Latest Conference Articles

Frontline treatment with everolimus (Afinitor) combined with trastuzumab (Herceptin) and paclitaxel failed to delay disease progression versus trastuzumab and paclitaxel alone in patients with HER2-positive advanced breast cancer

Fulvestrant (Faslodex) improved overall survival (OS) by 5.7 months compared with anastrozole as a frontline treatment for postmenopausal women with HR-positive metastatic breast cancer

Rita Nanda, MD, assistant professor of medicine and associate director of the Breast Medical Oncology Program at the University of Chicago, discusses the potential of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). A recent small-scale trial showed treatment response for 18.5% of patients with PD-L1 positive TNBC.

Older patients with moderate- or high-risk breast cancer had a similar disease-free survival with the bisphosphonate therapy ibandronate alone or in combination with capecitabine.

Five years of tamoxifen continues to offer protection against breast cancer, reducing the risk of breast cancer by 29% in otherwise healthy women at high risk of the disease who have been followed now for 16 to 22 years.

Women with HR+ breast cancer who remained premenopausal after receiving chemotherapy had a lower risk of disease recurrence when adding ovarian suppression to adjuvant exemestane or-to a lesser extent-tamoxifen, compared with standard tamoxifen alone, according to results from the phase III SOFT trial.

The addition of bevacizumab (Avastin) to standard neoadjuvant chemotherapy significantly improved pathologic complete response (pCR) rates in women with basal-like breast cancer compared with non-basal-like subtypes.

Nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) proved markedly more effective than conventional paclitaxel as part of a neoadjuvant regimen for patients with high-risk early breast cancer in a large German study presented at the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Edith A. Perez, MD, the deputy director at large for the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, discusses the potential for immune checkpoint blockage as treatment for patients with advanced breast cancer.

The PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab has demonstrated promising clinical activity with an acceptable safety profile in heavily pretreated patients with recurrent metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.

The addition of the investigational PI3K inhibitor pictilisib to fulvestrant in patients with metastatic breast cancer yielded some intriguing findings in the phase II FERGI study.

Among HER2-positive breast cancer patients treated with chemotherapy alone, women with high levels of stromal tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes had an 80% lower likelihood of disease recurrence compared to those with lower TIL counts.

Some patients with heavily treated acute myelogenous leukemia benefited from treatment with the BCL-2 inhibitor venetoclax (ABT-199).

Ninety-six percent of patients with relapsed or refractory Hodgkin lymphoma who received treatment with the combination of brentuximab vedotin and bendamustine responded to treatment without experiencing dose-limiting toxicity.

Almost 90% of patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma responded to the targeted combination of ibrutinib and rituximab.

Ian Flinn, MD, PhD, director of the hematologic malignancies program at Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses findings from a phase I study that explored monotherapy with the PI3K-gamma and delta inhibitor duvelisib (IPI-145) in patients with relapsed/refractory indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Jia Ruan, MD, PhD, is an associate professor at Weill Cornell Medical College, discusses sustained remissions experienced by patients treated with the combination of lenalidomide and rituximab as initial treatment for MCL.

Patients with HIV-associated lymphoma can effectively be treated with autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, with outcomes that are similar to patients without HIV.

Noopur Raje, MD, from the Multiple Myeloma Program at Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses the unprecedented efficacy seen with monoclonal antibodies as treatments for patients with multiple myeloma.

Treatment with elotuzumab in combination with lenalidomide and dexamethasone demonstrated encouraging efficacy in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.

Treatment with nilotinib in combination with chemotherapy elicited complete hematological remissions in 87% of elderly patients with newly diagnosed Philadelphia-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

The novel drug AG-221 generated durable remissions in patients with AML by targeting a mutation of the IDH2 gene in a small, first-in-man study that represents a new, chemotherapy-free approach for attacking the malignancy.

The anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor-modified T-cell therapy CTL019 demonstrated an impressive 92% complete response rate in pediatric patients with relapsed/refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Farhad Ravandi, MD, from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, describes results from the phase III VALOR trial that explored vosaroxin plus cytarabine versus placebo and cytarabine in patients with first relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia.

Idelalisib monotherapy shows activity in treatment-naïve patients ≥65 years with CLL or SLL, with nearly 90% of patients enrolled in a phase II study demonstrating a partial response.

Eytan Stein, MD, from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses new data from a phase I study exploring the oral IDH2 inhibitor AG-221 in patients with advanced hematologic malignancies, primarily acute myelogenous leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome.