Latest Conference Articles

At more than 40 months’ follow-up, combining obinutuzumab with chemotherapy in the first-line setting reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 32% versus rituximab plus chemotherapy in patients with follicular lymphoma.

Combining the novel BTK inhibitor BGB-3111 with the CD-20 antibody obinutuzumab demonstrated clinical activity and was well tolerated in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic leukemia or follicular lymphoma.

BGB-3111, a highly specific BTK inhibitor, is active in patients with Waldenström macroglobulinemia, according to an interim analysis from an ongoing phase I trial.

Avelumab (Bavencio) demonstrated clinical activity and an acceptable safety and tolerability profile in heavily pretreated patients with classical Hodgkin lymphoma.

Clemens A. Schmitt, MD, director and professor at Berlin School of Integrative Oncology, discusses a conceptually novel treatment approach to classical Hodgkin lymphoma.

Neil L. Berinstein, MD, professor, University of Toronto, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, discusses combination treatments for patients with high-risk or recurrent follicular lymphoma.

Tazemetostat (EPZ-6438) demonstrated strong clinical activity in patients with advanced EZH2-mutated follicular lymphoma, and was also active in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

High levels of response were observed with nivolumab (Opdivo), regardless of previous treatment with brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris), in patients with relapsed/refractory Hodgkin lymphoma after autologous stem-cell transplant.

Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) demonstrated antitumor activity in the majority of patients with recurrent/refractory primary mediastinal large B-cell lymphoma.

Loretta J. Nastoupil, MD, associate professor, Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses high response rates with prembrolizumab (Keytruda) in combination with rituximab (Rituxan) in patients with relapsed follicular lymphoma.

Sattva Neelapu, MD, associate professor, Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma, Division of Cancer Medicine, at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the ZUMA-1 trial investigating axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel; KTE-C19) for patients with refractory aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Constantine S. Tam, MD, discusses phase III PCYC-1143 trial is investigating the combination of ibrutinib and venetoclax as well as the next steps with venetoclax /ibrutinib and other rational combinations in MCL.

Patients with refractory aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphoma lacking curative treatment options demonstrated high response rates and durable responses plus a manageable safety profile following treatment with axicabtagene ciloleucel.

Tisagenlecleucel-T (CTL019) met its primary endpoint for best objective response rate in patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

Brad S. Kahl, MD, professor, Department of Medicine, Oncology Division, Washington University School of Medicine, discusses ADCT-402 for patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell lineage non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Constantine S. Tam, MD, associate professor, Peter MacCullum Cancer Centre, discusses the phase II and phase III studies investigating the combination of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) plus venetoclax (Venclexta) for patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL).

In recognition of the potential for real-world evidence to significantly improve the way patients with cancer are treated, CancerLinQ has formed new partnerships with the US government that are expected to coordinate the sharing of patient data and incorporate that information into the FDA regulatory process.

Patients with T790M-positive non–small cell lung cancer had superior outcomes when treated with osimertinib (Tagrisso) for central nervous system metastases, according to phase III results presented at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Paolo A. Ascierto, MD, director at the Unit of Melanoma, Cancer Immunotherapy and Innovative Therapy, National Tumor Institute Fondazione G. Pascale, discusses findings from a phase Ib/II dose-escalation study evaluating the triple combination therapy with encorafenib, binimetinib, and ribociclib (Kisqali) in patients with BRAF V600-mutant solid tumors and melanoma.

Combining the PD-L1 inhibitor avelumab (Bavencio) with the VEGF inhibitor axitinib (Inlyta) as a frontline regimen induced a response rate of 58.2% in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma, according to findings from the phase Ib JAVELIN Renal 100 trial presented at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Marina Chiara Garassino, MD, medical consultant in the Medical Oncology Division, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milan, Italy, discusses a subset analysis of the AURA3 trial, which demonstrated significant clinical activity with osimertinib (Tagrisso) for patients with EGFR T790M-mutation positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who also harbor brain metastases.

H. Jack West, MD, a thoracic oncologist of Swedish Cancer Institute at Swedish Medical Center, discusses some potential emerging changes coming to the field of EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), including next-generation EGFR inhibitors such as osimertinib (Tagrisso) that is now being explored in the FLAURA trial as a frontline treatment for these patients.

Ali McBride, PharmD, MS, BCPS, clinical coordinator, Hematology/Oncology, secretary, Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC), discusses the importance with and excitement of oral oncolytics.

Gunter von Minckwitz, MD, PhD, president of the German Breast Group in Neu-Isenburg, Germany, discusses the phase III results of the APHINITY trial, which explored the addition of pertuzumab (Perjeta) to standard postoperative trastuzumab (Herceptin) therapy for patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer.

Combining the PD-1­ inhibitor pembrolizumab with the IDO1 inhibitor epacadostat led to an overall response rate of 35% in patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma.

Alice T. Shaw, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, attending physician, Thoracic Cancer Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses the phase III results of the international ALEX trial, which compared the alectinib (Alecensa) with crizotinib (Xalkori) in the frontline setting for patients with ALK-positive, metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

The combination of the IDO inhibitor epacadostat and nivolumab demonstrated promising signs of activity for patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck and those with melanoma.

Early results from a Chinese study showed that 33 of 35 patients (94%) with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma experienced clinical remission after treatment with chimeric antigen receptor T cells targeting B-cell maturation protein.

Dacomitinib, a second-generation EGFR inhibitor, reduced the risk of disease progression by more than 40% and resulted in an average 6.5-month improvement in response duration compared with gefitinib (Iressa) as a first-line treatment for patients with advanced, EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer.

The addition of pertuzumab (Perjeta) to standard postoperative trastuzumab (Herceptin) therapy for patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer slightly improved the rate of recurrence overall but had a greater benefit for individuals with higher-risk disease, particularly as more time elapsed, according to early results from the phase III APHINITY trial.