Immuno-Oncology

Lisa H. Butterfield, PhD, professor of medicine, surgery, and immunology, director, University of Pittsburgh Immunologic Monitoring and Cellular Products Laboratory, University of Pittsburgh, president of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, discusses a clinical trial exploring the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in multiple subtypes of sarcoma.

Neil L. Berinstein, MD, professor, University of Toronto, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, discusses combination treatments for patients with high-risk or recurrent follicular lymphoma.

High levels of response were observed with nivolumab (Opdivo), regardless of previous treatment with brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris), in patients with relapsed/refractory Hodgkin lymphoma after autologous stem-cell transplant.

Loretta J. Nastoupil, MD, associate professor, Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses high response rates with prembrolizumab (Keytruda) in combination with rituximab (Rituxan) in patients with relapsed follicular lymphoma.

Jean-Pascal Machiels, MD, head of the Department of Medical Oncology, Cliniques Universitaires Sain-Luc, discusses an ongoing clinical trial of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) combined with chemoradiation in patients with locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).

Brian I. Rini, MD, professor of medicine, Cleveland Clinic, discusses a phase I study of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) plus axitinib (Inlyta) in patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

Nancy Y. Lee, MD, vice chair, Department of Radiation Oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the impact of immunotherapy in head and neck cancer.

Charles S. Fuchs, MD, MPH, director, Yale Cancer Center, physician-in-chief, Smilow Cancer Hospital, 2017 Giant of Cancer Care in Gastrointestinal Cancer, discusses immunotherapy in gastric cancer.

Merck announced that it is postponing enrollment in the phase III KEYNOTE-183 and KEYNOTE-185 trials because of deaths in patients with multiple myeloma assigned to pembrolizumab (Keytruda), the company's blockbuster anti-PD-1 therapy.

Andrea Apolo, MD, medical oncologist, chief of the bladder cancer section of the Genitourinary Malignancies Branch, National Cancer Institute, discusses immunotherapy combinations with cabozantinib (Cometriq) in genitourinary tumors.

Daniel P. Petrylak, MD, professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) and Urology, co-director, Signal Transduction Research Program, Yale Cancer Center, 2017 Giant of Cancer Care in Genitourinary Cancer, discusses the KEYNOTE-045 trial investigating pembrolizumab (Keytruda) versus physician’s choice of chemotherapy for patients with urothelial carcinoma.

Toni K. Choueiri, MD, clinical director, Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology, director, Kidney Cancer Center, senior physician, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses phase I results of axitinib (Inlyta) plus avelumab (Bavencio) for the treatment of patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

Combining the PD-L1 inhibitor avelumab (Bavencio) with the VEGF inhibitor axitinib (Inlyta) as a frontline regimen induced a response rate of 58.2% in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma, according to findings from the phase Ib JAVELIN Renal 100 trial presented at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Combining the PD-1­ inhibitor pembrolizumab with the IDO1 inhibitor epacadostat led to an overall response rate of 35% in patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma.

The combination of the IDO inhibitor epacadostat and nivolumab demonstrated promising signs of activity for patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck and those with melanoma.

Nivolumab as monotherapy or in combination with ipilimumab may present a new second- or third-line treatment option for patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma, based on preliminary findings from a phase II trial where nivolumab alone or in the combination improved disease control and prolonged survival in patients with this rare but aggressive cancer.

Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) showed durable antitumor activity in patients with heavily pretreated metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), according to findings from cohort A of the phase II KEYNOTE-086 trial presented at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Pembrolizumab continued to show promising signs of clinical activity as a treatment for patients with advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancer in updated findings from the KEYNOTE-059 study.

Nivolumab plus ipilimumab demonstrated an intracranial response rate of 42% in asymptomatic patients with melanoma brain metastases who had not received prior local therapy to the brain.

Andrea B. Apolo, MD, principal investigator and the head of the Bladder Cancer Section in the Genitourinary Malignancies Branch at the National Cancer Institute’s Center for Cancer Research, discusses the updated findings of the phase Ib JAVELIN trial exploring avelumab (Bavencio) for the treatment of patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma.

The frontline combination of pembrolizumab, pemetrexed, and carboplatin reduced the risk of progression or death by 50% and nearly doubled objective response rates compared with chemotherapy alone for patients with advanced non-squamous NSCLC.

Arjun V. Balar, MD, assistant professor of medicine, Division of Hematology and Oncology, New York University Cancer Institute, NYU Langone Medical Center, discusses the mature clinical trial results and biomarker findings of KEYNOTE-052, first-line pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in patients with cisplatin-ineligible advanced urothelial cancer, during the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting.

John V. Heymach, MD, PhD, chairman, Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the significance of nivolumab (Opdivo) for patients with lung cancer.

Driven by newer agents, the cost of US oncology medicines has increased 88% over the past 5 years, according to the QuintilesIMS Institute Global Oncology Trends 2017 report.

Giuseppe Curigliano, MD, PhD, head of the Division of Early Drug Development at European Institute of Oncology, in Milan, Italy, discusses immunotherapy trials in triple-negative breast cancer.