ASCO Annual Meeting

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.

Nicholas J. Vogelzang, MD,discusses results from the phase III CHAARTED (E3805) study that examined the addition of chemotherapy to androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) for the treatment of men with newly diagnosed metastatic, hormone-sensitive prostate cancer.

Angela Dispenzieri, MD, a professor of medicine in the division of hematology at the Mayo Clinic, discusses excitement over the development of CD38-targeted monoclonal antibodies as treatments for patients with multiple myeloma.

The anti-PD-1 humanized antibody pembrolizumab has robust antitumor activity as a first-line treatment for patients with advanced PD-L1-positive NSCLC.

Robert Figlin, MD, FACP, Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Steven Spielberg Family Chair in Hematology Oncology, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, discusses recent advances in the field of immunotherapy for kidney cancer.

James R. Berenson, MD, founder, President and Medical and Scientific Director of the Institute for Myeloma and Bone Cancer Research, President of Oncotherapeutics, discusses the dose-escalation portion of the phase I/II CHAMPION-1 study looking at weekly carfilzomib in combination with dexamethasone for patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma.

Adding necitumumab to standard of care with gemcitabine-cisplatin significantly improves survival compared with chemotherapy alone as first-line treatment in patients with stage IV non–small-cell lung cancer of squamous histology.

Suresh S. Ramalingam, MD, a professor of medical oncology at the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, discusses the results of the phase III REVEL study in NSCLC.

Jedd D. Wolchok, MD, PhD, medical oncologist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Giant of Cancer Care, discusses the initial efficacy and safety results from the EORTC 18071 phase III trial, which looked at ipilimumab versus placebo after complete resection of stage III melanoma.

Anas Younes, MD, chief, Lymphoma Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses a phase III study of ibrutinib in combination R-CHOP in patients with newly diagnosed nongerminal center B-cell subtype of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

Combining panobinostat (LBH589) with bortezomib and dexamethasone delayed disease progression by 3.9 months over bortezomib and dexamethasone alone in patients with relapsed or relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma.

The CD38-specific monoclonal antibody SAR650984 demonstrated encouraging efficacy as a monotherapy and in combination with dexamethasone and lenalidomide without reaching a maximum tolerated dose in patients with heavily pretreated multiple myeloma.

Long-term follow-up results demonstrated nearly doubled median OS with the combination of ipilimumab and nivolumab compared with either agent alone.

David Spigel, MD, director of Lung Cancer Research at the Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses current trials involving MPDL3280A in lung cancer.

The addition of the investigational hypoxia-targeted drug TH-302 to dexamethasone has demonstrated beneficial activity and a manageable adverse event profile in the treatment of patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.

The novel agents idelalisib and ABT-199 in combination with rituximab have demonstrated impressive activity with manageable toxicity for patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

A joint analysis of two phase III trials involving a total of 4690 premenopausal women with hormone-receptor–positive (HR+) breast cancer demonstrated that adjuvant use of the aromatase inhibitor (AI), exemestane, reduced relative risk of developing subsequent invasive cancer by 28% compared with tamoxifen when both agents were combined with ovarian function suppression (OFS).

The intratumoral injection talimogene laherparepvec demonstrated promise in combinations and utility as a monotherapy in certain subsets of patients with unresectable melanoma.

Two patients with metastatic cervical cancer achieved durable complete responses that have so far lasted from 15 to 22 months through an adoptive T-cell therapy (ACT) targeting the human papillomavirus (HPV) in a study that researchers say supports the concept that the experimental immunotherapy approach may be beneficial in a variety of tumor types.

The anti-PD 1 checkpoint inhibitor, pembrolizumab, continues to deliver impressive results in patients with advanced melanoma-producing long-lasting responses and improved overall survival, regardless of whether patients have been previously treated with ipilimumab.

The immunotherapy drug ipilimumab reduced the relative risk of cancer recurrence in the adjuvant setting by 25% compared to placebo for patients with high-risk, lymph-node positive melanoma.

Robert H. I. Andtbacka, MD, CM, from the Huntsman Cancer Institute, discusses OS findings from the phase III OPTiM study that explored T-VEC in patients with unresectable melanoma.

Lawrence Fong, MD, from the University of California, San Francisco, discusses the systemic antitumor effect and clinical response in a phase II trial of intratumoral electroporation of plasmid interleukin-12 in patients with advanced melanoma.

Johanna Bendell, MD, director of GI Cancer Research Program, associate director, Drug Development Program, Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses two studies in BRAF-mutated colorectal cancer.

The third-generation EGFR inhibitor CO-1686 continues to demonstrate promising activity in patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who developed resistance after prior treatment with an EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI).

Naiyer A. Rizvi, MD, an associate attending physician, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the safety and response with plus erlotinib in patients with epidermal growth factor receptor mutant (EGFR MT) advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Frontline therapy with bevacizumab (Avastin) or cetuximab (Erbitux) combined with either FOLFOX or FOLFIRI yielded a comparable survival benefit of approximately 29 months in patients with KRAS wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer

In what was described as "an almost unprecedented improvement in median survival," the addition of the chemotherapy drug docetaxel to standard hormone therapy prolonged life for men with newly diagnosed metastatic, hormone-sensitive prostate cancer by nearly 14 months.