All Oncology News

The FDA granted a fast track designation to EZM0414, a first-in-class, oral SETD2 inhibitor, for use as a potential therapeutic option in adult patients with relapsed or refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

Expanding the definition of personalized medicine to include social determinants of health disparities is needed to ensure patients with cancer receive optimal care, said Karen Winkfield, MD, PhD, who added that lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic have sparked a new wave of enthusiasm to advocate for change and bridge existing gaps in oncology.

Increases investigative efforts into bispecific monoclonal antibodies could lead to their availability to treat a broad range of hematologic and solid cancers. Their current use in practice is limited to non–small cell lung cancer, leukemia, and hemophilia.

The management of endometrial cancer, a molecularly driven malignancy with 4 distinct subtypes, has witnessed significant progress with recent regulatory approvals of checkpoint blockade alone and in combination, said Bhavana Pothuri, MD, MS.

As the COVID-19 pandemic persists, patients with cancer should receive the full vaccination with 1 of the 3 approved COVID-19 vaccines as soon as they are able, according to Steven Ludlow, PharmD, BCOP, BCPS.

The European Medicines Agency granted an orphan drug designation to devimistat for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory Burkitt lymphoma. The novel compound targets mitochondria in tumor cells.

Leronlimab was found to improve survival in patients with CCR5-positive metastatic triple-negative breast cancer in whom at least 2 prior lines of therapy had failed, according to data from an updated analysis of a Compassionate Use Study, a phase 1b/2 study, and from a basket study.

Maurie Markman, MD, discusses the need for peer-reviewed publications to encourage further discussion and debate, challenge existing ideas or dogma, or provide support for current biological concepts or in the clinical realm for treatment of patients.

ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines indicate that the management of metastatic breast cancer requires nuanced and multidisciplinary decision making to optimize and personalize locoregional, systemic, and supportive care.

Azanucleosides, such as azacitidine, remain the backbone of disease-modifying therapy for patients with myelodysplastic syndromes, however, new adjuncts are leading to longer remissions and disease-free survival in patients with low-risk disease.

The identification of prognostic markers at diagnosis in chronic lymphocytic leukemia is critical, says Deborah M. Stephens, DO, who explains that the results of testing for these markers can be used to educate patients on their prognosis, tailor therapy accordingly, and enroll eligible patients on clinical trials.

Newer modalities are exploring ways to provide more specificity on the value of minimal residual disease negativity in acute myeloid leukemia, since currently there is little definitive action that can be taken with the marker in clinical practice, according to Naval Daver, MD.

The Food and Drug Administration has granted recognition to a partial listing of the Oncology Knowledge Base, a comprehensive precision oncology knowledge databased developed by investigators and physicians at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Radiation oncologists Jacob Scott, MD, DPhil, and Javier Torres-Roca, MD, discuss the benefits of using GARD in a pooled pan-cancer analysis and why there is a call to action to integrate GARD-based radiotherapy dosing in oncology.

American Oncology Network announced that Pinal Cancer & Surgery Center in Casa Grande, Arizona, formerly Alliance Cancer Care and Alliance Surgery Arizona, joined American Oncology Network, effective November 1, 2021.

Although there has been dramatic progress in the treatment landscape for metastatic melanoma over the past decade, many patients whose tumors harbor NRAS mutations have not shared in the improved outcomes.

Paul Lawrence Baron, MD, discussed best practices for determining a patient’s risk of developing breast cancer, the significance of targeting HER2 in patients with early-stage and metastatic disease, and remaining questions with radiation therapy in the field.

Salma K. Jabbour, MD, discusses the validity and clinical implications of using pembrolizumab plus platinum chemoradiation in patients with stage III non–small cell lung cancer.

The FDA has extended the Prescription Drug User Fee Act target date for the biologics license application seeking the approval of the CAR T-cell therapy ciltacabtagene autoleucel for use in adult patients with relapsed and/or refractory multiple myeloma.

Maher Albitar, MD, discusses the unmet needs with genomic testing that served as the impetus to start GTC, the process of becoming a partner with the organization, and the importance of genomic profiling for all patients with cancer.

Sanaz Memarzadeh, MD, PhD, discusses the potential for frontline combination therapy regimens in ovarian cancer.

John V. Heymach, MD, PhD, discusses the background of the Impower010 trial, the benefit for patients with PD-L1 levels of at least 1%, and the exciting direction adjuvant therapy in NSCLC is heading.

Sesen Bio met with the FDA to discuss questions related to the Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls that were raised in the complete response letter previously issued by the regulatory agency regarding the biologics license application for Vicineum as a potential treatment for patients with Bacillus Calmette-Guérin–unresponsive non–muscle invasive bladder cancer.

There is significant clinical, pathological, and outcome heterogeneity in myoepithelial tumors and prognoses for these tumors cannot be determined by a single pathological feature, but rather, several patient and tumor characteristics.

The Association of Community Cancer Centers in collaboration with AstraZeneca, a global, science-led biopharmaceutical company, has announced the findings of a national quality care initiative for patients with stage III and stage IV non-small cell lung cancer.

Standard chemotherapy has historically been the mainstay of treatment for patients with diagnoses of early-stage TNBC, but there remains an unmet need to identify novel therapies that improve outcomes and, equally important, to discern which patients may benefit from a given treatment.

Adjuvant pembrolizumab continued to showcase improved relapse-free survival over placebo in patients with resected high-risk stage II melanoma with 6 months of additional follow-up.

Sequential radiotherapy demonstrated preliminary efficacy and safety as a potential alternative to systemic therapy in patients with oligometastatic renal cell carcinoma.

The FDA has accepted for review a biologics license application for the use of toripalimab in combination with gemcitabine and cisplatin in the frontline treatment of patients with advanced recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and for use as a single agent in the second- or later-line treatment of patients with recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma following platinum-containing chemotherapy.

Men carrying MSH2 and MSH6 pathogenic variants, which are associated with Lynch syndrome, were found to have a higher incidence of prostate cancer compared with age-matched non-carrier individuals, supporting the value of annual, targeted prostate-specific antigen screening from age 40 to identify men with clinically significant prostate cancer.