scout

Silas Inman

Articles by Silas Inman

EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors have remained the frontline standard of care for patients with&nbsp;<em>EGFR-</em>positive non&ndash;small cell lung cancer. The most commonly used EGFR TKI in the frontline setting in the United States is&nbsp;osimertinib, Heather Wakelee, MD, said during a presentation at the 2019 International Lung Cnacer Congress.

Two targeted therapies in development have demonstrated encouraging activity as potential treatments targeting hard-to-target driver alterations in lung cancer. During the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting,&nbsp;Christine M. Lovly, MD, PhD, reviewed the early promising findings for TAK-788 for patients with&nbsp;non&ndash;small cell lung cancer harboring&nbsp;<em>EGFR</em> exon 20 insertions and for BLU-667 for patients with&nbsp;<em>RET&nbsp;</em>rearrangements.&nbsp;&nbsp;

A subcutaneous formulation of daratumumab showed similar efficacy to the original intravenous formulation of daratumumab in the phase III COLUMBA trial of patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. The subcutaenous flat-dose of daratumumab also showed a reduction in the treatment burden, according to results presented at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Two-year findings from the ZUMA-1 trial showed an overall survival rate of more than 50% from treatment with&nbsp;axicabtagene ciloleucel, a CD19-targeted CAR T-cell therapy&nbsp;in patients with&nbsp;refractory large B cell lymphoma; the median survival had not yet been reached. These data, representing a clear plateau in the survival curve, were presented at the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting.

Mosunetuzumab, a&nbsp;CD3 and CD20 bispecific antibody, induced complete remission rates over 30% in patients with&nbsp;relapsed/refractory follicular lymphoma and&nbsp;relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma or transformed follicular lymphoma, and demonstrated a tolerable safety profile, showing promise for these patients with&nbsp;B-cell indolent and aggressive non-Hodgkin lymphomas.&nbsp;

The high durable response rates seen with CAR T-cell therapies have helped fill a high unmet need for patients with relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, with questions remaining on the optimal way to use these agents following the FDA approval of 2 therapies in the past year, explained Anas Younes, MD, during a presentation at the <em>36th Annual </em>CFS.

Quick progress was seen with a novel class of agents, chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies, in the setting of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma&mdash;a swift jump from early phase clinical trials to FDA-approved products.

The review period for a supplemental biologics license application seeking the approval of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) for use in combination with bevacizumab (Avastin), carboplatin, and paclitaxel or the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic nonsquamous non&ndash;small cell lung cancer has been extended by the FDA.

RET will join the ever-expanding actionable driver mutations for non&ndash;small cell lung cancer, according to a presentation by Paul Baas, MD, PhD, at the <em>19th Annual</em> International Lung Cancer Congress.

Combinations with immunotherapy agents have surged ahead with new regimens showing great potential for the treatment of patients with lung cancer, Corey Langer, MD, said during a presentation at the&nbsp;<em>19th Annual </em>International Lung Cancer Congress (ILCC). Knowledge about a growing number of biomarkers are helping to guide treatment decisions with these combination options, he said, but the one standard of care has not yet been determined.

Several novel agents are beginning to show promise for new targets in non&ndash;small cell lung cancer, especially <em>NRG1</em> and <em>LKB1,&nbsp;</em>and could be positioned to join&nbsp;already established standard-of-care therapies.

Now that chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies have received FDA approval for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) after moving quickly through early phase clinical trials, research is now exploring ways to&nbsp;shift these agents earlier in the treatment paradigm, according to a discussion at the 2nd Annual Live Medical Crossfire on Hematologic Malignancies.

According to findings from the&nbsp;IMblaze370 study, atezolizumab alone or in combination with cobimetinib did not demonstrate superior overall survival when compared with regorafenib for the treatment of&nbsp;patients with chemorefractory metastatic colorectal cancer. Findings from the study were presented at the 2018 World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer.

Overall survival was not improved with the combination of palbociclib and fulvestrant compared with&nbsp;fulvestrant and placebo in the phase III PALOMA-3 trial for patients with HR-positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer who received prior endocrine therapy, according to Pfizer, the developer of the CDK4/6 inhibitor.

The FDA has added PD-L1 status to the&nbsp;labels for pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and atezolizumab (Tecentriq) for existing frontline approvals for platinum-ineligible patients with urothelial carcinoma. The addition was made&nbsp;based on lower overall survival rates with the PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors compared with platinum-based chemotherapy for patients with PD-L1&ndash;low expressing platinum-eligible urothelial carcinoma.