemotherapy led to a statistically significant improvement in pathologic complete response and major pathologic response compared with chemotherapy alone in patients with resectable non–small cell lung cancer, according to findings from a planned interim analysis of the phase 3 AEGEAN trial.

The combination of botensilimab and balstilimab elicited deep objective responses with evidence of durability and encouraging tolerability in heavily pretreated patients with microsatellite stable, metastatic colorectal cancer.

Adding atezolizumab to neoadjuvant standard of care therapy for HER2-positive early breast cancer did not result in a better pathologic complete response compared with placebo, according to findings from the phase 3 IMpassion050 trial.

The combination of anlotinib and sintilimab was found to provide a long-term survival benefit to patients with previously treated advanced cervical cancer.

The European Commission has approved pembrolizumab for adjuvant treatment of adult and adolescent patients 12 years and older with stage IIB or IIC melanoma who have undergone a complete resection.

Adding talimogene laherparepvec to pembrolizumab led to encouraging responses with a manageable safety profile in patients with advanced melanoma who progressed on prior anti–PD-1 therapy, most notably in the adjuvant setting, according to findings from the phase 2 MASTERKEY-115 trial.

The FDA has granted a fast track designation to PDS0101 for use in combination with pembrolizumab in patients with recurrent or metastatic HPV16-positive head and neck cancer.

The PD-L1 antibody cosibelimab was found to elicit an encouraging objective response rate in patients with locally advanced cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma who were not eligible to undergo curative surgery or radiation.

New treatment strategies with immunotherapeutic agents are challenging standards of care and prolonging survival in first and later lines of metastatic urothelial carcinoma, metastatic renal cell carcinoma, and metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.

The combination of quavonlimab and pembrolizumab was found to be generally well tolerated and to have modest antitumor activity in patients with advanced melanoma that progressed on a PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor, according to data from a phase 1/2 trial (NCT03179436).

The approval of 2 nivolumab-containing combinations for patients with advanced or metastatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma have opened the doors for immunotherapy to enter the landscape for this population allowing clinicians options to help patients to meet their individual treatment goals.

The combination of galinpepimut-S and nivolumab was found to extend survival in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma who were either refractory to, or who had relapsed after, at least 1 line of standard therapy.

The European Commission has approved atezolizumab for use as an adjuvant treatment following complete resection and platinum-based chemotherapy in adult patients with non–small cell lung cancer and a high risk of recurrence whose tumors do not have EGFR mutations or ALK alterations but have a PD-L1 expression of 50% or higher.