Latest Conference Articles

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).

Novel agents that target the replication of the hepatitis C virus are poised to have a far-reaching impact on the prevention and recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma and have shown the ability to reverse liver fibrosis, including cirrhosis in patients with end-stage HCC.

Investigators reported a clinically meaningful extension of overall survival with IMM-101 plus gemcitabine in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Dirk Arnold, MD, director of the Department of Medical Oncology at Klinik für Tumorbiologie, Freiburg, Germany, discusses the phase III Sirflox study, which looked at selective internal radiation therapy (SIRT) using Yttrium-90 (Y-90) resin microspheres for the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer.

Philip Philip MD, PhD, professor of oncology at Karmanos Cancer Center, Wayne State University School of Medicine, discusses the use of the investigational drug evofosfamide for pancreatic cancer.

Andrew Hendifar, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Cedars Sinai Medical Center and the David Geffen School of Medicine, discusses the use of a PEGylated form of rHuPH20 (PEGPH20) added to nab-paclitaxel/gemcitabine for pancreatic cancer patients with high levels of hyaluronan (HA).

Results from a pooled dataset of more than 6000 patients with metastatic colorectal cancer found an association between low body mass index and a worse median overall survival with first-line bevacizumab and chemotherapy, suggesting that low BMI could be a prognostic factor for worse outcomes.

S. Yousuf Zafar, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine at Duke Cancer Institute, discusses the potential link between low body mass index (BMI) and survival outcomes in metastatic colorectal cancer.

Martin Barrett, PhD, Clinical Scientist at Hoffmann-La Roche, discusses a study which compared intravenous (IV) rituximab to subcutaneous rituximab in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

Infusions of CTL019 achieved durable responses and showed an acceptable safety profile in heavily pretreated patients with CD19-positive non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

A three-drug combination comprising the novel Bcl-2 inhibitor venetoclax, bortezomib, and dexamethasone demonstrated a clinical benefit in heavily pretreated patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.

Lenalidomide in combination with rituximab and as maintenance monotherapy is highly active in patients with relapsed/refractory central nervous system non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Carolina Moreno Atanasio, MD, University of Barcelona, discusses an ongoing phase III study comparing ibrutinib and obinutuzumab with chlorambucil and obinutuzumab in treatment-naïve patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL).

Adrian Wiestner, MD, PhD, National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Services, discusses findings from the phase III HELIOS trial, which explored the addition of ibrutinib to bendamustine and rituximab for patients with relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

A chemotherapy-free combination of the anti-CD20 antibody ublituximab, ibrutinib, and the PI3K delta inhibitor TGR-1202 demonstrated robust clinical activity in patients with relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia or B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

The PI3Kδ inhibitor INCB040093 alone or in combination with the JAK1 inhibitor INCB039110 showed early promise in relapsed/refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma.

Susan M. O'Brien, MD, associate director, Clinical Science Medical Director of the Sue and Ralph Stern Center for Cancer Clinical Trials and Research, Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of California at Irvine, discusses the use of ibrutinib and idealisib in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).