Immuno-Oncology

Immunotherapy continues to be one of the fastest-evolving fields in oncology. In recent years, numerous immunotherapies have shown good efficacy, safety, and durability across many tumor types, including some advanced solid tumors that have not seen meaningful treatment developments in decades.

The observed adverse events that have been associated with immunotherapy, especially immunotherapy combinations, have to be properly assessed against their clearly improved efficacy in patients with otherwise dismal prognosis from stage IV cancers.

The FDA has granted a priority review to a biologics license application for avelumab as a treatment for patients with metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma.

The FDA has granted a priority review to a supplemental biologics license application for pembrolizumab for previously treated patients with advanced microsatellite instability-high cancer.

The European Commission has approved nivolumab for the treatment of patients with relapsed/refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma after autologous stem cell transplant and treatment with brentuximab vedotin.

Lung cancer alone accounts for 26.5% of all cancer-related mortalities in the United States, which is more than any other malignancy. Despite increased awareness that smoking is an important risk factor for lung cancer, which has reduced the number of smokers in the U.S., nearly a quarter of a million new diagnoses are expected in 2016.

Identifying biomarkers to determine who should receive chemotherapy, targeted agents, and immunotherapy is just one of several obstacles the prostate cancer community is currently facing.

There are a wide variety of novel agents currently being investigated in the neoadjuvant setting for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer.

Oncologists continue to face several challenges when it comes to the prevention and treatment of cervical cancer, according to Michael Birrer, MD, PhD.

Treatment with nivolumab and radiotherapy with or without concurrent temozolomide was well tolerated and showed promising signs of efficacy for patients with newly-diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme.

Pembrolizumab had a 6-month progression-free survival rate of 44% and a manageable safety profile for patients with recurrent PD-L1-positive glioblastoma multiforme.

Findings from the phase II trials KEYNOTE-028 of pembrolizumab and MEDI4736 (durvalumab) point to a role for checkpoint inhibitors in the treatment of glioblastoma multiforme, based on encouraging efficacy signals and safety data with the two agents.

Debu Tripathy, MD, chair of Breast Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the potential role of immunotherapy in the treatment of patients with HER2-positive breast cancer.

The PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors moving through the pipeline in bladder cancer will have a lasting impact on the armamentarium in the field, explains Jonathan E. Rosenberg, MD.

As immunotherapy continues to make headway in several different cancer types, these agents are only just arriving to the treatment landscape of head and neck cancer.

Treatment in lung cancer continues to evolve at a rapid pace with the arrival of a set of efficacious new agents and promising evidence-based data. According to Corey J. Langer, MD, a veritable avalanche of additional data is on the way.

Gopa Iyer, MD, assistant attending physician, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses significant points for community oncologists to be aware of when treating patients with bladder cancer with immunotherapy agents.

Therapeutic options for patients with renal cell carcinoma have increased rapidly in the past decade, yet the field is still poised to expand significantly in the coming years, said Robert S. Alter, MD.

It has been about 18 months since the first immunotherapy checkpoint agent was approved for patients with non–small cell lung cancer. Now there are 3 monoclonal antibodies that target the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway on the market for the tumor type and the focus has shifted rapidly to establishng immunotherapy as a new frontline standard.

​Sonja Althammer, PhD, Team Leader Bioinformatics at Definiens, Munich, Bavaria, Germany, discusses a study looking to define a subgroup of patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who respond well to treatment with the PD-L1 inhibitor durvalumab.

Suzanne L. Topalian, MD, professor of Surgery, Johns Hopkins Medicine, discuses novel immunotherapy biomarkers in colorectal cancer (CRC).

The expression of PD-L1 has been at the forefront of biomarker development for PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors, but there is much uncertainty surrounding its use and other biomarkers are needed.

Sarah B. Goldberg, MD, MPH, assistant professor of Medicine, Yale Cancer Center, discusses the use of PD-L1 as a biomarker in treating patients with lung cancer.

Immunotherapy and chemotherapy are options physicians should not dismiss for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer, according to Lisa Carey, MD, even with the available targeted agents trastuzumab, pertuzumab, lapatinib, and ado-trastuzumab emtansine.