IMMUNOTHERAPY

The ASCO Annual Meeting is always packed with the latest and greatest advances in the field of oncology, and this year was no exception! The 2015 meeting had posted record-breaking numbers for abstract submissions and attendance, with over 37,000 individuals crowding the halls of the McCormick Place in Chicago.

At the ASCO 2015 Annual Meeting, F. Stephen Hodi, MD presented an analysis of the phase II CheckMate 069 trial covering objective response rate, progression-free survival, and safety in predefined subgroups, including those with poor prognostic factors.

Results presented at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting by Antoni Ribas, MD, PhD, examined the feasibility of combining these immunotherapy and targeted therapies in a phase I study.

At the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting, Adil I. Daud, MD, UCSF Hellen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, presented a pooled analysis of 655 patients with advanced melanoma enrolled in the KEYNOTE-001 trial.

An independent data safety and monitoring board has recommended continuation of the phase III ACT IV clinical trial of rindopepimut (Rintega) in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme.

Maha H. Hussain, MD, professor of Medicine and Urology, University of Michigan, associate director, Clinical Research, co-leader, Prostate Cancer/GU Oncology Program, assistant chief, Clinical Research at the Division of Hematology/ Oncology, University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses immunotherapy in prostate cancer.

Anna C. Pavlick, MD, associate professor, co-director, Melanoma Program, assistant director, Clinical Research Education, discusses a study that examined two immunotherapy agents, ipilimumab and nivolumab, in patients with melanoma.

Elizabeth Plimack, MD, MS, attending physician, genitourinary cancer associate professor, Medical Oncology Director of Genitourinary Clinical Research, Fox Chase Cancer Center, discusses a study that examined pembrolizumab in patients with urothelial cancer.

David Reardon, MD, clinical director, Center for Neuro-Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and president, Society for Neuro-Oncology, discusses rindopepimut (CDX-110), a synthetic peptide vaccine, and its potential in brain cancer based on the results of the ReACT Trial.

Treatment with the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab demonstrated durable objective response rates in patients with classical Hodgkin lymphoma, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, and follicular lymphoma.

The treatment of patients with metastatic melanoma has undergone a dramatic transformation since the approval of the CTLA-4 inhibitor ipilimumab in 2011.

Benjamin G. Neel, MD, faculty, Department of Medicine, Perlmutter Cancer Center, NYU School of Medicine, discusses the future of immunotherapy and how it could play a role in various tumor types.

CTL019 demonstrated intriguing antitumor activity in a small study of patients with refractory multiple myeloma.

Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, Ensign Professor of Medicine (medical oncology), professor of Pharmacology, chief, Medical Oncology, Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven, associate director, Translational Research, Translational Working Group Leader, Thoracic Oncology Program, Yale Cancer Center, discusses the results of the CheckMate-057 trial, which examined nivolumab in patients with NSCLC, and possible biomarkers that could be identified.

A team at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York that is studying ovarian cancer has not only discovered another mechanism by which tumors evade attack by the immune system, but is also devising a first-in-class potential treatment.

Study data reported at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting has demonstrated a nearly 20% response rate with the anti-programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) monoclonal antibody nivolumab (Opdivo) in patients with HCC.

An immunotherapy combination demonstrated an overall response rate of 27% in previously treated non–small cell lung cancer across a range of doses, according to results of an ongoing phase Ib study.

Patients with heavily pretreated colorectal cancer who harbored genetic defects in mismatch repair experienced high response rates when treated with the programmed cell death protein-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda), according to findings from an ongoing phase II study.

Targeted Oncology spoke with David Reardon, MD, clinical director, Center for Neuro-Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, president of the Society for Neuro-Oncology, and lead author on the ReACT trial to better understand the significance of the study results for patients with glioblastoma.

Patients with pretreated advanced ovarian cancer demonstrated encouraging signs of antitumor activity with monoclonal antibodies against programmed death-1 and its ligand PD-L1, according to findings from two clinical studies presented at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting.

The FDA has granted a priority review to pembrolizumab as a potential treatment for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer following treatment with chemotherapy or a targeted therapy, if applicable.

Frontline nivolumab more than doubled progression-free survival (PFS), both as monotherapy and combined with ipilimumab compared with ipilimumab alone in patients with advanced melanoma, according to results from the phase III CheckMate-067 trial.

Nivolumab (Opdivo) improved overall survival and was less toxic compared with docetaxel in chemotherapy-pretreated patients with nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer.

The anti-PD-1 antibody pembrolizumab produced broad and durable responses in patients with recurrent/metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

MPDL3280A reduced the risk of death by 53% compared with docetaxel in previously treated patients with PD-L1-positive squamous and non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer.

Immune checkpoint inhibition will continue to attract interest at the 2015 ASCO Annual Meeting, with a number of abstracts focused on this emerging class of agents

Gary D. Steinberg, MD, Bruce and Beth White Family Professor, professor of surgery, director, urologic oncology, University of Chicago Medicine, discusses the impact immunotherapy has had on bladder cancer.

Treatment with the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab demonstrated similar efficacy regardless of prior treatment with a BRAF inhibitor or ipilimumab in patients with BRAF mutant or wild type metastatic melanoma.

Optimal outcomes, and perhaps even a cure, could be achieved with the combination of targeted therapies and immune checkpoint inhibitors.