News

Cemiplimab (Libtayo) has been approved by the FDA for the treatment of patients with metastatic cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma or patients with locally advanced CSCC who are not candidates for curative surgery or curative radiation.

Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD, discusses the promise of nivolumab in patients with high-risk resected stage III/IV melanoma and gives a general overview of the melanoma treatment landscape.

Dacomitinib has been approved by the FDA for the treatment of previously untreated patients with metastatic non&ndash;small cell lung cancer with&nbsp;<em>EGFR&nbsp;</em>exon 19 deletion or exon 21 L858R substitution mutations.

During a presentation on diffuse large B-cell lymphoma at the 2018 SOHO Annual Meeting, Thomas E. Witzig, MD, discussed several ongoing trials that hope to raise the cure rate above the 80% threshold.

Pontchartrain Cancer Center was founded in 2005 to serve an area of Louisiana that lacked the necessary resources for cancer care. This community cancer center, with 2 locations in Southeast Louisiana, accommodates any patient to walk through its doors, filling a major unmet need for the community in this rural area.

In an interview with&nbsp;<em>Targeted Oncology</em>, Katy Rezvani, MD, discussed the potential she sees with CAR NK cells. She also highlighted some of the challenges with both CAR T-cell therapy in patients with CLL, as well as challenges to overcome with CAR NK cells in this patient population.

Enhanced clinical benefit may be derived from the combination of&nbsp;entinostat and pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in a subgroup of patients&nbsp;with PD-1/PD-L1&ndash;refractory non&ndash;small cell lung cancer who have high levels of peripheral blood monocytes, ongoing analyses suggest.&nbsp;

The landscape for treatment of gynecologic cancer has changed since 2014, however, better therapeutic strategies and better biomarkers are needed in the realm of gynecologic cancers,&nbsp;Bradley J. Monk, MD, said during a recent webinar about meeting unmet clinical needs in cervical cancer.

Adding&nbsp;atezolizumab (Tecentriq) to standard carboplatin and etoposide significantly prolonged survival in patients with&nbsp;extensive-stage small cell lung cancer compared with the chemotherapy regimen alone in the frontline setting, according to results from the&nbsp;IMpower133 study.

Matthew Powell, MD, discusses the promise of immunotherapy in ovarian cancer, despite its challenges.

Adult patients with&nbsp;<em>ALK</em>-positive, locally advanced or metastatic non&ndash;small cell lung cancer who had not received a prior ALK inhibitor experienced a more than 50% reduction in the risk of&nbsp;disease progression or death with treatment with brigatinib (Alunbrig), compared with&nbsp;the first-line standard of care, crizotinib.

Patients with&nbsp;<em>ROS1</em> fusion&ndash;positive non&ndash;small cell lung cancer had clinically meaningful and durable benefit across multiple doses of repotrectinib (TPX-0005), according to interim findings from the ongoing phase I/II TRIDENT-1 study,&nbsp;presented at the 19th World Conference on Lung Cancer.

Promising efficacy was seen with the novel targeted therapy poziotinib in patients with metastatic, heavily pretreated&nbsp;<em>EGFR&nbsp;</em>and&nbsp;<em>HER2 </em>exon 20 mutant non&ndash;small cell lung cancer, with a best response rate to date of 55%, according to phase II study results presented at the 19th World Conference on Lung Cancer.

Duvelisib (Copiktra) has been approved by the FDA for the&nbsp;treatment of patients with relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma or relapsed/refractory follicular lymphoma.&nbsp;Both indications are for the treatment of patients who have received at least 2 prior therapies.

The partial clinical hold previously placed on&nbsp;trials examining tazemetostat in patients with various solid tumors and hematologic malignancies has been lifted by the FDA and enrollment has been reopened.

Ronit Yarden, PhD, MHSA, has joined the Colorectal Cancer Alliance as its new director of medical affairs, where she will work to develop the organization&rsquo;s funding initiatives and act as liaison to its medical scientific advisory committee with the goal of promoting patient education and disease prevention.

Bradley McGregor, MD,&nbsp;discusses the impact of combination therapies on the treatment landscape of renal cell carcinoma.

Based on data from the phase III MURANO trial, the European Medicines Agency&rsquo;s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use has recommended the approval of venetoclax&nbsp;for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia who have received at least 1 previous therapy. AbbVie, a co-developer of venetoclax with Roche, announced the CHMP&rsquo;s decision in a news release.

According to an announcement from Array BioPharma, the company developing the regimen, the European Commission approved the combination of encorafenib, a BRAF inhibitor, and binimetinib, a MEK inhibitor, for treatment of adult patients with&nbsp;<em>BRAF</em>&nbsp;V600&ndash;mutant unresectable or metastatic melanoma.

Scott Kopetz, MD, PhD, FACP, discusses recent data in <em>BRAF</em>-mutant colorectal cancer and the importance of molecular subtyping.

In an interview with&nbsp;<em>Targeted Oncology</em>, Jorge E. Cortes, MD, discussed the results from the QuANTUM-R trial, as well as some other studies investigating the use of quizartinib in different patient populations in AML.

The FDA has received a new drug application for&nbsp;erdafitinib as a treatment for&nbsp;patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma and <em>FGFR</em> genetic alterations whose tumors progressed following chemotherapy,&nbsp;Janssen, the manufacturer of the oral pan-FGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor, has announced.

The Association of Community Cancer Centers will honor 7 cancer centers with the 2018 ACCC Innovator Award in recognition of the inventive programs they have implemented to overcome challenges in their centers. The centers will receive the award during the ACCC 35th National Oncology Conference, to be held October 17-19 in Phoenix, Arizona.

Novel immunotherapy combinations are currently under investigation for the treatment of patients with&nbsp;hepatocellular carcinoma, with several promising phase III trials incorporating checkpoint inhibitors now underway. Finding successful ways to combine these therapies is among the most significant trends emerging&nbsp;as part of the next wave of discovery in the field, according to experts.

David O&rsquo;Malley, MD, lead investigator of the FORWARD II trial,&nbsp;discusses the emerging combination of mirvetuximab soravtansine plus bevacizumab and the evolving treatment landscape in ovarian cancer.

Ophira Ginsburg, MD, discusses cervical cancer prevention, screening, and elimination on a global scale.

While significant progress has been made in the fight against cancer, including a decline in cancer deaths, the number of people projected to be diagnosed with cancer is on the rise, and there is still more work to be done, according to the newly released American Association for Cancer Research Cancer Progress Report.

Second-line therapy with cabozantinib demonstrated efficacy in treating patients with&nbsp;hepatocellular carcinoma who also had a history of hepatitis B virus infection, according to findings from a subgroup analysis of the phase III CELESTIAL trial.&nbsp;

Strong efficacy signals and a tolerable safety profile were observed with the combination of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) and bevacizumab (Avastin) in the first-line treatment of patients with&nbsp;unresectable or metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma, according to preliminary findings presented at the 2018 International Liver Cancer Association Annual Conference.

According to a presentation during the 2018 International Liver Cancer Association Annual Conference, the rapid development of novel therapies for patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma has dramatically expanded systemic treatment options over the last 2 years. This has created a need for new sequencing strategies in HCC.&nbsp;