Dr. Giaccone on Investigational Agents in Thymic Cancers

Giuseppe Giaccone, MD, PhD, is a professor of medicine and associate director of clinical research at the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, New York, discusses investigational agents in thymic cancers.

Thymic cancers are understudied and research is underfunded. Nonetheless, there are recent data with investigator agents that Giaccone is interested in. He believes combinations of immunotherapy and anti-angiogensis agents are the future of treatment for patients with thymic cancers, specifically, as well as solid tumors in general.

In the phase 2 CAVEAT trial, investigators found that combination of avelumab (Bavencio) and axitinib (Inlyta) induced a promising response rate in pretreated patients with advanced type B3 thymoma and thymic carcinoma. He added that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) has demonstrated durable responses in this patient population.