Immuno-Oncology

Ipilimumab has been approved by the European Commission for the treatment of patients aged 12 and older with unresectable or metastatic melanoma.

Treatment with the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab elicited promising progression-free survival and overall survival results in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma who received previous treatment with sorafenib.

The combination of cetuximab and pembrolizumab was found to be well tolerated in patients with RAS wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer.

Nivolumab alone and in combination with ipilimumab induced responses in patients with heavily pretreated gastrointestinal stromal tumor.

Andrea B. Apolo, MD, medical oncologist, chief of the bladder cancer section of the Genitourinary Malignancies Branch, National Cancer Institute, discusses managing immune-related toxicities from checkpoint inhibitors in patients with bladder cancer.

The PD-L1 inhibitor avelumab induced an overall response rate of 17% in patients with platinum-refractory metastatic urothelial carcinoma.

Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD, Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Professor of Oncology, deputy director, co-director of the Melanoma Research Program, NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, discusses the clinical potential and monetary hindrances of triplet and four-drug regimens for patients with melanoma.

Combining pembrolizumab with chemotherapy in the frontline setting improved survival in patients with nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer.

Elizabeth Plimack, MD, director of Genitourinary Clinical Research at Fox Chase Cancer Center, discusses choosing a checkpoint inhibitor in bladder cancer.

Hans Hammers, MD, PhD, associate professor, Internal Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center, discusses the long-term benefits of the CheckMate-214 study in patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

Rana R. McKay, MD, discusses the evolving management of patients with advanced RCC, specifically the future of combinations of with immunotherapy regimens.

Amid rapid-fire developments in non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) research, the role of checkpoint immunotherapy continues to mature.

David F. McDermott, MD, discusses the successes with immunotherapy in renal cell carcinoma and gave his insight on the future treatment of these patients.

The FDA has granted the combination of the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab and the VEGF/FGF inhibitor lenvatinib a breakthrough therapy designation for the treatment of patients with advanced and/or metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

Adjuvant pembrolizumab reduced the risk of recurrence by 43% in patients with stage III resected high-risk melanoma.

Despite the promising developments in this arena, many patients with cancer respond inadequately to immune checkpoint monotherapy, and others develop serious (grade 3-4) toxicities that require treatment cessation.