Latest Conference Articles

Coexisting driver mutations in EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer could potentially contribute to primary resistance to EGFR-targeted therapy.

The addition of cetuximab (Erbitux) to chemotherapy reduced the risk of death by 44% for patients with advanced squamous non–small cell lung cancer whose tumors test positive for EGFR gene amplification.

The addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to adjuvant chemotherapy did not improve overall survival in patients with surgically resected early-stage non–small cell lung cancer.

Survival for patients with metastatic squamous non–small cell lung cancer whose tumors were positive for EGFR copy number as determined by FISH analysis tended to be better when the EGFR antibody necitumumab was added to their conventional chemotherapy.

Continued treatment with gefitinib beyond progression exhibited a trend toward better outcomes in patients with T790M-negative non­–small cell lung cancer.

Joshua M. Bauml, MD, assistant professor, University of Pennsylvania, discusses a novel IT platform designed to enhance lung cancer clinical trial enrollment.

Lorraine Pelosof, MD, PhD, from The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, discusses a study looking at the incidence of never smokers diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Pasi A. Jänne, MD, PhD, director, Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses biomarker results from the AURA study of AZD9291.

Barbara J. Gitlitz, MD, from the University of Southern California, discusses results and key takeaways from The Genomics of Young Lung Cancer Study.

A chemotherapy-free regimen of nivolumab and ipilimumab demonstrated activity as a first-line therapy for patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer.

Treatment with the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab demonstrated a 32% reduction in the risk of death compared with docetaxel for patients with previously treated squamous non–small cell lung cancer.

Most patients younger than age 40 with lung cancer had tumors with mutations that can be targeted with existing therapies.

Adding bevacizumab (Avastin) to a standard chemotherapy doublet reduced the risk of death by 24% and disease progression by 39% in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma.

Ramaswamy Govindan, MD, medical oncologist, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, discusses a talk given at the 16th World Conference on Lung Cancer.

Patients with newly diagnosed metastatic non-small lung cancer had double the expected response when the PD-L1 inhibitor atezolizumab was added to chemotherapy.

Everett E. Vokes, MD, chair, Department of Medicine, investigator of head and neck and lung cancer, University of Chicago, discusses a plenary session that covered prevention and screening at the 16th World Conference on Lung Cancer.

Overregulation of new drug development has driven up the cost of care and resulted in significant loss of human life by delaying the approval of effective medications.

Axel Grothey, MD, department of Oncology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, discusses the differences between the CORRECT and CONCUR trials, which both looked at regorafenib for previously treated metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).

Yung-Jue Bang, MD, PhD, discusses pembrolizumab for the treatment of advanced gastric cancer. Pembrolizumab was investigated as part of the KEYNOTE-012 study, which looked at the checkpoint inhibitor across several solid tumors.

Michael Manns, MD, the Director of the Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endocrinology at the Medical School of Hannover in Germany, explains risk factors for hepatitis C-related hepatocellular carcinoma.

Patients with metastatic colorectal cancer benefited from treatment with cetuximab plus chemotherapy even after disease progression on a similar regimen as long as their tumors did not harbor mutations in any of four key genes.

Howard S. Hochster, MD, professor of Medicine and Associate Director for Clinical Sciences, Yale Cancer Center, discusses the potential of TAS-102 for colorectal cancer.

The survival benefit observed with regorafenib (Stivarga) over placebo in Asian patients who had been previously treated for metastatic colorectal cancer in the international phase III CORRECT trial was confirmed by the phase III CONCUR trial.

Lorenza Rimassa, MD, Deputy Director - Medical Oncology Unit - Humanitas Cancer Center, Humanitas Research Hospital, discusses a study looking at tivantinib (ARQ 197), a highly selective MET inhibitor, for the treatment of Metastatic Colorectal Cancer (mCRC).

Findings from a large expanded access program have confirmed the efficacy and safety of regorafenib in patients with previously treated metastatic colorectal cancer.

TAS-102 demonstrated similar improvements in overall survival and progression-free survival in patients with heavily pretreated colorectal cancer from the phase III RECOURSE trial stratified by KRAS mutational status.

Adding an NK1 antagonist to a 5-HT3 receptor antagonist with dexamethasone improved antiemetic control for patients with colorectal cancer treated with an oxaliplatin-based regimen compared with the 5-HT3 antagonist and dexamethasone alone.

Andrew Zhu, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Medicine, Harvard Medical School Director, Liver Cancer Research, Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses the REACH study, which looks at ramucirumab in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma.

Josep Tabernero, MD, PhD, summarized novel agents that are currently under exploration for patients with gastric cancer.

Eric Van Cutsem, MD, PhD, of University Hospitals Gasthuisberg/Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, discusses the safety profile of the phase III B CONSIGN study, which looked at regorafenib in patients with previously treated metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).