Latest Conference Articles

Results from the phase III KEYNOTE-189 trial were presented at the 2018 AACR Annual Meeting, indicating that the combination of pembrolizumab with standard chemotherapy in the frontline setting reduced the risk of death by more than 50% in patients with nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer without&nbsp;<em>EGFR&nbsp;</em>or&nbsp;<em>ALK</em>&nbsp;mutations.

In a precision medicine success story, crizotinib (Xalkori) demonstrated a 50% objective response rate and a 100% disease control rate in patients with&nbsp;<em>ALK</em>-positive advanced, inoperable inflammatory tumors, in findings from the CREATE study presented at the 2018 AACR Annual Meeting.&nbsp;

Vivek Subbiah, MD, associate medical director, Clinical Center for Targeted Therapy, assistant professor, Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses targeting <em>RET </em>alterations in solid tumors during the 2018 AACR Annual Meeting.

According to the results from a phase I study, BLU-667, a next-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor, was well-tolerated and demonstrated clinical benefit in patients with advanced,&nbsp;<em>RET</em>-altered solid tumors who had progressed on previous therapies. These findings were presented April 14 to 18 at the ASCR Annual Meeting 2018 in Chicago, Illinois.

According to phase III results from the EORTC 1325-MG/KEYNOTE-054 trial presented at the 2018 AACR Annual Meeting and published in the <em>New England Journal of Medicine, </em>adjuvant pembrolizumab (Keytruda) reduced the risk of recurrence or death by 43% in&nbsp;patients with resected, high-risk stage III melanoma.

James Hamrick, MD, senior medical director, Flatiron Health, discusses how clinical trials can be improved in the community setting during the&nbsp;ACCC 44th Annual Meeting &amp; Cancer Center Business Summit.

Experts in the gynecologic oncology field share their key takeaways from the 2018 Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) Annual Meeting on Women&rsquo;s Cancer, held at the Hyatt Regency Resort &amp; Convention Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, from March 24 to 27, 2018.

The results of a network meta-analysis, which compared efficacy and safety findings from studies of 3 FDA-approved PARP inhibitors as maintenance therapy for patients with relapsed platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer, demonstrated that similar efficacy results were seen across the 3 PARP inhibitors, but safety results differed.&nbsp;

According to results from the phase II MEDIOLA trial, the combination of olaparib (Lynparza), a PARP inhibitor, and durvalumab (Imfinzi), a&nbsp;PD-L1 inhibitor,&nbsp;was found to induce objective responses in over 70% of patients with relapsed, platinum-sensitive,&nbsp;BRCA-mutated ovarian cancer.

Results from a phase I/II trial indicated that durable responses could be achieved with the combination of niraparib (Zejula), a PARP inhibitor, and pembrolizumab (Keytruda), a PD-1 inhibitor, in patients with&nbsp;platinum-resistant/refractory ovarian cancer.

Rodney P. Rocconi, MD, chief of Gynecologic Oncology Service, associate director for Clinical Research, professor of Interdisciplinary Clinical Oncology, discusses a phase I trial of Vigil personalized engineered autologous tumor cells in ovarian cancer during the 2018 Society of Gynecologic Oncology Annual Meeting.

A combination regimen of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and&nbsp;mirvetuximab soravtansine (IMGN853) induced responses in close to half of the patients in a small study of platinum-resistant ovarian cancer .

When trastuzumab (Herceptin) was added to chemotherapy, a more than 50% improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) was observed compared with chemotherapy alone in patients with&nbsp;HER2-positive uterine serous carcinoma (USC), according to findings from a small randomized trial.

Alessandro D. Santin, MD, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at Yale School of Medicine, discusses results of a randomized phase II trial of trial of carboplatin-paclitaxel compared to carboplatin-paclitaxel-trastuzumab (Herceptin) in advanced or recurrent uterine serous carcinomas that overexpress HER2/neu during the 2018 Society of Gynecologic Oncology Annual Meeting.

The United States Food and Drug Administration approved several maintenance therapies over the last few years for the management of platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer. Bevacizumab (Avastin), TKIs, or PARP inhibitors were among the treatments used in the clinical trials leading to these approvals.

Mark S. Soberman, MD, MBA, FACS, 2017-2018 president of the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC), discusses various approaches that can be used to integrate multidisciplinary healthcare programs into various healthcare settings, following a panel discussion during the ACCC 44th Annual Meeting &amp; Cancer Center Business Summit.

A prospective study found that implementing&nbsp;an &ldquo;ultra-restrictive&rdquo; opioid prescription protocol for gynecologic surgery had led to&nbsp;an 89% reduction in opioid tablets dispensed at discharge and a high rate of patient satisfaction.

In an analysis of the phase III ENGOT-OV16/NOVA study, baseline body weight and platelet counts served as early biomarkers for patients with platinum-sensitive, relapsed, high-grade serous epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer who would require dose modifications to their treatment with niraparib (Zejula).

According to study findings presented during the 49th Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) Annual Meeting on Women&rsquo;s Cancers held in New Orleans March 24-27, clinical benefit has been found for women with recurrent ovarian cancer when using immune checkpoint inhibitors, but there was a higher rate of adverse events (AEs) than previously reported in other tumor types.

Michael Birrer, MD, PhD, professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology-Oncology, and Director of the Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, discusses current data on predicting response to PARP inhibitor therapy in ovarian cancer.

Perspectives from the community, academic, and scientific settings came together during a panel discussion on precision medicine and genetic testing in the community setting at the Association of Community Cancer Centers&rsquo; 44th Annual Meeting and Cancer Center Business Summit.

Lawrence D. Wagman, MD, FACS, executive medical director of St. Joseph&rsquo;s Hospital, discusses the future of precision medicine and genetic testing in the community.<br /> &nbsp;

In a panel discussion this morning during the&nbsp;Association of Community Cancer Center (ACCC)&rsquo;s 44th Annual Meeting &amp; Cancer Center Business Summit,&nbsp;experts stressed the importance of integrating team-based care to break silos and allow a continued care transition as the move continues toward value-based care.

Financial toxicity is increasingly recognized as an adverse event of modern oncologic treatment.&nbsp;In recognition of the need to guide patients through this aspect of their cancer journey, the Association of Community Cancer Centers has unveiled Financial Advocacy Services Guidelines 2018.

James Hamrick, MD, MPH,&nbsp;discusses improving patient accrual and managing clinical trials in the community setting.

During a panel at&nbsp;the Association for Community Cancer Center 44th Annual Meeting &amp; Cancer Center Business Summit this morning, experts discussed some of the biggest drivers of change in oncology care, as well as what is in need of the most attention at the present time.

Experts discusses who will establish quality standards in the new value landscape during the&nbsp;44th Annual Meeting and Cancer Center Business Summit of the Association of Community Cancer Centers.

Catherine Fine, MS, Certified Genetic Counselor, lead, Clinical Cancer Services at Genome Medical, discusses questions on genetic counseling in the community setting.

According to findings presented at the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium,&nbsp;the combination of the&nbsp;VEGFR-2 inhibitor ramucirumab (Cyramza) plus the anti&ndash;PD-L1 agent durvalumab (Imfinzi)&nbsp;demonstrated antitumor activity in a phase Ia/b study of patients with previously treated advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma.

Superior overall survival was induced with sequencing regorafenib (Stivarga) before cetuximab (Erbitux) compared with the reverse sequence in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer following failure of standard chemotherapy, according to findings from the phase II&nbsp;REVERCE study presented at the 2018 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.