Wayne Kuznar

Responses to lisocabtagene maraleucel have been potent and durable in the treatment of patients with relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. Separate exploratory analyses of this population treated with liso-cel found that high tumor burden and a series of in ammatory biomarkers were associated with high chimeric antigen receptor T-cell expansion and higher rates of cytokine release syndrome and neurotoxicity.

According to results of the randomized phase II CABOSUN trial,<span style="font-size:10.8333px"> </span>PFS was improved with sunitinib as initial systemic therapy across subgroups of patients with intermediate- and poor-risk advanced renal cell carcinoma.&nbsp;The advantage to cabozantinib on PFS was particularly strong in patients who were MET-positive.

Updated findings from the phase III KEYNOTE-045 trial confirmed the benefit of&nbsp;pembrolizumab (Keytruda) compared with chemotherapy in pretreated patients with locally advanced or recurrent urothelial cancer. Two-year follow-up of the trial presented at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium demonstrated that overall survival was improved with pembrolizumab.

Results from a phase II study presented at the 2018 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, demonstrated that durvalumab, a PD-L1 inhibitor, had synergy in combination with the PARP inhibitor olaparib in unselected men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.

In phase II data reported at the&nbsp;2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, treatment with the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) elicited promising progression-free survival and overall survival results&nbsp;in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma who received previous treatment with sorafenib.

According to results reported at the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, early&nbsp;signs of efficacy were seen with the&nbsp;investigational oral cancer stem cell pathway inhibitor napabucasin (BBI608) combined with the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in the first 8 patients enrolled in a multicenter phase I/II trial of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

Superior overall survival was induced with sequencing regorafenib (Stivarga) before cetuximab (Erbitux) compared with the reverse sequence in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer following failure of standard chemotherapy, according to findings from the phase II&nbsp;REVERCE study presented at the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

According to 2 analyses presented at the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, data from the CheckMate-142 study support the use of nivolumab (Opdivo) alone or in combination with ipilimumab (Yervoy) for the treatment of&nbsp;patients with previously treated DNA mismatch repair-deficient/microsatellite instability-high metastatic colorectal cancer.

Patients with heavily pretreated gastrointestinal stromal tumors responded to treatment with nivolumab (Opdivo) alone and in combination with ipilimumab (Yervoy), according to findings of a randomized phase II study presented at the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

Rapid and durable responses were induced with the combination of selinexor, weekly bortezomib (Velcade), and low-dose dexamethasone (Vd), according to results of a dose escalation/expansion trial of patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM) presented at the 2017 ASH Annual Meeting.

The investigational activin receptor IIA ligand trap sotatercept safely increases hemoglobin levels in patients with myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN)-associated myelofibrosis, both when used alone and in combination with ruxolitinib (Jakafi).

The investigational Nutlin family antagonist idasanutlin demonstrated significant activity and was well tolerated after multiple cycles of exposure in patients with refractory polycythemia vera.<br /> &nbsp;

Following autologous stem cell transplant (ASCT) for patients with multiple myeloma, maintenance therapy of elotuzumab (Empliciti) in combination with lenalidomide (Revlimid) led to an increased rate of response conversions from prior induction therapy, according to the results of a phase II study.&nbsp;

In findings from the phase II CENTAURUS clinical trial, treatment with&nbsp;daratumumab&nbsp;(Darzalex) monotherapy produced lasting responses in patients with&nbsp;intermediate- and high-risk smoldering multiple myeloma (SMM).&nbsp;

Treatment with&nbsp;ladiratuzumab vedotin demonstrated an estimated median progression-free survival (PFS) of 11.6 weeks for patients with heavily pretreated metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) treated&nbsp; with the recommended phase II dose of the antibody&ndash;drug conjugate, according to results of a phase I study presented during the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.&nbsp;

Treatment discontinuation due to toxicity was less frequent with olaparib (Lynparza) monotherapy compared with chemotherapy in patients with HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer and a germline <em>BRCA</em> mutation in the phase III OlympiAD study.

Adding rituximab (Rituxan) to ibrutinib (Imbruvica) in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) did not improve progression-free survival (PFS) or overall survival (OS) versus ibrutinib alone, despite there being a faster time to complete remission.

In findings from the phase III GeparSepto trial presented during the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, long-term disease-free survival rates were improved with neoadjuvant nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) compared with standard paclitaxel in patients with high-risk early breast cancer.

The treatment approach for patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma should be tailored based on biology of the disease, frailty of the patient, and comorbidities, said Natalie S. Callander, MD, in a presentation at the NCCN 12th Annual Congress: Hematologic Malignancies in San Francisco, California.

Nearly half of patients with resectable stage IIIB/C BRAF V600-mutant melanoma achieved pathologic complete response with neoadjuvant treatment with dabrafenib and trametinib, according to results of a phase II study presented at the 2017 ESMO Congress in Madrid.

Adding ramucirumab to docetaxel improved progression-free survival (PFS) over docetaxel alone for patients with advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma who have progressed on platinum-based chemotherapy,&nbsp;results from the international phase III RANGE trial showed.

Based on findings of the randomized CheckMate-236 trial, nivolumab may be a less toxic, better tolerated adjuvant treatment option over&nbsp;ipilimumab for patients with&nbsp;resected stage IIIB/C and IV melanoma, whether or not they have a <em>BRAF</em> mutation.

In patients with previously treated advanced non-small cell lung cancer,&nbsp;^&nbsp;superior progression-free survival was induced with continuous treatment with nivolumab until disease progression compared with a 1-year fixed duration treatment.

In patients with metastatic triple negative breast cancer, turning a nonimmunogenic (&ldquo;cold&rdquo;) tumor into an immunogenic (&ldquo;hot&rdquo;) tumor appears to be feasible, thereby improving sensitivity to immune therapy with nivolumab.

A retrospective analysis suggests that treatment with a MET tyrosine kinase inhibitor can prolong survival in patients with advanced non&ndash;small cell lung cancer with a <em>MET</em>&nbsp;exon 14 mutation.

Immunotherapy combinations with PARP inhibitors or checkpoint inhibitors may represent the future of treatment for patients with ovarian cancer, said Samir N. Khleif, MD, during the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting.

The combination of the anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody obinutuzumab and bendamustine induced high rates of complete response and minimal residual disease negativity with no unexpected safety signals as a first-line therapy for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

In patients with newly diagnosed chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) in chronic phase, a 400-mg dose of bosutinib (Bosulif) was associated with higher rates of major molecular response (MMR) and complete cytogenetic response (CCyR) than imatinib (Gleevec).

Progression-free survival (PFS) continues to be superior with the combination of cediranib maleate and olaparib (Lynparza) compared with olaparib alone in patients with recurrent platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer in a randomized open-label study with follow-up to December 2016.