Wayne Kuznar

Long-term follow-up of patients with relapsed or refractory mantle cell lymphoma treated with venetoclax monotherapy indicate that remissions are durable in a meaningful proportion and that late-onset toxicities are uncommon.

Combination therapy with acalabrutinib plus bendamustine and rituxumab showed an overall response rate in excess of 90% of patients with treatment-naïve mantle cell lymphoma and an ORR of 85% in patients with relapsed/refractory disease in an ongoing open-label phase Ib study.^ The safety profile was consistent with expected safety profiles for acalabrutinib and BR, said Tycel Phillips, MD, who presented the data at the 2018 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting.

A biomarker subgroup analysis of the phase III IMpassion130 study in patients with metastatic triple negative breast cancer or inoperable locally advanced TNBC found that progression-free survival and overall survival improvements with the addition of first-line atezolizumab  to nab-paclitaxel were exclusive to patients with PD-L1 expression ≥1% in immune cells.

A newly discovered recurrent mutation in the B-cell leukemia/lymphoma 2 protein in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia has been linked to venetoclax resistance.

An overall response rate of 26.2% was induced by selinexor, an oral XPO1 inhibitor, combination in heavily pretreated patients with penta-refractory multiple myeloma. According to the findings from part 2 of the pivotal STORM trial, selinexor is now the first investigational oral therapy to show activity in these patients.

Durable responses were achieved with acalabrutinib therapy for patients with relapsed/refractory mantle cell lymphoma, with 40% still on treatment for more than 2 years, according to long-term follow-up findings presented at the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting.

According to a presentation of findings from the phase II CLARITY study at the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting, ibrutinib in combination with venetoclax demonstrated tolerability among patients with relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The combination also induced minimal residual disease negativity in the marrow in 39% of these patients after 12 months.

Zanubrutinib induced an overall response rate of 83.5% in patients with relapsed/refractory mantle cell lymphoma, with many responses demonstrating durability, according to the results of&nbsp;a phase II trial.<br /> &nbsp;

In a study of transplant-eligible patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma, daratumumab added to bortezomib, lenalidomide, and dexamethasone induced at least a very good partial response in all patients, including a complete response in 63% of patients, at the end of consolidation therapy.<br /> &nbsp;

The side effect profile of olaparib tablets and the low rate of treatment discontinuation make it suitable for maintenance treatment for patients with platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer, according to safety assessments from the SOLO-2 trial.

According to findings from the first neoadjuvant study to test ipilimumab (Yervoy) plus nivolumab&nbsp;(Opdivo) in early-stage mismatch repair deficient tumors and MMR proficient colon cancers, the combination induced major pathologic responses from all 7 patients with dMMR tumors.&nbsp;

Combining&nbsp;atezolizumab (Tecentriq) with&nbsp;bevacizumab (Avastin) induced promising and durable antitumor activity in patients with&nbsp;advanced hepatocellular carcinoma, according to findings from a phase Ib study presented during the 2018 ESMO Congress.

The rate of the 3 most common adverse events reported by US patients on niraparib who were started on 200 mg/day in real-world clinical practice is markedly less than the rate of AEs experienced by those enrolled in the pivotal phase III ENGOT-OV6/NOVA trial, in which patients were started at a 300-mg daily dose of niraparib, according to data presented at the 2018 ESMO Congress.

Lurbinectedin did not improve progression-free survival over pegylated liposomal doxorubicin or topotecan in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, according to results of the phase III CORAIL trial.

According to results from an interim analysis of an ongoing single-arm open-label phase II study, pembrolizumab demonstrated promising antitumor activity in patients with high-risk nonmuscle invasive bladder cancer that are unresponsive to Bacillus Calmette-Gu&eacute;rin and refused or were ineligible for cystectomy.

Data from a posthoc analysis of the phase II QUADRA trial support the use of niraparib in later lines of therapy in patients with relapsed ovarian cancer who have&nbsp;<em>BRCA</em> mutations, said Kathleen N. Moore, lead investigator of the trial. According to findings reported at the 2018 ESMO Annual Congress, when used in the fourth line or later, niraparib exhibited an overall response rate of approximately 30% in this subset of patients.

As an add-on to bevacizumab, carboplatin plus pegylated liposomal doxorubicin significantly extended progression-free survival compared with carboplatin and gemcitabine in patients with recurrent ovarian cancer whose first disease recurrence was &gt;6 months after first-line platinum-based chemotherapy.

According to a presentation at the 2018 ESMO Congress, risk of death was reduced with trifluridine/tipiracil versus placebo in patients with&nbsp;heavily pretreated gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancer.&nbsp;Lead TAGS trial author Hendrik-Tobias Arkenau, MD, PhD, said there was also improvement in progression-free survival and disease control.

Cisplatin plus radiotherapy improved overall survival compared with cetuximab plus radiotherapy in patients with HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer, according to late-breaking research from the De-ESCALaTE HPV trial presented at the 2018 ESMO Congress.^&nbsp;Results from this trial support the use of chemoradiotherapy as the standard of care for treatment in this patient population.

Among men&nbsp;in the ongoing phase II TRITON2 trial with&nbsp;BRCA1/2 alterations, 51%&nbsp;had a confirmed prostate-specific antigen response to rucaparib (Rubraca), according to preliminary data reported in a poster presentation by&nbsp;Wassim Abida, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the&nbsp;2018 ESMO Congress.

Lead investigator Fabrice Andr&eacute;, MD, PhD, said findings from the SOLAR-1 trial are the first to show benefit in a genomic subgroup of patients with breast cancer and could open the door for genomic testing in breast cancer.

Progression-free survival was found to be almost identical at 48 weeks with&nbsp;MYL-1401O in combination with a taxane as initial therapy followed by MYL-1401O monotherapy as maintenance versus trastuzumab in patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer, according to phase III findings of the&nbsp;HERITAGE trial. Results of the trial were presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Upfront treatment with the combination of bevacizumab (Avastin) and erlotinib (Tarceva) is superior to erlotinib alone as for patients with non&ndash;small cell lung cancer harboring<em> EGFR</em> mutations, according to results of a preplanned interim analysis of the phase III study known as NEJ026.

The investigational second-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor dacomitinib demonstrated an improved median overall survival of 34.1 months compared to 26.8 months with&nbsp;gefitinib as a first-line treatment for patients with advanced,&nbsp;<em>EGFR</em>-mutant non&ndash;small cell lung cancer, according to data from a open-label, phase III trial presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.¹

According to results presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting,&nbsp;moxetumomab pasudotox, a first-in-class recombinant immunotoxin targeting CD22, demonstrated deep and durable responses in a substantial proportion of pretreated patients with relapsed/refractory hairy cell leukemia.

Ribociclib in combination with fulvestrant showed an improvement in progression-free survival in postmenopausal women with&nbsp;hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer; the benefit was seen both in treatment-naive patients, and in patients who had received 1 prior line of therapy, according to the results from the phase III MONALEESA-3 trial presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting.

Promising activity was seen in patients with&nbsp;squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck who were treated with&nbsp;lenvatinib in addition to pembrolizumab with an objective response rate of 40%. The results of this&nbsp;ongoing open-label phase Ib/II clinical trial were presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Ipatasertib, an oral AKT inhibitors, demonstrated early survival results as a part of a frontline combination regimen with paclitaxel for the treatment&nbsp;of locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, according to interim results of the phase II LOTUS trial.

Recommendations from the first set of NCCN guidelines on the management of cancer in patients with HIV reflect that there are worse overall and cancer-specific survival outcomes seen in the HIV-infected population compared with the general population. The guidelines&nbsp;advise that HIV status alone should not be used for decisions about cancer treatment.

Risk stratification to guide molecular testing and treatment is emphasized in the latest prostate cancer guidelines from the NCCN. Recommendations for germline testing, molecular testing, and initial therapy have been developed for each risk category, each of which has its own management page in the newest version of the NCCN guidelines.