Latest Conference Articles

Although African-American men are at a higher risk for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer and have worse survival outcomes compared with Caucasian men, findings of a recent retrospective study suggested they may have a better response to several prostate cancer treatments.

Findings from the phase III KEYNOTE-426 study demonstrated a significantly improved progression-free survival and overall survival with the combination pembrolizumab plus axitinib versus sunitinib in previously-untreated patients with clear cell metastatic renal cell carcinoma, according to a prescast ahead of the 2019 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

Treatment with the novel targeted radiation therapy lutetium-177 PSMA-617 demonstrated strong clinical activity and the potential to improve survival in heavily pretreated men with PSMA-positive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, according to phase II findings to be presented at the 2019 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

Achieving an objective response to TKI therapy was associated with longer overall survival in patients with previously untreated hepatocellular carcinoma, according to findings of a retrospective analysis presented during the 2019 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

Michael J. Overman, MD, discusses the data presented at the 2019 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium for the phase II CheckMate-142 in previously treated patients with microsatellite instability-high or mismatch repair-deficient metastatic colorectal cancer.

When durvalumab and tremelimumab were combined with best supportive care, the combination reduced the risk of progression or death by 28% compared with best supportive care alone, according to findings from a phase II clinical trial. 

Updated findings from the&nbsp;safety lead-in phase of the BEACON CRC trial showed an estimated survival time beyond historic controls from treatment with a triplet combination of&nbsp;encorafenib, binimetinib, and cetuximab for patients with&nbsp;<em>BRAF&nbsp;</em>V600E-mutant metastatic colorectal cancer.&nbsp;

Regorafenib reduced the risk of progression by 51% compared with placebo in patients with&nbsp;metastatic or unresectable biliary tract cancer who were previously treated with gemcitabine and platinum-based chemotherapy, according to results from the phase II REACHIN trial that were presented at the 2019 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.&nbsp;

Combined BRAF and MEK inhibition induced a promising response rate and survival rates among patients with&nbsp;<em>BRAF&nbsp;</em>V600E&ndash;mutated biliary tract cancer (BTC), according to the results of the ROAR trial that were presented&nbsp;during the 2019 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

Treatment with&nbsp;TAS-102 led to an improvement in overall survival among patients with&nbsp;metastatic gastric/gastroesophageal junction cancer. The improvement was also seen both in patients who had and had not undergone prior gastrectomy, according to a subgroup analysis from the phase III TAGS study.&nbsp;

Pashtoon M. Kasi, MD, MBBS, MS, discusses how the triplet regimen of the BRAF inhibitor encorafenib, the MEK inhibitor binimetinib, and the EGFR inhibitor cetuximab, will impact the treatment landscape for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

Based on findings from the phase I/II NivoRam study, investigators at the 2019 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium reported that the combination of&nbsp;nivolumab and ramucirumab is active in patients with&nbsp;previously treated advanced gastric adenocarcinoma.

In findings reported at the&nbsp;2019 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, 67% of patients with untreated metastatic HER2-positive esophagogastric adenocarcinoma treated with&nbsp;the combination of pembrolizumab, trastuzumab, and chemotherapy&nbsp;remained progression-free at 6 months.

According to findings from the&nbsp;KEYNOTE-181 trial, pembrolizumab demonstrated a significant improvement in overall survival in patients with PD-L1&ndash;positive advanced or metastatic esophageal or esophageal junction carcinoma who progressed on standard therapy, marking the first time a PD-1 inhibitor has demonstrated a survival improvement in this patient population.

Based on data from the phase III TAM-01 trial presented at the 41st Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, investigators concluded that giving women&nbsp;diagnosed with breast intraepithelial neoplasia a lower dose of&nbsp;tamoxifen following surgery could be as effective and less toxic than the current standard dose.

Charles E. Geyer, Jr, MD, professor of medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, associate director for clinical research and Harrigan, Haw, Luck Families Chair in Cancer Research at Massey Cancer Center, discusses the impact of pertuzumab (Perjeta) in the treatment of patients with HER2-positive breast cancer at the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

At the&nbsp;2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, data demonstrated that use of circulating tumor-cell counts had strong value for selecting endocrine therapy compared to chemotherapy in patients with&nbsp;estrogen receptor&ndash;positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer.

Sara A. Hurvitz, MD, director of the Breast Oncology Program, medical director of the Clinical Research Unit, University of California, Los Angeles Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses response to abemaciclib (Verzenio) in the neoMONARCH trial at the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

A biomarker subgroup analysis of the&nbsp;phase III IMpassion130 study in patients with metastatic triple negative breast cancer or inoperable locally advanced TNBC found that progression-free survival and overall survival improvements&nbsp;with the addition of first-line atezolizumab&nbsp; to nab-paclitaxel were&nbsp;exclusive to patients with PD-L1 expression &ge;1% in immune cells.

Patients with triple-negative breast cancer who received chemotherapy treatment more than 30 days after surgery had worse survival rates and outcomes than patients who received adjuvant chemotherapy within 30 days of surgery,&nbsp;according to findings from a retrospective study presented at the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Roberto A. Leon Ferre, MD, oncologist, Mayo Clinic, discusses the identification of patients with luminal androgen receptor (LAR) triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) during the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Adding adjuvant capecitabine to the standard treatment for&nbsp;patients with early-stage triple-negative breast cancer did not lead to a significant improvement in&nbsp;disease-free or overall survival compared with observation, according to findings presented during&nbsp;the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium

Patients with breast cancer who achieved pathologic complete response following neoadjuvant chemotherapy were more likely to have improved survival outcomes,&nbsp;according to findings of a meta-analyses data presented at the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Findings from the&nbsp;phase III KATHERINE study showed adjuvant treatment with ado-trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1; Kadcyla) reduced the risk of invasive disease recurrence or death by 50% compared with trastuzumab (Herceptin) in patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer who had residual invasive disease following neoadjuvant therapy.

According to the phase III MAIA trial, triplet regimen&nbsp;daratumumab, lenalidomide, plus dexamethasone reduced risk of disease progression or death by 44%&nbsp;in newly diagnosed patients with multiple myeloma who were not candidates for high-dose chemotherapy and autologous stem-cell transplant, compared to patients who received&nbsp;lenalidomide plus dexamethasone.

An overall response rate of 26.2% was induced by selinexor, an oral XPO1 inhibitor,&nbsp;combination in heavily pretreated patients with penta-refractory multiple myeloma. According to the findings from part 2 of the pivotal STORM trial, selinexor is now the first investigational oral therapy to show activity in these patients.

An update on the pivotal phase III&nbsp;QuANTUM-R study presented at the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting demonstrated overall survival benefit across patient subgroups with&nbsp;quizartinib in patients with&nbsp;relapsed/refractory <em>FLT3</em>-ITD&ndash;mutated acute myeloid leukemia.&nbsp;

A significant reduction in the risk of&nbsp;disease progression or death was observed from treatment with the upfront combination of&nbsp;ibrutinib plus obinutuzumab in patients&nbsp;with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and small lymphocytic lymphoma compared with&nbsp;chlorambucil and obinutuzumab.&nbsp;

Durable responses were achieved with acalabrutinib therapy for patients with relapsed/refractory mantle cell lymphoma, with 40% still on treatment for more than 2 years, according to long-term follow-up findings presented at the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting.

Initial results from a phase I study showed an objective response rate of 83.3% had been achieved in&nbsp;heavily pretreated patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma who had been treated with the anti-BCMA CAR T-cell therapy bb21217.