Danielle Ternyila

In an open letter to the President of the United States, the Community Oncology Alliance brings attention to the critical needs of patients with cancer. Community Oncology Alliance requests all private health insurance companies immediately waive all “prior authorization” requirements for cancer treatments, which pose threat to cancer treatment, particularly in patients who are elderly and among the most vulnerable in the United States to contract COVID-19.

A significant percentage of younger men with high-risk prostate cancer who display minimal comorbidities continue to receive&nbsp;nondefinitive therapy (NDT), despite research that has demonstrated local therapy is more beneficial in this patient population, according to findings from a study published in&nbsp;<em>JAMA Oncology</em>&nbsp;show. A number of reasons for this have been identified, including&nbsp;&nbsp;insurance status and race/ethnicity.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Massimo Lazzari, MD, discussed the findings from the analysis of microbiota in patients with bladder cancer. He highlighted how these findings can impact the treatment paradigm and exploration of new therapeutic agents in this space.

As the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, healthcare providers in the oncology realm are faced with a number of unforeseen challenges requiring immediate attention and swift changes in policies. Experts at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance shared their insights and advice with the public in a recent article to demonstrate how they have adapted to provide the most optimal care for patients with cancer in light of the COVID-19 outbreak.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Andrew M. Evens, DO, MSc, discussed how COVID-19 is impacting the oncology practice as a whole, as well as in the RWJ Barnabas Health system. He highlights the importance of telemedicine at this time and the precautions that are necessary to ensure the safety of all patients with cancer, as well as healthcare providers.

Circulating free DNA in the blood may be a more effective way to measure disease in patients with breast cancer and track the progression of the disease, according to a study from researchers at the Fox Chase Cancer Center.

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Andre Goy, MD, discussed the evolving role of Bruton&rsquo;s tyrosine kinase inhibitors for the treatment of patients with mantle cell lymphoma, as well as where this field is headed based on ongoing clinical trials in this space.

Adjuvant ipilimumab at a dose of 3 mg/kg demonstrated a survival benefit in patients with resected high-risk melanoma compared with high-dose interferon alfa-2b, according to the findings for a phase III E1609 clinical trial from the North American Intergroup.

Ropeginterferon alfa-2b improved responses overtime in patients with polycythemia vera who presented predominantly without splenomegaly compared with hydroxyurea, according to findings from the phase III PROUD-PV clinical trial and its extension study, CONTINUATION-PV.

To help assess the advances the United States has made in decreasing cancer-related deaths, a collective of public health bodies found that monitoring trends in cancer risk, screening test use, and mortality is informative. A report published in&nbsp;<em>Cancer</em>&nbsp;shows that progress has been made in recent years, but there is more work to be&nbsp;<a>done.</a>

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Carl Morrison, MD, DVM, senior vice president Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, discussed the rationale for evaluating the Ion Torrent-based approach to predicting response to immunotherapy. He highlighted the importance of this in the clinical setting and advances are necessary to further validate this as a biomarker of response.

From 2001 to 2017, the cancer death rates continued to decline in the United States, and these decreases were observed in all major racial and ethnic groups, as well as in males, females, adolescents, young adults, and children. However, the rates of cancer incidence for all cancers slightly increased in females from 2012 to 2016, according to the Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer, which was published in&nbsp;Cancer.^&nbsp;

Randall A. Oyer, MD, was named President for 2020 to 2021 of The Association of Community Cancer Centers during the ACCC 46th Annual Meeting Cancer Center Business Summit, according to a press release.

Patients with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer with a luminal B tumor are associated with better outcomes with the addition of docetaxel chemotherapy to androgen deprivation therapy compared with androgen deprivation therapy alone. In a correlative study presented at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Sumposium, investigators also determined that the basal tumor subtype did not experience as much of a survival benefit with the addition of docetaxel to androgen deprivation therapy.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Tony S. K. Mok, MD, BMSc, FRCPC, discussed the final progression-free survival data for frontline alectinib comparted with crizotinib as treatment of patients with advanced&nbsp;ALK-positive non&ndash;small cell lung cancer in the ALEX trial.

Pemetrexed-based chemotherapy regimens were more effective as treatment of patients with&nbsp;<em>RET</em>-rearranged non&ndash;<a>small</a>&nbsp;cell lung cancer compared with other regimens, according to a multicenter, retrospective study. This treatment also showed similar benefit for various&nbsp;<em>RET</em>&nbsp;fusion types, including&nbsp;<em>KIF5B-<a>RET&nbsp;</a></em>and non-<em>KIF5B-RET</em>&nbsp;fusions.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Eric Kmiec, PhD, discussed the evolution of CRISPR and how it fits into the treatment landscape for physicians in the community practice. He highlights the challenges that arise with the use of CRISPR and how to address these issues.

After demonstrating promising results that were comparable to targeted therapies in the first 2 cohorts of a phase I clinical trial, the combination of cladribine, cytarabine, granulocyte-colony stimulating factor, and mitoxantrone plus the antibody radiation conjugate lintuzumab-Ac225 in patients with relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia is now being explored in a third cohort.

The addition of tazemetostat to rituximab, cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, prednisone was generally well tolerated and demonstrated early anti-tumor activity in patients with newly diagnosed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, according to the findings from the phase Ib study.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Whitney Ducaine, MGC, CGC, CN-BM, discussed the evolution of genetic testing in oncology. She highlighted the importance of having conversations with genetic counselors to help inform the patient on their familial risks as well to help inform treatment decisions.

The first chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy to utilize chlorotoxin to direct T cells to target cancer cells in the brain has been developed at the City of Hope and demonstrated antitumor activity in a preclinical study. Based on these findings, the first-in-human clinical trial has opened enrollment at City of Hope for patients with recurrent or progressive glioblastoma.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, David S. Hong, MD, discussed the emerging role of multitargeted therapeutics in patients with hematologic malignancies.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Augusto Villanueva, MD, discussed the role of driver mutations in patients with HCC and how liquid biopsies may help improve the treatment landscape in this patient population.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Alexandra S. Bercow, MD, discussed the results from a retrospective study, which evaluated the role of palliative care in women who died from cervical cancer between 2000 and 2017 at 2 institutions. She also highlighted the benefit of palliative care and why this patient population could benefit more than those with ovarian or endometrial cancers.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Shilpa Gupta, MD, discussed the results of the BLASST-1 trial evaluating neoadjuvant nivolumab plus gemcitabine and cisplatin in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer undergoing a cystectomy. She highlighted the next steps and key points community oncologists need to know about these data now.

Both autologous stem cell transplant and allogeneic stem cell transplant can be used as consolidation therapy in patients with mantle cell lymphoma, according to results from a single-center analysis, presented in a poster at the 2020 Transplantation &amp; Cellular Therapy Meetings. However, the benefit of alloSCT is offset by an increased risk of transplant-related mortality and the development of graft-versus-host-disease.

According to findings from a retrospective analysis published in&nbsp;JAMA Oncology,&nbsp;the testosterone-related genetic variant&nbsp;HSD3B1&nbsp;(1245C) is associated with more aggressive disease in patients with metastatic prostate cancer. This is the first clinical trial to validate the relationship between the variant and clinical outcomes, and the results may help physicians determine which patients are more likely to benefit from more aggressive therapy.

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Zofia Piotrowska, MD, MHS, discussed the role of EGFR inhibition as frontline treatment of patients with EGFR-mutant lung cancers, as well as the combinations with osimertinib that are currently underway and appearing promising for this treatment landscape.

Although the novel combination of cabiralizumab and nivolumab with or without the addition of chemotherapy induced an intriguing response rate in previous phase I data as a treatment for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer, the phase II clinical trial did not meet its primary end point of progression-free survival, according to a press release from Five Prime Therapeutics.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology,&nbsp;Stephen J. Schuster, MD, discussed the findings for mosunetuzumab in patients with relapsed/refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma and the particularly promising findings for those patients who had received prior chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy.