ASCO Annual Meeting

The multikinase inhibitor entrectinib demonstrated safety and activity in children and young adults with advanced, previously treated central nervous system tumors, according to a phase I study presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.<br /> &nbsp;

According to a phase II study, over 40% of patients with metastatic or unresectable urothelial carcinoma responded to treatment with the investigational fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) inhibitor erdafitinib. Findings from this study were presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.

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.

According to the phase III KEYNOTE-407 trial, when pembrolizumab was added to frontline carboplatin/paclitaxel or nab-paclitaxel, the combination reduced the risk of death by 36% compared with chemotherapy alone for patients with metastatic squamous non&ndash;small cell lung cancer. These results were presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Adjuvant endocrine therapy alone is sufficient for patients with&nbsp;hormone receptor&ndash;positive, HER2-negative, node-negative early-stage breast cancer who have an intermediate risk of distant recurrence compared with endocrine therapy in combination with chemotherapy. Results of the phase III TAILORx trial presented during the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting showed that adjuvant endocrine therapy achieved noninferiority to chemoendocrine therapy.

Practice-changing improvements in disease-free survival and overall survival rates were seen for patients with pediatric&nbsp;rhabdomyosarcoma with the addition of a course of&nbsp;low-dose maintenance chemotherapy administered after standard-of-care intensive chemotherapy.

According to findings from the phase III KEYNOTE-042 trial, patients with non&ndash;small cell lung cancer demonstrated improved survival of 4 to 8 extra months with upfront pembrolizumab therapy compared with chemotherapy, the current standard of care.&nbsp;Patients treated with pembrolizumab also experienced fewer adverse events.

Shilpa Gupta, MD, assistant professor of Medicine in the Hematology, Oncology, and Transplantation Division, University of Minnesota, discusses phase Ib and phase II studies of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) with bevacizumab (Avastin) for the treatment of metastatic renal cell carcinoma during the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.

According to findings of the IMPACT study discussed at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, overall survival was improved with personalized therapy based on tumor molecular profiling in patients with advanced, hard-to-treat cancers.

According to initial results reported at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting from the Circulating Cell-Free Genome Atlas study, 3 cell-free DNA tests showed high degrees of specificity in identifying signs of early stage lung cancer.

Combination taselisib plus fulvestrant demonstrated a modest progression-free survival benefit of 2 months compared with fulvestrant alone for the treatment of patients with estrogen receptor&ndash;positive, <em>PIK3CA</em>-mutant locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer.

According to the phase III IMpower131 trial findings presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, the risk of progression or death was reduced by 29% with the addition of atezolizumab&nbsp; to the first-line treatment regimen of carboplatin and nab-paclitaxel versus chemotherapy alone for patients with advanced squamous non&ndash;small cell lung cancer.

Risk of disease progression or death decreased by 80% with the addition of&nbsp;ibrutinib to rituximab compared with rituximab alone for patients with Waldenstr&ouml;m macroglobulinemia.

The&nbsp;highly-selective RET&nbsp;inhibitor LOXO-292&nbsp;induced an objective response rate of 77% for patients with&nbsp;RET&nbsp;fusion-positive non&ndash;small cell lung cancer, according to&nbsp;findings from the phase I&nbsp;LIBRETTO-001 study presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting.

In updated findings from the multicenter phase I CRB-401 study that were presented&nbsp;at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, the anti-BCMA CAR T-cell therapy bb2121 induced a median progression-free survival of 11.8 months and a median duration of response of 10.8 months for patients with relapsed/refractory heavily pretreated multiple myeloma.

Pomalidomide in combination with bortezomib and low-dose dexamethasone demonstrated an improved median&nbsp;progression-free survival compared with&nbsp; bortezomib and low-dose dexamethasone alone in patients with&nbsp;relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma who have previously received lenalidomide, according to results from the OPTIMISMM trial.&nbsp;

Duke researchers discussed findings from 2 studies at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, which revealed chemotherapy and hormone-targeting treatment may be more beneficial to black men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer compared with their white counterparts.

According to study results presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, women with head and neck cancer (HNC) are less likely to recieve intensive chemotherapy and radiation when compared with their male counterparts.

Eytan M. Stein, MD, internist, hematologic oncologist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the results of a phase I dose escalation and expansion study of enasidenib in mutant <em>IDH-2</em> relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) during the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Treatment with&nbsp;chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells that target B-cell maturation protein (BMCA) achieved clinical remissions in 33 out of 35 patients (94%) with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma in early results from a Chinese study presented at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting.

When epacadostat, an IDO1 inhibitor, was combined with pembrolizumab (Keytruda), a PD-1 inhibitor, responses were seen in 35% of patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma, according to findings presented during the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting. &nbsp;

Larotrectinib (LOXO-101), the novel pan-TRK inhibitor, induced responses in 3 out of 4 patients with a&nbsp;<em>TRK</em>&nbsp;fusion&ndash;positive solid tumor, according to findings presented in a press conference June 3 at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Jorge Cortes, MD, deputy chair of the Department of Leukemia, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses initial results from the BFORE trial, which is exploring bosutinib (Bosulif) versus imatinib (Gleevec) for newly diagnosed chronic myeloid leukemia.

The experimental AKT inhibitor ipatasertib in combination with paclitaxel improved progression-free survival (PFS) as a first-line therapy for patients with locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer when compared with paclitaxel alone, according to initial findings of the LOTUS trial presented during the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting.<br /> &nbsp;

Second-generation ALK inhibitor alectinib (Alecensa) demonstrated a 15-month improvement in progression-free survival compared with crizotinib (Xalkori), the first-generation ALK inhibitor and standard of care, in patients with&nbsp;<em>ALK</em>-positive non&ndash;small cell lung cancer.

Lurbinectedin (PM01183) shows activity as a single agent as well as in combination with doxorubicin or paclitaxel in patients with advanced endometrial cancer, according to findings presented during the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting.

In updated findings from the KEYNOTE-059 trial of pembrolizumab in advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer, the PD-1 inhibitor maintained signs of its clinical benefit in this patient population, which is encouraging as the indication is currently under consideration for approval with the FDA.

Kim Chi, MD, professor, University of British Columbia, discusses results of the phase III LATITUDE trial of androgen deprivation therapy with abiraterone acetate plus prednisone (Deltasone) or placebos in newly diagnosed high-risk metastatic hormone-naive prostate cancer.