SITC Meeting

The phase 2b AIPAC study, Eftilagimod alpha was found to improve overall survival in metastatic breast cancer along with a tolerable safety profile.

Subasumstat was found to have a manageable safety profile along with preliminary anti-tumor activity in patients with advanced or metastatic solid tumors or relapsed/refractory lymphoma.

Treatment of patients with advanced or metastatic cancers with the transforming growth factor-β receptor type 1 inhibitor LY3200882 demonstrated a tolerable safety profile and early signs of efficacy, according to the results from a first-in-human, dose-escalation phase I trial presented at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer.

An analysis of patients who presented to MD Anderson Cancer Center’s dermatology clinic following treatment with anti–PD-1/PD-L1 treatment suggests a potential association between the development of cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma lesions and PD-1/PD-L1 checkpoint inhibition.

An analysis of immunologic biomarkers in a phase II trial of patients with advanced colorectal cancer treated with chemotherapy and PD-1 checkpoint inhibition identified several factors associated with a patient’s beneficial response to the chemo-immunotherapy regimen, according to findings presented during the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer.

Results from a two-part, phase I dose-escalation and -expansion trial involving mogamulizumab in combination with durvalumab or tremelimumab for the treatment of patients with advanced solid tumors demonstrated mild-to-moderate adverse events that were tolerable and manageable, according to Dmitriy Zamarin, MD, PhD, medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, during his presentation at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer.

A peptide-based personalized vaccine demonstrated encouraging signals of efficacy and was well tolerated in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma, according to the results of the phase I GAPVAC-101 trial.

Stephanie K. Dougan, MD, assistant professor, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, discusses the idea of augmenting T cell immunity in tumors that are poorly immunogenic, such as pancreatic cancer.

The CD8-tracer 89Zr-IAB22M2C, an anti-CD8 radiolabeled minibody, was found to be safe, well-tolerated, and demonstrated whole-body biodistribution of CD8-positive T cells in tumors and reference tissues, according to first-in-human results presented at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer.

In an effort to determine best practices and ensure consistent clinical interpretation of tumor mutational burden assessment for patients with cancer, a group of diagnostic test partners conducted an in silico analysis and found that panel-derived TMB strongly correlated with whole-exome sequencing data provided from The Cancer Genome Atlas. 

Matthew Farren, PhD, post-doctoral fellow, Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University, discusses immunologic biomarker findings in a study of mFOLFOX6 plus pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in colorectal cancer.

Nilofer Azad, MD, associate professor, Johns Hopkins University, discusses preliminary results from the NCI-Match trial for nivolumab (Opdivo) in patients with mismatch repair-deficient cancers The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) 32^nd Annual Meeting.<br /> &nbsp;

Jennifer Wu, PhD, professor, Northwestern University, Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses how soluble MIC can impact response to anti-CTLA-4 therapy during The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) 32^nd Annual Meeting.<br /> &nbsp;

Dendritic cells are an essential target for generating immunity against cancer due to their ability to manipulate the immune system and there are a number of potential methods by which DCs can be utilized for cancer immunotherapy, according to Karolina Palucka, MD, PhD.

For patients with metastatic melanoma in particular, immune checkpoint inhibitors were a great advancement in therapeutics. Since then, investigators have focused on ways to improve on treatment with these agents, and one potential method is through manipulation of the gut microbiome.

The tumor microenvironment consists of malignant and nontransformed cells and the associations between them. Nonmalignant cells exhibit tumor-promoting functions during all stages of carcinogenesis. Targeting nonmalignant cells and/or communication mediators may have immunotherapeutic application across various tumor types and could complement other therapies as well.

Howard L. Kaufman, MD, FACS discusses the abstracts chosen for presentation during the Presidential Session of the SITC 31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs.&nbsp;

Joaquim Bellmunt, MD, PhD, attending physician of Solid Tumor Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the impact of the phase III KEYNOTE-045 study, which compared second- or third-line pembrolizumab with investigator-choice chemotherapy as a treatment for patients with metastatic or locally advanced, unresectable urothelial carcinoma. All patients in the study had recurred or progressed following platinum-based chemotherapy.

A number of new clinical and pre-clinical agents currently in development were explored during the SITC 31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs.&nbsp;

Igor Puzanov, MD, professor of oncology, Department of Medicine, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, discusses 2 clinical trials investigating immunotherapy combinations and sequencing in melanoma.

Susan Lutgendorf, PhD, professor, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The University of Iowa, discusses a study investigating the effects of stress on immune response and tumor microenvironment in ovarian cancer and other cancer types.

Among the new agents currently being explored in clinical trials, NKTR-214 stands out as a new cytokine therapy approach that could show additive benefit when combined with checkpoint inhibitors.&nbsp;

Treatment with the combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab at selected doses led to a high response rate and marked improvements in overall survival ​for patients with pretreated metastatic urothelial carcinoma.

Treatment with pembrolizumab improved overall survival by 2.9 months compared with chemotherapy for patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma whose disease progressed after prior treatment.

Sonja Althammer, PhD, Team Leader Bioinformatics at Definiens, discusses a study looking to define a subgroup of patients with non&ndash;small cell lung cancer who respond best to treatment with the PD-L1 inhibitor durvalumab.

The CheckPoints, which are considered the official house band of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC), performs every year at the annual meeting, as well as at a SITC sponsored event at the ASCO annual meeting each year.

A new immune checkpoint called PVRIG has emerged as a ripe target for anticancer therapy in solid tumors and an antibody that blocks its ability to suppress an antitumor response is in development.<br /> &nbsp;

The presence of both PD-L1&ndash;positive and CD8+ cells may help to predict response in patients with non&ndash;small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treated with durvalumab (MEDI4736), according to findings presented during a late-breaking abstract session at the <em>SITC 31st Annual Meeting &amp; Associated Programs</em>. Sonja Althammer, PhD, presented on the correlation between improved survival rates to durvalumab treatment and high CD8+ and PD-L1+ cell densities.&nbsp;