Latest Conference Articles

An open-label, single-arm, phase II study in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia demonstrated the frontline AVO triplet, comprised of acalabrutinib, venetoclax, and obinutuzumab, achieved undetectable minimal residual disease in the bone marrow in 48% of patients after only 8 monthly cycles of therapy, according to lead author Benjamin L. Lampson, MD, PhD, who presented the findings at the 2019 ASH Annual Meeting.

Updated follow-up analysis of the phase III E1912 study showed that ibrutinib/rituximab induced higher rates of progression-free survival (PFS) when compared against fludarabine, cyclophosphamide, and rituximab in patients ≤70 years with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), according to Tait D. Shanafelt, MD, who presented the findings at the 2019 ASH Annual Meeting.

Patients <70 years old with chronic lymphocytic leukemia treated in the minimal residual disease (MRD)–cohort of the phase II CAPTIVATE trial had undetectable MRD rates of 75% and 72% in the peripheral blood and bone marrow, respectively, with the frontline combination of ibrutinib and venetoclax, according to findings presented at the 2019 ASH Annual Meeting.

Jacqueline C. Barrientos, MD, MS, discusses exciting novel combination strategies that are being presented at the 2019 ASH Annual meeting.

Patients with refractory large B-cell lymphoma who were treated with Axi-cel had a 3-year overall survival rate of 47%, according to an updated analysis of the phase II ZUMA-1 trial. 

Complete remissions were achieved in greater than 20% of patients with highly refractory non-Hodgkin lymphomas who had been previously been treated with chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy with Mosunetuzumab, a novel bispecific antibody, according to study results presented at the 2019 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting.

Patients with treatment-naïve chronic lymphocytic leukemia experienced a statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival with acalabrutinib as a single agent or in combination with obinutuzumab when compared with obinutuzumab plus chlorambucil, according to results from the phase III ELEVATE-TN trial presented at the 2019 ASH Annual Meeting.

Encouraging signs of dose-dependent efficacy, as well as a promising safety profile, were observed in patients with heavily pretreated relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma who were treated with CC-93269, a human IgG1-based T-cell engager that binds to BCMA and CD3 epsilon in a 2+1 format.

Patients with a difficult-to-treat form of multiple myeloma who were treated with a novel, bispecific anti-BCMA/anti-CD38 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy experienced promising responses and a manageable safety profile, according to results of a study that were presented at the 61st Annual American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition.<br /> &nbsp;

A multi-antigen off-the-shelf chimeric antigen receptor natural killer cell therapy has been included in the ASH annual meeting spotlight due to exciting preclinical evidence. An investigational new drug application was approved&nbsp;in September 2019 for the therapy, labeled as FT596, developed by Fate Therapeutics, and human trials are scheduled to start in the first quater of 2020.

The CDK4/6 inhibitor palbociclib (Ibrance) demonstrated it was active and well-tolerated in a phase II interim analysis of patients with brain metastases harboring alterations in the CDK pathway, according to a presentation at the 24th Annual Meeting and Education Day of the Society of NeuroOncology.

A large proportion of children diagnosed with neurofibromatosis type 1-related plexiform neurofibromas have no appropriate treatment available to them and represent a significant unmet medical need. To determine demographics, clinical characteristics, and treatments, a cross-sectional analysis of existing data from the Children&rsquo;s Tumor Foundation registry was undertaken by Jinghua He, PhD, MPH, and colleagues.

Mustafa Khasraw, MD, discusses the purpose II VERTU study and shares key takeaways from his presentation at the 2019 Society for NeuroOncology Annual Meeting.

&nbsp;At the 24th Annual Meeting and Education Day of the Society of NeuroOncology, Victor Levin, MD, spoke with Targeted Oncology about the STELLAR trial.

An interim analysis of the phase II study of palbociclib for the treatment of patients with brain metastases harboring CDK alterations was presented at the 2019 Society for NeuroOncology Annual Meeting by Priscilla K. Brastianos, MD, director of the central nervous system brain metastasis program, Massachusetts General Hospital.<br /> &nbsp;

Patients with both high-grade and low-grade glioma harboring the <em>BRAF</em> V600E mutation demonstrated positive benefit in response, duration of response, and progression-free survival when given the combination of dabrafenib and trametinib in a phase IIa study.

Adding the PARP inhibitor veliparib to standard therapy for newly diagnosed patients with unmethylated MGMT glioblastoma multiforme was well-tolerated in a phase II trial, according to findings presented at the 24th Annual Meeting and Education Day of the Society of NeuroOncology.

A drug with a greater than 30-year history that was originally investigated as a treatment for trypanosomiasis has garnered interest from investigators seeking a treatment for the rare brain cancer anaplastic astrocytoma.<br /> &nbsp;

Findings from a planned interim analysis of the Ib/II Study 111 showed that lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab induced a disease control rate of 94% in patients with metastatic clear cell RCC who had disease progression following treatment with a PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitor.

Chung-Han Lee, MD, PhD, medical oncologist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the rationale for the phase II study of lenvatinib plus pembrolizumab for disease progression after PD-1/PD-L1 immune checkpoint inhibitor in metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma.<br /> &nbsp;

Patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma assigned to nivolumab plus ipilimumab had a longer treatment-free survival than patients treated with sunitinib. Furthermore, those patients assigned to the combination spent less time experiencing treatment-related adverse events.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology&nbsp;at the IKCS meeting, Gennady Bratslavsky, MD, provided his expert opinion on the optimal first-line therapy for non&ndash;clear cell renal cell carcinoma, a topic he debated on with peers at the 2019 International Kidney Cancer Symposium.

Martin H. Voss, reviews the method of design and results for the phase I/II study of the experimental anti&ndash;PD-1 anitbody MEDI0680 plus durvalumab versus nivolumab monotherapy in patients with metastatic clear cell renal cell carcinoma.<br /> &nbsp;

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology during the 2019 International Kidney Cancer Symposium, Yinghong Wang, MD, PhD, MS, discussed the management of gi-related toxicity in patients with kidney cancer from the perspective of a gastrointestinal specialist. She also explained the multidisciplinary collaboration between oncology and gastrointestinal departments to enhance care.&nbsp;

Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston established its immunotherapy toxicity service care team in part because of the experience of David M., a patient treated there for metastatic melanoma that spread to the lung and brain.

Treating clear cell renal cell carcinoma with immune checkpoint inhibitors resulted in vascular changes that may make these tumors more vulnerable to combinations of ICIs and VEGF inhibitors, according to data presented at the 18th International Kidney Cancer Symposium.

Fred R. Hirsch, MD, PhD, discusses how genomic testing has expanded over the last few years and has impacted the lung cancer treatment paradigm.

Nicholas Bevins, MD, PhD, discusses the results from an in silico comparison of frequently used next-generation sequencing panels. The analysis aimed to identify the impact of the panel composition on tumor mutational burden calculations. Results from the analysis were presented in a poster at the 2019 Association for Molecular Pathology Annual Meeting and Expo.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Willemina R. Geurts-Giele, PhD, discussed the accuracy of detecting&nbsp;MET&nbsp;exon 14 skipping mutations in patients with NSCLC with DNA-based NGS panels. These findings were presented at The Association for Molecular Pathology Annual Meeting and Expo.

The emergence of resistance mutations in patients with cancer who receive targeted therapies is an expected development that will require new diagnostic methods of identifying the mechanisms through which these alterations occur, according to Fei Dong, MD, during the 2019 Association for Molecular Pathology Annual Meeting.<br /> &nbsp;