Vol. 21/No. 6

During a recent OncLive Peer Exchange®, experts in breast cancer research expressed optimism that new therapies would improve outcomes for patients with this challenging disease.

How to best pair immune checkpoint inhibitors with other agents known to have efficacy in genitourinary cancers was a key avenue of inquiry of many of the studies presented at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

In a time of tremendous technological advancement, how is it that 90% of communications between providers and payers for prior authorizations are still done by phone or fax, and how do we move to more automated processes?1

In January, America’s Health Insurance Plans in collaboration with payers representing 60 million covered individuals launched the Fast Prior Authorization Technology Highway to improve the prior authorization process.

Although acute graft-versus-host disease remains potentially fatal for patients who undergo allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, prevention and treatment strategies for this complication are evolving.

Despite being implicated across the spectrum of cancer hallmarks, aberrant AXL signaling is just starting to emerge as a distinct anticancer target, with a growing focus on specific inhibitors as well as alternative novel drug designs.

Investigators are evaluating whether the addition of venetoclax to a standard doublet regimen in chronic lymphocytic leukemia can induce responses deep enough to allow patients to not only suspend long-term treatment but also avoid associated toxicity.

Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, discusses key trials in multiple myeloma that have reported promising findings or are poised to shed light on novel treatments.

Michael C. Heinrich, MD, discusses the recent approval of avapritinib for advanced PDGFRA exon 18–mutated gastrointestinal stromal tumor.

Driven by advances in genetic testing methods and the discovery of actionable mutations beyond BRCA, an update to the National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s Guidelines for genetic testing in breast, ovarian, and pancreatic cancers encompasses a much broader range of genes that predict risk for disease occurrence.

In a recent study, investigators at UCLA and UCSF have demonstrated high positive predictive value for a new imaging technique for localizing recurrent prostate cancer.

Segments of the population have apparently rejected the well-documented clinical utility of vaccination for protecting individual and public health. An immediate specific concern is the contentious matter of measles vaccination, which has been well-reported in the lay press.