The investigative PD-1 inhibitor balstilimab as a single agent and combined with the CTLA-4 inhibitor zalifrelimab showed promising objective response rates, regardless of PD-L1 expression, and a tolerable safety profile in patients with recurrent/metastatic cervical cancer.
Although atezolizumab did not improve pathological complete response when added to carboplatin and nab-paclitaxel, the immunotherapy increased the pCR by 10% or more in “immune-rich” groups with high-risk and locally advanced triple-negative breast cancer, and also turned PD-L1 negative tumors positive in most immunotherapy-treated patients.
The combination of nivolumab and cabozantinib led to a 49% reduction in the risk of disease progression or death, while also significantly improving overall survival and doubling objective response rate, compared with sunitinib in the first-line treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma.
Neoadjuvant durvalumab achieved a satisfactory complete surgical resection rate in patients with resectable non–small cell lung cancer, demonstrating preliminary promise for this treatment strategy.
One preoperative injection of atezolizumab was considered safe and induced major pathological responses in select patients with resectable non–small cell lung cancer.
Three-year follow-up data for the phase 2 study of the first-in-class inhibitor of apoptosis protein antagonist, xevinapant, in combination with standard cisplatin-based concomitant fractionation chemoradiation therapy reduced the risk of mortality by half compared with CRT alone in patients with locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.
Frontline maintenance treatment with avelumab plus best supportive care improved both progression-free and overall survival compared with BSC alone across prespecified subgroups of patients with advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma that has not progressed on first-line platinum-based chemotherapy.
Despite observed responses, induction therapy with avelumab prior to standard of care gemcitabine/carboplatin fails to sustain clinically meaningful efficacy and is not an adequate strategy for the first-line treatment for patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma.
The investigational PD-L1 inhibitor BGB-A333 in combination with the PD-1 inhibitor tislelizumab demonstrated marked antitumor activity, durable clinical responses, and a tolerable safety profile in patients with urothelial carcinoma.
Bhavana Pothuri, MD, discusses patient-reported outcomes with niraparib in advanced ovarian cancer.
The addition of ipatasertib to paclitaxel failed to improve progression-free survival and objective response rates versus placebo plus paclitaxel in patients with PIK3CA/AKT1/PTEN-altered hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer.
Alexander J. Stratigos, MD, discusses the rationale to evaluate cemiplimab-rwlc in locally advanced basal cell carcinoma.
The open-label arm of the 3-part phase 3 SYMPATICO trial is evaluating the combination of ibrutinib and venetoclax in previously untreated patients with mantle cell lymphoma.
Genetic testing is more important now than ever before, as biomarker-driven cancer treatments continue to receive approval across many tumor types.
Although strategies for treating brain metastases in patients with advanced breast cancer are showing signs of efficacy, new approaches are needed to prevent high-risk, HER2-positive early disease from spreading to the central nervous system.
The advent of gene expression assays has provided predictive insight into chemotherapy benefit that can be combined with prognostic information yielded by gene expression profiling to better target patients with breast cancer who are at higher clinical risk for the use of adjuvant chemotherapy.
Joyce A. O'Shaughnessy, MD, discusses the importance of research regarding the application of DNA repair deficiency in breast cancer, even though it's still in early stages.
In order to achieve health equity for patients with cancer, physicians must first understand the root cause of heath disparities, many of which may be invisible.
Chasity M. Washington, MPH, CHES, discusses ways to mitigate racial disparities in oncology.
Beth Sandy, MSN, CRNP, discusses the evolving treatment landscape in small cell lung cancer.
One of the most important tasks that oncology nurses face is ensuring that patients are taking their medications consistently and correctly, and that adverse events are properly managed—specifically in those patients with breast cancer.
Debu Tripathy, MD, discusses genomically guided therapy in breast cancer.
Paul A. Bunn, Jr, MD, highlights encouraging data with fam-trastuzumab deruxtecan-nxki in HER2-mutant non–small cell lung cancer.
Anne Chiang, MD, PhD, discusses unanswered questions with immunotherapy in non–small cell lung cancer.
Although platinum-based chemotherapy given concurrently with a PD-L1 inhibitor has become the standard of care for the frontline treatment of patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer, investigators have found that maintenance immunotherapy and combination strategies have fallen short of expectations.
The introduction of tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy earlier in the treatment timeline for patients with EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer holds the promise of improving overall survival for this patient population.
David R. Gandara, MD, discusses the current state of tumor mutational burden in lung cancer, ongoing research further examining the utility of this biomarker, and challenges to address with future research.
Paul Baas, MD, PhD, discusses recent updates in immuno-oncology within the field of mesothelioma.
Benjamin P. Levy, MD, discusses the efficacy of crizotinib (Xalkori) versus entrectinib in ROS1-rearranged lung cancer.
Charu Aggarwal, MD, MPH, discusses the current state of treatment for patients with ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer, the utility of liquid biopsy, and remaining questions that need to be addressed in the space.
