Immuno-Oncology

Costas Lallas, MD, professor at Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, discusses combinations of immunotherapy for genitourinary malignancies.

Arjun V. Balar, MD, discusses the impact of the approval of pembrolizumab and other immunotherapy agents in urothelial carcinoma, as well as the next steps with these treatments.

Researchers are hoping to build on the success of the KEYNOTE-012 and CheckMate-141 trials, which led to the approvals of pembrolizumab and nivolumab, respectively, by examining anti–PD-1/PD-L1 agents in the frontline and as a part of combination regimens for patients with head and neck cancer.

Ahead of this year's meeting, researchers are increasingly interested in the state of communication between patients and doctors on immunotherapy.

Tim F. Greten, MD, senior investigator thoracic and gastrointestinal oncology branch, head, gastrointestinal malignancy section, National Cancer Institute, discusses promising immunotherapy agents being investigated in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Daniel P. Petrylak, MD, professor of Medicine (Medical Oncology) and Urology, co-director, Signal Transduction Research Program, Yale Cancer Center, discusses the FDA approval of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for the treatment of patients with bladder cancer.

The FDA has granted pembrolizumab approvals in the frontline and second-line settings for urothelial carcinoma.

Peter Black, MD, senior research scientist, Vancouver Prostate Center, associate professor, Department of Urologic Sciences, University of British Columbia, discusses combination trials with durvalumab (Imfinzi) for patients with bladder cancer.

Shilpa Gupta, MD, assistant professor, Hematology Oncology and Transplantation Division, University of Minnesota, discusses combining VEGF inhibitors with immunotherapy for patients with kidney cancer.

An epigenetic strategy under study at Cleveland Clinic combines THU, a cytidine deaminase inhibitor, with decitabine and nivolumab (Opdivo) in patients with non-small cell lung cancer. The results of early studies demonstrate that THU may help prime the immune system.

Paul G. Corn, MD, PhD, associate professor, Department of Genitourinary Medical Oncology, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the possibility of immunotherapy in patients with prostate cancer.

Durvalumab (Imfinzi) significantly improved progression-free survival when used as a sequential treatment in patients with locally-advanced, unresectable non-small cell lung cancer who had not progressed following standard care with platinum-based chemotherapy and radiotherapy.