Immuno-Oncology

In phase Ib results from the KEYNOTE-028 trial, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was found to be active in cervical cancer while demonstrating safety results similar to previous studies with the PD-1 inhibitor.

The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence is recommending the use of atezolizumab for treatment-naïve patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma who are not eligible for cisplatin-based therapy.

Marina Chiara Garassino, MD, medical consultant in the Medical Oncology Division, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milan, Italy, discusses immunotherapy for patients with EGFR-mutated lung cancer.

Terence Friedlander, MD, an assistant clinical professor in the Division of Hematology/Oncology, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California, San Francisco, discusses checkpoint inhibitors in second-line bladder cancer treatment.

Merck has announced that it has withdrawn its European application for pembrolizumab in combination with pemetrexed and carboplatin as a first-line treatment for metastatic nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer.

Howard "Skip" A. Burris, MD, discusses the ongoing research with PARP inhibitors and the advances in immunotherapy for patients with triple-negative breast cancer.

Jane N. Winter, MD, discusses immunotherapy in the treatment of patients with Hodgkin lymphoma.

Jason Luke, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago Medicine, discusses the combination of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC; Imlygic) for the treatment of patients with melanoma.

Denise A. Yardley, MD, discusses the promise of CDK4/6 inhibitors in estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer, and the potential with immunotherapy agents.

Paul A. Bunn Jr, MD, discusses strategies for analyzing and responding to signs of progression for patients receiving immunotherapy for non-small cell lung cancer.

Jane N. Winter, MD, professor of medicine, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, discusses checkpoint inhibitors for Hodgkin lymphoma.

The combination of adjuvant nivolumab and ipilimumab led to a 3-year relapse-free survival rate of 71% in patients with high-risk resected stage IIIC/IV melanoma.

Dirk Schadendorf, MD, head of department for Dermatology, Venerology and Allergology, University Hospital Essen, Germany, discusses the efficacy of combining targeted therapy with checkpoint inhibitors for patients with melanoma.

The combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab showed an intracranial response rate of 46% for asymptomatic patients with melanoma brain metastases who had not received prior local therapy to the brain.

The UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has issued guidelines recommending against nivolumab (Opdivo), lenvatinib (Lenvima), and sorafenib (Nexavar).

The combination of anti–PD-1/PD-L1 immunotherapy with BRAF plus MEK inhibitors is advancing rapidly following early promising phase results for patients with BRAF-mutant advanced melanoma.