Vol. 18/No. 16

Nintedanib, an angiogenesis inhibitor, is being investigated as a first-line treatment for patients with unresectable malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM).

The use of biomarkers in genitourinary cancers offers exciting potential in understanding which patients may do better with androgen-targeting therapies.

Researchers have concluded from an analysis of multiple studies that the fecal immunochemical test has high overall diagnostic accuracy for screening asymptomatic patients at an increased risk for colorectal cancer (CRC) and moderate accuracy for diagnosing advanced neoplasia (AN).

Monotherapy with a tyrosine kinase inhibitor is the frontline standard of care for patients with advanced EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer, with 3 currently approved agents: erlotinib, gefitinib, and afatinib.

PARP inhibitors are the most commonly used targeted therapy for patients with recurrent ovarian cancer, and the indications for the use of these drugs have broadened in recent months.

Research into the biology of prostate cancer has resulted in a growing understanding of the molecular drivers of the malignancy, resulting in a rapid evolution of genetic testing that is poised to revolutionize the diagnosis and care of at-risk men as well as those who have the disease.

As researchers continue to explore immune checkpoints as targets for anticancer therapies, the IDO pathway has emerged as the leading contender to yield the next batch of new drugs in the field.

This commentary from Maurie Markman, MD, highlights a critical required component for the development of effective novel antineoplastic strategies through the process widely known as precision cancer medicine.

One of the most gratifying aspects of the current age of discovery in anticancer therapy is the evolution of once-fatal malignancies into chronic diseases. The pace of progress, however, has not been equal across tumor types.

Immune checkpoint inhibitors in triple-negative breast cancer are showing promise, but there must be future research to determine whether these agents can make a difference in this challenging malignancy.

The NovaSeq 5000 and the NovaSeq 6000, from Illumina, are series sequencers designed to conduct large-scale genomics projects with greater sample volumes, which lowers the per-sample costs for most applications.

As the number of tumor types with approved PD-1/PD-L1 pathway inhibitors continues to expand, bladder cancer has become a robust area of development.

Controlling indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma remains a priority as it has the potential to transform to aggressive or high-grade lymphoma.

Given the "addiction" of many tumors to mutant RAS for their survival, there has been renewed interest in developing new ways to inhibit RAS in cancer.

Investigators are looking into a novel immunotherapy combination that pairs the first-in-class IDO1 inhibitor epacadostat (INCB024360) with the checkpoint blockade agent pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma.

It has long been recognized that the elderly are acutely underrepresented in the clinical trials that help to define the standards of care in oncologic management in the United States.