Kristie L. Kahl

AMG 160 showed preliminary evidence of efficacy with a manageable safety profile as treatment of patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who have been heavily pretreated.

Updated findings from the randomized, open-label phase 3 PROfound trial indicate that olaparib induces a significantly longer duration of overall survival versus enzalutamide or abiraterone plus prednisone in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer tumors with at least 1 alteration in BRCA1, BRCA2, or ATM and disease that has progressed during previous treatment with a next-generation hormonal agent.

"AMG 330 is a CD33 BiTE® molecule under investigation in an ongoing, open-label phase I dose-escalation study and has shown preliminary activity and acceptable safety in relapsed/refractory AML patients."

"CheckMate 9LA met its primary end point of overall survival at the pre-planned interim analysis…With early separation of overall survival curves and lower progressive disease rates as best overall response, the hypothesis for this study design was validated."

"Based on these results, we note that the combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab, which is now approved by the United States FDA, is a novel chemotherapy-sparing first-line treatment approach for advanced-stage non-small-cell lung cancer."

In heavily pretreated patients with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer, trastuzumab deruxtecan induced a confirmed objective response rate of almost 61% and a durable benefit, according to results from the phase II DESTINY-Breast01 trial presented at the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

According to the pivotal phase III CLL14 study presented during the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, venetoclax plus obinutuzumab demonstrated a lengthening in progression-free survival time for patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia compared with obinutuzumab plus chlorambucil. Trial results show that the chemotherapy-free combination reduced the risk for disease worsening or death by 65% compared with obinutuzumab plus chlorambucil.

According to data from the phase II EV-201 study presented at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting, 44% of patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer achieved responses with enfortumab vedotin. This includes 12% of patients reached a complete response to treatment. Median overall survival time for patients was 11.7 months.

The PARP inhibitor olaparib significantly improved progression-free survival in patients with germline BRCA-mutated metastatic pancreatic cancer compared to placebo when used as maintenance therapy in the phase III POLO trial, presented at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Patients with PD-L1–positive, HER2-negative, advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancer had non-inferior overall survival with frontline pembrolizumab compared with standard chemotherapy, according to results from the phase III KEYNOTE-062 trial.

Lenalidomide induced a 72% reduction in the risk of progression to symptomatic disease in patients with smoldering multiple myeloma at 3 years, according to data from the ECOG E3A06 study, to be presented during the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting.

According to results from the ongoing phase I/II GARNET trial, dostarlimab induced an overall response rate of nearly 30% in patients with recurrent or advanced endometrial cancer. Results presented at the 2019 SGO Annual Meeting also demonstrated durable responses in both patients with microsatellite instability-high and microsatellite stable tumors.

Olaparib combined with neratinib may be a novel treatment option for patients with&nbsp;HER2-positive, homologous recombination&ndash;proficient ovarian cancer tumors that are resistant to chemotherapy, preclinical findings presented during the&nbsp;2019 SGO Annual Meeting showed.<br /> &nbsp;

Neratinib demonstrated durable responses and disease control and a manageable safety profile in patients with metastatic&nbsp;<em>HER2</em>-mutant cervical cancer, according to results from the ongoing phase II SUMMIT basket trial.

Women with recurrent ovarian cancer treated with the combination of&nbsp;pembrolizumab, bevacizumab, and metronomic cyclophosphamide had a 95% disease control rate and a 40% overall response rate, according to findings from an&nbsp;open-label phase II study presented during the&nbsp;2019 SGO Annual Meeting.

Activity was seen with lenvatinib plus a weekly dose of paclitaxel in patients with recurrent endometrial and platinum-resistant epitherlial ovarian cancer, according to a presentation at the 50th SGO Annual Meeting. The combination resulted in a 65% overall response rate in a phase I trial.

Patients with high-risk ovarian cancer being treated with niraparib experienced a decrease in adverse events when treated with a&nbsp;200- or 300-mg individualized starting dose based on bodyweight and platelet count compared with patients who received a fixed starting dose of 300 mg, according to data from a recent analysis of the ongoing&nbsp;ENGOT-OV26/PRIMA study.

Repeated use of PARP inhibitors may be a beneficial treatment strategy in the future for women with recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer, according to the&nbsp;results of a retrospective, multi-institutional study presented at the 2019 SGO Annual Meeting. The findings suggested that prior exposure to PARP inhibition may not lead to resistance, which could lead to increased use of repeat PARP treatment going forward.&nbsp;

Treatment with maintenance niraparib led to extended progression-free survival time in patients with recurrent ovarian cancer without the patients experiencing symptoms or toxicity compared with placebo, according to results of an analysis from the phase III ENGOT-OV16/NOVA trial. In patients with&nbsp;germline <em>BRCA</em>-mutated disease, the benefit was increased 4-fold and in patients&nbsp;non&ndash;germline&nbsp;<em>BRCA</em>-mutated ovarian cancer the benefit was increased 2-fold.&nbsp;

Guardant360&mdash;a 73-gene next-generation sequencing panel&mdash;detected all of the&nbsp;guideline-recommended biomarkers in patients newly diagnosed with&nbsp;metastatic non&ndash;small cell lung cancer at a similar rate, but in a faster turnaround time than&nbsp;tissue genotyping, according to data from the NILE study.

Although&nbsp;African-American men are at a higher risk for&nbsp;metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer and have worse survival outcomes compared with Caucasian men, findings of a recent retrospective study suggested they may have a better response to several prostate cancer treatments.

According to data from the phase IIIb CASSINI trial presented at the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting, rivaroxaban could significantly reduce&nbsp;venous thromboembolism occurrence in patients currently receiving treatment with systemic therapy.

Patients with breast cancer who achieved pathologic complete response following neoadjuvant chemotherapy were more likely to have improved survival outcomes,&nbsp;according to findings of a meta-analyses data presented at the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

The gold standard of predicting how long patients with&nbsp;myelodysplastic syndromes could live with the disease may soon be replaced by a new approach. According to Aziz Nazha, MD, this newer approach utilizes machine learning to&nbsp;analyze genomic and clinical data from patients to more accurately predict survival.

It may be possible for hematologists to determine subtypes of acute myeloid leukemia based on genetic analsysis of blood samples in 7 days or less. According to Amy Burd, PhD, this process could play an important role in diagnosing and treating patients.

Patients with&nbsp;acute lymphoblastic leukemia saw a reduction in the risk for recurrence after receiving a stem cell transplant for the first time following treatment with CD19 chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy.

The need for frequent red blood cell transfusions was reduced with luspatercept&nbsp;in nearly 53% of patients with anemia associated with low- to intermediate-risk&nbsp;myelodysplastic syndrome.

Durvalumab (Imfinzi) demonstrated an improvement in overall survival compared with placebo in patients with stage III, unresectable non&ndash;small cell lung cancer who have not progressed following chemoradiotherapy, according to updated findings from the PACIFIC trial recently&nbsp;presented at the 19th World Conference on Lung Cancer and simultaneously published in the <em>New England Journal of Medicine</em>.

Second-line treatment with the combination of lurbinectedin (Zepsyre; PM1183) and doxorubicin&nbsp;demonstrated significant clinical activity in patients with small cell lung cancer, especially when excluding refractory patients, according to findings presented&nbsp;at the 19th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Toronto, Canada.

Enhanced clinical benefit may be derived from the combination of&nbsp;entinostat and pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in a subgroup of patients&nbsp;with PD-1/PD-L1&ndash;refractory non&ndash;small cell lung cancer who have high levels of peripheral blood monocytes, ongoing analyses suggest.&nbsp;