Latest Conference Articles

Michael Wang, MD, discusses the role of BTK inhibitors as treatment of patients with mantle cell lymphoma ahead of his presentation at the 2020 SOHO Annual Meeting.

Using a modified pediatric regimen to treat adolescents and young adults with acute lymphoblastic leukemia led to superior outcomes compared with historical adult ALL regimen results, according to a retrospective analysis that evaluated 95 AYAs aged 14 to 39 years. Findings were presented at the eighth annual Society of Hematologic Oncology virtual meeting.

Experts in myeloproliferative neoplasms find janus kinase inhibitors to be particularly important to the armamentarium for the treatment of myelofibrosis. With only 2 FDA-approved agents, fedratinib and ruxolitinib, and the inevitability that not all patients will derive benefit, and some will develop resistance, the option of moving beyond JAK inhibition is widely discussed.

Patients with myelofibrosis have complicated pathology and multiple pathways, creating the opportunity to use multiple targeted agents for treatment, but also leading to greater potential for resistance to monotherapy, according to Lucia Masarova, MD.

Jerry L. Spivak, MD, discusses treating patients with polycythemia vera, which is a type of myeloproliferative neoplasm that can often derive from essential thrombocythemia, particularly among women.

Standard treatment for accelerated or blast phase myeloproliferative neoplasms consists of hypomethylating agents or intensive induction chemotherapy and transplant. However, newer studies have suggested that accelerated or blast phase MPNs, such as acute myeloid leukemia, can be treated with molecularly driven targeted therapies.

Srdan Verstovsek, MD, PhD, shares his take home message from his presentation on accelerated and blastic phase myeloproliferative neoplasms during the first Annual Texas MPM Workshop.

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Ruben Mesa, director, MD, discussed the role of JAK inhibitors in early myelofibrosis and other promising treatment options coming down the pipeline.

During the 1st Annual Texas MPM Workshop, Aaron Gerds, MD, MS presented on the ruxolitinib in the present and future, as well as the possibilities for moving beyond the JAK-STAT pathway.

Patients considered to have early myelofibrosis are a heterogeneous group for whom disease risk, best treatment strategies, and the probability of mortality are best determined individually by looking at patient’s clinical characteristics and molecular markers together.

"Brain metastases harbor distinct clinically actionable genetic alterations compared to their primary tumors and extracranial sites."

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Stephanie Weiss, MD, reviewed the treatment landscape for HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer and gave her predictions on how the paradigm will evolve for patients with brain metastases now that tucatinib has demonstrated efficacy.

In the first pooled prospective study to show the long-term outcomes of cranial radiation in patients with limited brain metastases, it was observed that whole-brain radiotherapy was associated with worse cognitive outcomes and mixed quality of life compared with stereotactic radiosurgery for these patients over time, according to a presentation from Joshua Palmer, MD, at the 2020 Virtual Conference on Brain Metastases.

Quantification of circulating tumor cells in cerebrospinal fluid can be used to predict survival outcomes in patients with newly diagnosed leptomeningeal disease, according to the results of a retrospective analysis presented during the Society of Neuro-Oncology’s 2020 Virtual Conference on Brain Metastases .

Joshua Palmer, MD, discusses a pooled analysis of 2 randomized clinical trials that compared how clinical outcomes and quality of life were impacted with stereotactic radiosurgery versus whole-brain radiation therapy in patients with brain metastases.

Multiple positive responses were observed in an exploratory efficacy analysis evaluating tucatinib in combination with trastuzumab and capecitabine in patients with previously treated HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer with brain metastases in the previously reported HER2CLIMB trial.

In an interview with Targeted Oncology following the SNO Brain Metastasis Meeting, Nancy Lin, MD, discussed the treatment of brain metastases in HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer in general, as well as the subgroup analysis of patients with brain metastases in the phase 2 HER2CLIMB clinical trial.

Eric A. Klein, MD, discusses the role of genomic testing in patients with prostate cancer and how these findings can impact treatment decisions.

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Neal Shore, MD, director, Carolina Urologic Research Center, discussed the OS analysis for the phase 3 ARAMIS study and explained a match-adjusted indirect comparison. He also discussed how these data connect with presentations around the 3 approved agents for nmCRPC being presented at AUA 2020.

Christina L. Roland, MD, PhD, discusses the preliminary results of neoadjuvant checkpoint blockade—nivolumab or nivolumab plus ipilimumab—in patients with surgically resectable undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma and dedifferentiated liposarcoma.

Jennifer Marie Suga, MD, discusses implementing a genomic oncology program at Kaiser Permanente Northern California through large-scale genomic next generation sequencing testing of patients with advanced cancers in the community setting.

"The ARROW trial results presented today during the ASCO virtual meeting showed that patients with RET fusion–positive lung cancer treated with the selective RET inhibitor pralsetinib had durable responses. In addition to supporting the development of pralsetinib across a broad population, these data highlight the urgency to test [patients with] lung cancer with next-generation sequencing so that eligible patients may be identified for treatment."

Patients with ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer showed clinically meaningful improvement in overall survival when receiving alectinib, a highly selective second-generation TKI, versus those treated with crizotinib, according to updated data from the pivotal phase 3 ALEX trial presented at the 2020 ASCO Virtual Scientific Program.

Durable clinical activity was demonstrated with tepotinib, an oral, highly selective MET inhibitor, in patients with locally advanced or metastatic non–small cell lung cancer and a MET exon 14 skipping mutation identified through liquid or tissue biopsy. This data was from the phase 2 VISION trial presented during the at the 2020 Virtual Scientific Meeting and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

According to findings from the phase 1b COSMIC-021 trial presented at the 2020 ASCO Virtual Scientific Program, cabozantinib and atezolizumab demonstrated clinically meaningful activity in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, including those with high-risk clinical features.

Stratified multivariate analysis as well as efficacy from multiple treatment time points confirmed the benefit of cabazitaxel over abiraterone acetate or enzalutamide as a standard treatment in men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer who were previously treated with docetaxel and either of those 2 androgen receptor-targeted agents, according to results presented during the 2020 American Society of Clinical Oncology Virtual Scientific Program.

Patients with nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer receiving darolutamide plus androgen deprivation therapy had a 31% reduction for the risk of death compared with placebo and ADT, according to the results of the phase 3 ARAMIS trial’s preplanned final overall survival analysis presented during the 2020 ASCO Virtual Scientific Program.

"Irrespective of the PD-L1 status, there were no trends in favor of atezolizumab in both arms."

Mansoor Raza Mirza, MD, discusses the final survival data from the randomized phase 2 NSGO-AVANOVA2/ENGOT-OV24 study, which evaluated the combination or niraparib plus bevacizumab versus niraparib alone in recurrent platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer.