Danielle Ternyila

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Prasad S. Adusumilli, MD, FACS, discussed how CAR T-cell therapy could play a role in the treatment of solid tumors. He highlighted the current research and next steps planned to move this cellular therapy into the solid tumor treatment landscape.

These data suggest that screening for pulmonary hypertension is warranted in patients with a Philadelphia chromosome-negative myeloproliferative neoplasm, both at the time of diagnosis and during follow-up.

Oral relugolix received a priority review designation from the FDA for the treatment of patients with advanced prostate cancer.

Targeted Oncology reviews trending news online for the week of June 19, 2020, including recent news from the FDA, updates in oncology, and new information regarding COVID-19.

In an interview with  Targeted Oncology,  Marcia Brose, MD, PhD, discussed the importance of conducting genetic testing on all patients with metastatic solid tumors following the exciting data on larotrectinib.

Fruquitinib was granted Fast Track Designation for the treatment of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer who have received prior fluoropyrimidine-, oxaliplatin-, and irinotecan-based chemotherapy and anti-VEGF therapy, as well as anti-EGFR therapy for RAS wild-type tumors

"Cancer is now the number 1 cause of death in many parts of the United States and overall, men are at a 50% likelihood of having some sort of cancer diagnosed in their lifetime, where it is slightly lower in women at about a third."

“The completion of this New Drug Application submission marks an important milestone in bringing us 1 step closer to providing umbralisib as a potential treatment option for patients with relapsed/refractory marginal zone lymphoma and follicular lymphoma."

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Suresh Ramalingam, MD, FASCO, discussed the findings from the CheckMate 227 study that support the FDA’s approval of the combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab in patients with advanced NSCLC.

“While the trial is still ongoing, we are encouraged by the efficacy we are seeing thus far in patients with relapsed/refractory AML, particularly the durability of response observed in some patients."

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Lucy Gilbert, MD, MSc, discussed the interim findings for mirvetuximab in combination with bevacizumab as treatment of patients with platinum-agnostic ovarian cancer.

The FDA expanded the approval of gemtuzumab ozogamicin to include an indication for the treatment of newly diagnosed pediatric patients with CD33-positive acute myeloid leukemia, which includes patients as young as 1 month old.

“These interim results from the PROTECTIVE-2 Phase 3 study, which compares the Plinabulin-Neulasta combination to Neulasta alone, have the potential to be clinically meaningful for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy."

“Today’s approval for the prevention of HPV-related oropharyngeal and other head and neck cancers represents an important step in Merck’s mission to help reduce the number of men and women affected by certain HPV-related cancers.”

Targeted Oncology reviews trending news online for the week of June 12, 2020, including recent news from the FDA, updates in oncology, and new information regarding COVID-19.

The study showed that the development of immune-related adverse events in advanced solid tumors was positively correlated with improved progression-free survival and overall survival in a retrospective analysis, which also showed that Caucasian patients developed immune-related adverse events more frequently than African American patients.

“Larotrectinib is extremely well-tolerated, and when we look at the poster from ASCO, we can actually see there are very few grade 3 toxicities that are attributed to larotrectinib. With a 10% complete response rate and all the patients getting really deep responses, it just blows almost all of the comparative chemotherapies in each of these cancers out of the park."

“The completion of target patient enrollment in the Phase 3 ATHENA trial is an important milestone for Clovis and a critical step toward developing additional therapeutic options for women with advanced ovarian cancer."

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Jeff P. Sharman, MD, discussed the findings for the combination of ublituximab plus ibrutinib as treatment of patients with high-risk relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

The FDA granted approval to pegfilgrastim-apgf, a biosimilar of pegfilgrastim, which is indicated to decrease the incidence of infection due to febrile neutropenia in patients with non-myeloid malignancies who are receiving myelosuppressive anti-cancer agents associated with a clinically significant incidence of febrile neutropenia.

The FDA granted approval to nivolumab for the treatment of patients with unresectable advanced, recurrent, or metastatic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma after receiving prior fluoropyrimidine- and platinum-based chemotherapy.

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Marcia Brose, MD, PhD, discussed the role of genetic testing in patients with thyroid cancer and the current treatment landscape.

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, David G. Maloney, MD, PhD, discussed findings from administration of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy in the outpatient setting for patients with B-cell lymphomas.

“While the sample size and power are limited, these results suggest that a higher HER2 FISH ratio at baseline core biopsy may be a potential biomarker to select patients for neoadjuvant dual anti-HER2 therapy without chemotherapy."

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Scott Tykodi, MD, PhD, discussed findings from the analysis from the KEYNOTE-427 trial in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma.

In an attempt to better understand the critical unmet needs of young survivors of and patients with colorectal cancer, the Colorectal Cancer Alliance launched an annual survey. These latest findings indicate the unique challenges of young-onset CRC and the need to continue improving this treatment landscape.

“We found that the genomic alterations with smoldering multiple myeloma are essentially the same as full-fledged myeloma. This suggests that by the time smoldering multiple myeloma is diagnosed, most of the molecular abnormalities found in myeloma have already occurred.”

Chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy lead to poor overall survival outcomes it patients who were 75 years or older with relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma compared with patients aged 70 to 74 years, but progression-free survival was comparable between the 2 groups.

Targeted Oncology reviews trending news online for the week of June 5, 2020, including recent news from the FDA, updates in oncology, and new information regarding COVID-19.

Following the 2020 ASCO Virtual Scientific Program, Targeted Oncology spoke with oncologists from various fields to hear their insights on what data they found most impactful in this year’s meeting.