News

The combination of abemaciclib and fulvestrant has demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in overall survival compared with fulvestrant and placebo in women with HR–positive, HER2-negative advanced or metastatic breast cancer who have previously received endocrine therapy, according to updated interim results from the phase III MONARCH 2 trial.

Srdan Verstovsek, MD, PhD, discussed the treatment decisions he makes when treating a patient with a myeloproliferative neoplasm.

The American Oncology Network, LLC will be acquiring a new practice from Ohio in August.

Vivek Subbiah, MD,&nbsp;discussed the activity and tolerability of BLU-667 in patients with advanced&nbsp;<em>RET</em>-altered MTC and PTC. He also discussed the next steps planned for this ongoing trial and how this agent can impact the treatment landscape of patients with&nbsp;<em>RET</em>-altered thyroid cancers.

Carey K. Anders, MD, spoke with <em>Targeted Oncology</em> about treatment options emerging to improve outcomes for patients with metastatic breast cancer and secondary brain metastases.

A theranostic approach to radioactive iodine therapy in thyroid cancer has become the standard of care and represents a more precise means of managing patients based on disease-specific features, according to a presentation on differentiated thyroid cancer management at the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging 2019 Annual Meeting, held June 22-25, 2019, in Anaheim, California.

The combination of pembrolizumab with chemotherapy demonstrated a benefit in terms of pathological complete response when used as neoadjuvant therapy compared with chemotherapy alone in patients with triple-negative breast cancer, according to interim results of the pivotal phase III KEYNOTE-522 trial.

The approval of TAS-102 has been backed by the&nbsp;European Medicines Agency&#39;s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use for the treatment of&nbsp;adult patients with metastatic gastric cancer, including adenocarcinoma of the gastroesophageal junction, in those previously treated with at least 2 prior systemic therapy regimens for advanced disease.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Naveen Pemmaraju, MD, an associate professor in the Department of Leukemia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discussed the safety of SL-401 as a treatment in patients with MF following relapse or intolerance to JAK inhibition, based on data from an ongoing phase I/II clinical trial. He highlighted other research that also appear promising for this subgroup of patients with a poor prognosis.

Laura Dawson, MD, FRCPC, FASTRO, has been selected as the president-elect of the American Society for Radiation Oncology and will begin her term at the society&rsquo;s 61st Annual Meeting, which is being held in Chicago, Illinois on September 15-18.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Rodabe N. Amaria, MD, discussed the guidelines and recommendations outlined by the INMC. She also highlighted the importance of genomic testing in the neoadjuvant setting of melanoma.&nbsp;

Nivolumab in combination with a low dose of ipilimumab demonstrated an improvement in overall survival compared with chemotherapy in patients with newly diagnosed non&ndash;small cell lung cancer whose tumors have PD-L1 expression&nbsp;&ge;1%.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Richard M. Stone, MD, discussed the biggest controversies across a number of patient populations in AML. He also highlighted some areas of research he finds particularly exciting for the treatment of patients with AML.

A new drug application for tazemetostat, an EZH2 inhibitor,&nbsp;has been granted a priority review by the FDA for the treatment of patients with metastatic or locally advanced epithelioid sarcoma not eligible for curative surgery&nbsp;based on data from the&nbsp;epithelioid sarcoma cohort of a phase II trial.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Arlene Siefker-Radtke, MD, discussed the results from this trial that led to the approval of erdafitinib in patients with locally advanced or metastatic bladder cancer who have progressed on platinum-based chemotherapy. She also explained the impact of this approval in this patient population and next steps planned for this agent.

In an interview with <em>Targeted Oncology</em>, Peter Martin, MD, assistant professor of medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology, Weil Cornell Medicine, recounts physician crossfire discussions related to frontline MCL treatment and provides his own expert opinion on the subject.

The FDA has granted an orphan drug designation to MB-102, a CD123-directed CAR T-cell therapy, for the treatment of patients with acute myeloid leukemia.

The MDM2 antagonist idasanutlin was found to be clinically active and well tolerated in patients with previously treated polycythemia vera. Additionally, on-target <em>TP53 </em>pathway activation was observed in treatment-refractory patients with PV who were treated with idasanutlin, according to the results of a phase I clinical trial.<br /> &nbsp;

During an interview with <em>Targeted Oncology</em>, Guru P. Sonpavde, MD highlights the extensive research around checkpoint inhibition and chemotherapy combinations and how these regimens are advancing bladder cancer treatment.

Anna C. Pavlick, DO, MS, MBA, spoke with a group of physicians about the systemic therapy options, including immunotherapeutics, for treating patients with cutaneous carcinomas in a recent&nbsp;<em>Targeted Oncology&nbsp;</em>live case-based peer perspectives discussion. Pavlick explained treatment options based on 2 case scenarios of patients with cutaneous malignancies.

PF-05280586, a biosimilar for rituximab, has been approved by the FDA for use as a single-agent or in combination with chemotherapy for the treatment of&nbsp;adult patients with CD20-positive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma, or in combination with chemotherapy for patients with CD20-positive chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

The FDA has granted a breakthrough therapy designation for the combination of pembrolizumab and lenvatinib for the treatment of patients with newly diagnosed, advanced, unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma that is not amenable to locoregional treatment.

The results of the phase III PACIFIC trial made a significant impact on the treat&shy;ment landscape for locally advanced non&minus;small cell lung cancer when both the progression-free survival and overall survival results were announced separately.

Over the past 2 years, the amount of FDA-approved frontline treatments for patients with acute myeloid leukemia have increased. These emergent treatments have caused a shift in the standard of care for patients with AML and inspiring analyses of regimens that researchers believe can improve outcomes for AML treatment.&nbsp;

Neratinib has received approval from Health Canada for the treatment of patients with early-stage, hormone receptor&ndash;positive, HER2-overexpressed/amplified breast cancer in the extended adjuvant setting. The agent should be given to patients 1 year after completing trastuzumab-based adjuvant therapy.<br /> &nbsp;

In an interview with&nbsp;<em>Targeted Oncology</em>, David Polsky, MD, PhD, discussed the findings from this analysis in patients with&nbsp;<em>BRAF</em>-mutant, unresectable, metastatic melanoma. He highlighted the next steps necessary for validating these findings and potentially using ctDNA to help inform treatment decisions for patients with metastatic melanoma.

The FDA has approved an update to the durvalumab label for patients with unresectable, stage III non&ndash;small cell lung cancer whose disease has not progressed following concurrent platinum-based chemoradiotherapy in order to include overall survival data from the phase III PACIFIC trial.<br /> &nbsp;

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Richard S. Finn, MD, discussed the findings from the KEYNOTE-240 trial. He says that although these results were not statistically significant, they are still clinically meaningful.

A phase III trial is being initiated to evaluate the combination of regorafenib and nivolumab in comparison with regorafenib alone in patients with microsatellite stable metastatic colorectal cancer.

Novel agent namodenoson demonstrated tolerability in a favorable safety profile in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma and severe liver dysfunction, according to the results of a randomized phase II trial.