All Oncology News

February 9, 2021 - The FDA has approved cemiplimab-rwlc as the first immunotherapy for use in patients with advanced basal cell carcinoma that has previously been treated with a hedgehog pathway inhibitor (HHI) or for whom a HHI is not appropriate.

February 9, 2021 - Responsiveness to treatment received immediately prior to CAR T-cell therapy may not be associated with post–CAR T outcomes in patients with relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma who receive axicabtagene ciloleucel.

February 9, 2021 - The European Commission has granted a full marketing authorization for fedratinib for the treatment of disease-related splenomegaly or symptoms in adult patients with primary myelofibrosis, post-polycythemia vera myelofibrosis, or post-essential thrombocytopenia myelofibrosis who have not received JAK inhibitors or who have received ruxolitinib.

February 9, 2021 - Ruxolitinib, when administered using a pediatric dosing algorithm, was found to elicit responses in patients with chronic graft-versus-host disease with acceptable safety.

Shaji K. Kumar, MD, discusses novel combinations that are being introduced to the relapsed/refractory setting in multiple myeloma, the value of minimal residual disease, and the importance of understanding potential toxicity when utilizing newer agents in the space.

February 9, 2021 - JSP191 in combination with low-dose total body irradiation and fludarabine has demonstrated efficacy and tolerability in older patients with minimal residual disease–positive acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome who are undergoing nonmyeloablative allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation.

February 9, 2021 - The FDA has granted breakthrough therapy designations to asciminib for the treatment of adult patients with Philadelphia chromosome–positive chronic myeloid leukemia in chronic phase who received prior treatment with 2 or more TKIs, and for adult patients with Ph-positive CML in chronic phase whose tumors harbor the T315I mutation.

February 8, 2021 — Narsoplimab demonstrated clinical activity and a favorable survival benefit in patients with high-risk hematopoietic stem cell transplant-associated thrombotic microangiopathy, according to updated results of a pivotal phase 2 trial.

With the emergence of multiple immunotherapy approaches in recent years, the decision of whether to use a single agent, to pair it with chemotherapy, or to pair it with another immunotherapy agent has come to the forefront of treatment.

Vincent Lam, MD, describes frontline indications for this patient population, as well as strategies that can be utilized to overcome TKI resistance in later lines of therapy.

Immunotherapy plus chemotherapy is a standard of care for patients with advanced PD-L1–negative non–small cell lung cancer who do not harbor actionable driver mutations.

February 8, 2021 - These findings may have implications for patients with hematologic malignancies, suggesting the development of protective memory against SARS-CoV2 and non-SARS human coronaviruses.

Formerly, small cell lung cancer was generally considered more chemotherapy sensitive in the short term but also associated with an overall inferior survival outcome; however, the difference in prognosis compared with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer was measured in months—rarely longer.

Yttrium-90 glass microspheres, a personalized radiotherapeutic cancer treatment, induced an overall response rate of 72.2% per blinded independent central review as neoadjuvant or stand-alone treatment in 143 evaluable patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.

Now that a new standard of care has been established in frontline mesothelioma, clinical trials are needed to evaluate optimal sequencing with checkpoint inhibitors in the salvage setting and determine whether biomarkers of response to immunotherapy could further tailor treatment to individual patients.

Synergizing EGFR TKIs with antiangiogenic agents and chemotherapy, as well as improving the use of molecular classification, are novel strategies aimed at taking the frontline setting for patients with EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer to the next level.

Mark A. Socinski, MD, discusses the nuances of the PACIFIC trial and ongoing research with durvalumab that could extend the reach of immunotherapy in early-stage lung cancer.

Over the past 2 decades, the field of EGFR-mutated non–small cell lung cancer has grown tremendously, but the influx of data and the recent regulatory approval of adjuvant osimertinib have raised several important questions to be addressed to ensure that the optimal treatment approach is utilized.

Rogerio C. Lilenbaum, MD, discusses some of the key clinical issues facing the lung cancer field, the role of genomic testing and multidisciplinary care, and the challenges that arose with telemedicine during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.

In the quest for scientific purity, one should not lose sight of the meaningful end points that can make a difference in patients’ daily lives.

February 5, 2021 - Significant heterogeneity was identified in risk of coronavirus disease 2019–related death in patients based on factors such as cancer subtype, age, sex, and in-patient proportion.

February 5, 2021 - Following stem cell transplant or treatment with CAR T-cell therapies, patients with hematologic malignancies and coronavirus disease 2019 tend to have favorable outcomes, especially if they are diagnosed in complete remission and further out from their cell infusion.

February 5, 2021 - The FDA has granted an accelerated approval to umbralisib for the treatment of select patients with relapsed/refractory marginal zone lymphoma and relapsed/refractory follicular lymphoma.

February 5, 2021 - The FDA has approved lisocabtagene maraleucel for the treatment of adult patients with certain types of large B-cell lymphoma who have not responded to, or who have relapsed after, at least 2 other types of systemic treatment.

Although advances in diagnosis and treatment have led to improvements in overall survival for patients with NSCLC, low rates of survival outcomes are present even in those with nonmetastatic disease.

Lori J. Wirth, MD, , discusses the potential impact of pralsetinib on the thyroid cancer treatment landscape.

February 5, 2021 - Durvalumab failed to improve overall survival over the EXTREME chemotherapy regimen in the frontline treatment of patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma with tumors expressed high levels of PD-L1, missing a primary end point of the phase 3 KESTREL trial.

Introduced today in the state Senate, legislation details six rights for every cancer patient in California.

Surgical resection should be a standard of care for patients with stage I to IIIA lung cancer, but probing for subclinical stage III disease with endobronchial ultrasound guided biopsy or mediastinoscopy to determine whether surgery should be performed prior to or after systemic therapy.

February 5, 2021 - The potent CDK9 inhibitor zotiraciclib, when used in combination was temozolomide, was found to induce clinically meaningful efficacy with a tolerable safety profile in patients with recurrent, high-grade gliomas.