AACR Annual Meeting

More than one-third of patients with previously untreated renal cell carcinoma responded to the combination of high-dose interleukin-2 and an investigational histone deacetylase inhibitor entinostat.

Robert Ferris, MD, PhD, vice chair for Clinical Operations, associate director for Translational Research, and coleader of the Cancer Immunology Program at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, discusses the CheckMate-141 trial, which found that treatment with single-agent nivolumab (Opdivo) reduced the risk of death by 30% and doubled 1-year overall survival (OS) rates compared investigator's choice of therapy for patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (SCCHN).

Samir N. Khleif, MD, director, GRU Cancer Center, discusses next steps researchers and physicians need to take with immunotherapy in the field of oncology.

The addition of three biological markers to conventional breast cancer risk models significantly improved the ability to distinguish women at high and low risk.

Anti–PD-1 therapy in the first-line induced responses in more than half of patients with advanced Merkel cell carcinoma, with encouraging durability to the responses.

Barry M. Berger, MD, FACP, chief medical officer, Exact Sciences, discusses a study demonstrating the benefit of utilization of the Cologuard screening test for colorectal cancer (CRC).

Angela M. DeMichele, MD, professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania, discusses results of the HER2-positive breast cancer cohort of the phase II ISPY-2 trial, which investigated the neoadjuvant combinations of ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) and pertuzumab (Perjeta) versus paclitaxel (Abraxane) and trastuzumab (Herceptin).

Treatment with single-agent nivolumab reduced the risk of death by 30% and double 1-year overall survival rates compared investigator's choice of therapy for patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Three currently available assays for PD-L1 expression exhibited a high degree of correlation in a comparative study involving archived lung cancer tissue.

The combination of the PARP inhibitor olaparib and the investigational AKT inhibitor AZD5363 resulted in durable responses in patients with solid tumors, with and without BRCA mutations.

Chest radiotherapy to treat a childhood cancer is a well-established risk factor for developing breast cancer in adulthood

Palbociclib may have antiproliferative effects when used as a neoadjuvant therapy for women with early stage breast cancer.

A 70-gene signature (MammaPrint) demonstrated a high level of accuracy at identifying a large subset of women with clinically high-risk early stage breast cancer for whom adjuvant chemotherapy was unlikely to produce benefit.

Michael Postow, MD, medical oncologist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the overall survival (OS) results of the CheckMate-069 study, which investigated the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) for the treatment of patients with melanoma.

The combination of ipilimumab (Yervoy) and nivolumab (Opdivo) showed a 42% improvement in overall survival compared with ipilimumab monotherapy for patients with advanced melanoma in a 2-year assessment of the phase II CheckMate-069 trial.

Yong-Chen William Lu, PhD, a fellow in the Surgery Branch of the National Cancer Institute, discusses a CD4 T-cell immunotherapy targeting MAGE-A3 that is showing early clinical responses in patients with metastatic cancer.

Rose K. Lai, MD, clinical associate professor of Neurology, University of Southern California, discusses results of the Glioma International Case Control study.

Treatment with the novel multikinase inhibitor entrectinib achieved objective responses in 79% of patients with solid tumors associated with NTRK, ROS-1, or ALK rearrangements.

A form of immunotherapy that harnesses the power of CD4 T-cells was shown to be safe and effective in patients with various types of metastatic cancers.

F. Stephen Hodi, MD, director of the Melanoma Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the results of the longest follow-up survival study of patients with advanced melanoma who were treated with single-agent nivolumab (Opdivo).

Single-agent nivolumab demonstrated a robust 5-year overall survival rate of 34% for heavily pretreated patients with metastatic melanoma who had not received prior ipilimumab.

D. Ross Camidge, MD, director, Thoracic Oncology Clinical Program, program director, Thoracic Oncology Clinical and Translational Research Fellowship, University of Colorado Denver, discusses MET and if it is still a relevant target in lung cancer.

Alice Tsang Shaw, MD, PhD, thoracic oncologist, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, discusses overcoming resistance to targeted therapy in lung cancer.

Robert C. Bast, Jr., MD, vice president, Translational Research, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses a study that could help in early detection of ovarian cancer before CA-125 rises in patients.

The combination of olaparib with the novel AKT-targeting agent AZD5363 generated responses in a variety of tumor types among patients with and without BRCA1/2 mutations, demonstrating that a simultaneous attack on the two pathways is a safe and potentially versatile strategy.

Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, professor, Yale Cancer Center, chief of medical oncology, Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven, discuses the impact of the FDA's approval of nivolumab's for the treatment of squamous non-small cell lung cancer.

A two-pronged strategy combining the PARP inhibitor olaparib and the PI3K inhibitor BKM120 proved to be a safe and clinically beneficial regimen for women with triple-negative breast cancer and for patients with high-grade serous ovarian cancer.

Elizabeth A. Mittendorf, MD, PhD, associate professor, Department of Surgical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses nelipepimut-S (NeuVax) and a proposed trial for patients with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS).