Kristie L. Kahl

Adding atezolizumab (Tecentriq) to standard carboplatin and etoposide significantly prolonged survival in patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer compared with the chemotherapy regimen alone in the frontline setting, according to results from the IMpower133 study.

Adult patients with&nbsp;<em>ALK</em>-positive, locally advanced or metastatic non&ndash;small cell lung cancer who had not received a prior ALK inhibitor experienced a more than 50% reduction in the risk of&nbsp;disease progression or death with treatment with brigatinib (Alunbrig), compared with&nbsp;the first-line standard of care, crizotinib.

Patients with&nbsp;<em>ROS1</em> fusion&ndash;positive non&ndash;small cell lung cancer had clinically meaningful and durable benefit across multiple doses of repotrectinib (TPX-0005), according to interim findings from the ongoing phase I/II TRIDENT-1 study,&nbsp;presented at the 19th World Conference on Lung Cancer.

Promising efficacy was seen with the novel targeted therapy poziotinib in patients with metastatic, heavily pretreated&nbsp;<em>EGFR&nbsp;</em>and&nbsp;<em>HER2 </em>exon 20 mutant non&ndash;small cell lung cancer, with a best response rate to date of 55%, according to phase II study results presented at the 19th World Conference on Lung Cancer.

A&nbsp;supplemental biologics license application for pembrolizumab (Keytruda) has been granted a priority review designation by the FDA for the frontline treatment of patients&nbsp;with locally advanced or metastatic nonsquamous or squamous non&ndash;small cell lung cancer with a PD-L1 expression level of &ge;1% and no <em>EGFR</em> or <em>ALK</em> genomic tumor aberrations.

In patients with&nbsp;peritoneal carcinomatosis undergoing surgery, the addition of heated chemotherapy to the abdomen during surgery did not provide a survival benefit, data&nbsp;from a phase III study presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, in Chicago, Illinois, showed.

According to findings from the phase III KEYNOTE-042 trial, patients with non&ndash;small cell lung cancer demonstrated improved survival of 4 to 8 extra months with upfront pembrolizumab therapy compared with chemotherapy, the current standard of care.&nbsp;Patients treated with pembrolizumab also experienced fewer adverse events.

According to the results of a study presented during the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, microsatellite instability-high tumors are more likely to be associated with the presence of Lynch syndrome.&nbsp;

According to study results presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, women with head and neck cancer (HNC) are less likely to recieve intensive chemotherapy and radiation when compared with their male counterparts.

According to phase Ib study findings presented at the 2018 AACR Annual Meeting, combining the&nbsp;intratumoral toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) agonist&nbsp;CMP-001 and pembrolizumab showed clinical activity in reversing&nbsp;PD-1 checkpoint inhibition resistance in patients with metastatic melanoma.

Findings, presented at the 2018 AACR Annual Meeting, demonstrated that an off-the-shelf, dual-targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell approach found positive results in preclinical&nbsp;specificity, functionality, and efficacy studies.

According to the results from a phase I study, BLU-667, a next-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor, was well-tolerated and demonstrated clinical benefit in patients with advanced,&nbsp;<em>RET</em>-altered solid tumors who had progressed on previous therapies. These findings were presented April 14 to 18 at the ASCR Annual Meeting 2018 in Chicago, Illinois.

According to data from a randomized phase III trial presented at the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, a mix of traditional and customized acupuncture techniques were effective in reducing pain and stiffness associated with&nbsp;aromatase inhibitor therapy in women with early-stage breast cancer.

A novel approach to treatment for patients with smoldering multiple myeloma demonstrated a high rate of complete responses, according to a study presented at the 2017 ASH Annual Meeting.&nbsp;The single-arm, phase II trial evaluated a strategy using induction therapy with carfilzomib (Kyprolis), lenalidomide (Revlimid), and dexamethasone followed by high-dose therapy and autologous stem cell transplantation, consolidation therapy and then maintenance therapy with lenalidomide and dexamethasone.

The combination of brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) and nivolumab (Opdivo) demonstrated promising clinical activity in patients with&nbsp;relapsed/refractory Hodgkin lymphoma,&nbsp;according to results from a phase I/II trial presented at the 2017 ASH Annual Meeting.

Treatment using BLU-285 (Avapritinib) induced clinically significant activity in patients with an advanced or aggressive form of systemic mastocytosis (ASM), a rare blood disorder that originates in mast cells, according to data from an ongoing phase I trial.<br /> &nbsp;

Incidence of venous thromboembolism (VTE) recurrence was reduced in patients with cancer with oral rivaroxaban (Xarelto) therapy compared with dalteparin (Fragmin), the current standard of care, according to results from the Select-D pilot trial presented during the 2017 ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition.

Early-stage breast cancer recurrence and mortality was reduced by shortening the intervals between chemotherapy cycles or administering&nbsp;the drugs sequentially&nbsp;compared with&nbsp;standard dosing techniques, according to meta-analysis results presented at the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.