Latest Conference Articles

An early study has demonstrated signs of clinical efficacy for the combination of the anti-inflammatory agent ibudilast and temozolomide in patient-derived cell lines for glioblastoma multiforme.<br /> &nbsp;

Martin van den Bent, MD, Erasmus MC Cancer Center, discusses the results from the ABT-414 trial for patients with brain cancer.&nbsp;

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.

TRC105, an endoglin antibody, combined with pazopanib showed promising anti-tumor activity in patients with advanced angiosarcoma, warranting the initiation of a phase III study to explore the combination further.<br /> &nbsp;

Though surgical resection and radiation therapy remain at the forefront of the treatment for localized disease, accurately predicting outcomes for individual patients remains a challenge, which radiomics, an emerging research field, hopes to alleviate.

Olaratumab displayed anti-tumor activity both as a single-agent and in concert with standard of care chemotherapy in a study using human pediatric sarcoma cell-derived models and in human sarcoma cell transfected mice.&nbsp;

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;

Pembrolizumab plus low dose metronomic cyclophosphamide demonstrated limited patient benefit in adult patients with diverse types of unresectable locally advanced or metastatic sarcoma.<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;

Elizabeth Loggers, MD, PhD, medical oncologist, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, discusses the role that she expects immunotherapy will play in the future treatment landscape of sarcoma.

Clinical benefit, including partial response and stable disease, was observed in 11 of 20 patients with relapsed metastatic sarcoma following nivolumab treatment that was administered either alone or in combination with pazopanib.

Electronic health records have been heralded as a means of launching oncology into a precise and personalized world of medicine, but they have failed in many respects.

With olaparib approved and niraparib and rucaparib advancing through clinical development, PARP inhibition is becoming a valuable option in the ovarian cancer armamentarium.

Omid Hamid, MD, chief, Translational Research and Immunotherapy, director, Melanoma Therapeutics, discusses current and emerging immunotherapeutic strategies in the field of melanoma during an interview at the 34th Annual Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium^TM.

Updated results of the multicenter phase II study SARC028 demonstrate both a favorable safety profile as well as encouraging efficacy for the use pembrolizumab (Keytruda) as a treatment for patients with advanced sarcomas.

Findings from a highly anticipated, randomized, phase II trial could possibly pave the path for the FDA approval of the first targeted therapy for patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), explains Linda T. Vahdat, MD.<br /> &nbsp;

Treatment with pembrolizumab, an immunotherapeutic agent approved in melanoma, lung, and head and neck cancer, and which is undergoing investigation in several other cancer types, reduced the size of tumors in patients with a specific soft tissue sarcoma.

Ian Judson, MD, medical oncologist, The Royal Marsden Hospital, discusses the future role of olaratumab in the treatment of patients with sarcoma.

Adjuvant chemotherapy was found to decrease the rates of local recurrence in some subtypes of extremity soft tissue sarcoma; however, the use of adjuvant/neoadjuvant therapy did not impact overall survival.&nbsp;

Linda T. Vahdat, MD, PhD, ‎Breast Cancer Research Program Leader at Meyer Cancer Center, Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian, discusses the current progress being made with glembatumumab vedotin in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and what the future holds for this agent.