ASCO Annual Meeting

Frontline nivolumab as monotherapy and in combination with ipilimumab more than doubled progression-free survival versus ipilimumab alone in patients with advanced melanoma.

Patients with melanoma who are found to have micrometastases after an initial positive sentinel node biopsy can safely forgo a complete lymph node dissection, thus avoiding the risk of debilitating adverse events from the surgery.

Treatment with atezolizumab doubled overall survival compared with docetaxel in previously treated patients with PD-L1-positive squamous and non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer.

An immunotherapy combination demonstrated "high levels of clinical activity" in previously treated non-small cell lung cancer across a range of doses.

The first study to compare the efficacy and safety of tamoxifen versus anastrozole in women treated for ductal carcinoma in situ suggests that anastrozole may be the better choice for preventing the escalation of DCIS into invasive cancer.

Jeffrey Jones, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and section head of the Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) research program at Ohio State University, discusses the results of a phase III randomized, controlled study evaluating idelalisib (Zydelig) in combination with ofatumumab (Arzerra) compared to ofatumumab alone for previously treated CLL.

Treatment with an adjuvant combination of docetaxel, androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), and radiation therapy (RT) improved 4-year overall survival rates in patients with high-risk localized prostate cancer, when compared with ADT plus RT alone.

Patients with relapsed indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma experienced a doubling of progression-free survival when treated with a combination of the anti-CD20 agent obinutuzumab and bendamustine.

Asher A. Chanan-Khan, MD, chair, Hematology/Oncology, Cancer Center, Mayo Clinic, discusses a recent study that examined ibrutinib combined with bendamustine and ritxuimab (BR) in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL).

Daratumumab demonstrated a 65% one-year overall survival rate and a 29.2% objective response rate in patients with double refractory heavily pretreated multiple myeloma.

Adding ibrutinib to standard bendamustine and rituximab (BR) reduced the risk of disease progression by 80% compared with BR plus placebo in patients with pretreated CLL or SLL.

Nivolumab has now been shown to have an overall survival benefit versus docetaxel in both nonsquamous and squamous non–small cell lung cancer.

Tanguy Seiwert, MD, assistant professor of medicine and associate leader of the head and neck cancer program, University of Chicago, discusses the efficacy of pembrolizumab in head and neck cancer.

Nivolumab generated antitumor responses in nearly 20% of patients with advanced HCC in a small study that suggests a promising role for the immunotherapy agent in a malignancy with dismal outcomes.

In a multisite study offering the largest experience to date of how immunotherapy can be deployed in patients with head and neck cancer, the anti-PD-1 antibody pembrolizumab produced broad and durable responses in patients with advanced disease.

Treatment with the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab demonstrated high response rates in patients with heavily pretreated colorectal cancer who harbored genetic defects in mismatch repair.

Howard Burris, III, MD, chief medical officer and executive director of Drug Development at the Sarah Cannon Research Institute discusses the importance of the ASCO annual meeting, taking place May 29 - June 2.

PracticeNET is an initiative emerging from ASCO's Clinical Affairs Department designed to help practices learn from one another's successes as they move farther away from fee-for-service and toward increasingly cost-effective models of care.

Findings from large, late-stage clinical trials in melanoma, non–small cell lung cancer, and several hematologic malignances are expected to rank among the most clinically significant research findings presented at the 2015 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting.

Adding elotuzumab to lenalidomide (Revlimid) and dexamethasone reduced the risk of disease progression by 30% in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.

The addition of docetaxel to standard hormonal therapy significantly improved survival among men with newly diagnosed, hormone-naïve advanced prostate cancer.

For those with a history of non-melanoma skin cancer, reducing their risk of recurrence can be as simple as taking the vitamin B3 pill nicotinamide.

Treatment with an intensified chemotherapy regimen was associated with improvements in event-free survival for children with favorable histology Wilms tumor with loss of heterozygosity in chromosomes 1p and 16q.

Edith A. Perez, MD, discusses a genomic analysis of immune function genes and clinical outcome in the NCCTG (Alliance) N9831 adjuvant trastuzumab trial.

Jyoti D. Patel, MD, discusses a phase II trial that looked at olaparib in combination with cediranib versus olaparib alone in recurrent platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer.

Martin Schlumberger, MD, Institut Gustave Roussy, Villejuif Cedex, professor of oncology, University Paris-Sud, France, discusses the takeaway points for a community oncologist from the SELECT trial.

Mario Sznol, MD, professor, Internal Medicine, Yale Cancer Center, discusses a phase I trial that examined the combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab for the treatment of advanced melanoma.

Continuing EGFR inhibition beyond progression with afatinib plus paclitaxel significantly improved PFS and ORR compared with chemotherapy alone in patients with heavily pretreated metastatic NSCLC.