News

Treatment with the BTK inhibitor ibrutinib could enhance the efficacy of chemoimmunotherapy without increasing toxicity for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Treatment with lapatinib plus a taxane was associated with a shorter duration of progression-free survival compared with trastuzumab plus a taxane as a frontline therapy for patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer.

Zarxio, the first FDA-approved biosimilar, has effectively been blocked from reaching US markets by an injunction from Amgen.

Venetoclax (GDC-0199/ABT-199), a Bcl-2 inhibitor, has been granted a breakthrough therapy designation by the FDA for the treatment of patients with relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The designation is specific to those patients who harbor a 17p deletion (del[17p]).

The level of TILs identified at the time of diagnosis were found to be an independent prognostic marker for pathologic complete response and event-free survival in patients treated with neoadjuvant HER2-target therapy plus chemotherapy for HER2-positive early breast cancer.

Treatment with the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab was active and tolerable across three doses for patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

The added overall survival benefit seen with intraperitoneal versus intravenous chemotherapy extends beyond 10 years for patients with ovarian cancer.

The oral combination of olaparib, a PARP inhibitor, and BKM120, a PI3K inhibitor, demonstrated to be safe and clinical beneficial in women with high-grade serous ovarian cancer, as well as patients with triple-negative breast cancer.

The treatment of patients with ovarian cancer has evolved from an approach focused on chemotherapy and surgery to one involving targeted therapies and monoclonal antibodies.

The third-generation EGFR inhibitor rociletinib demonstrated promising responses in patients with EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer with or without the acquired resistance mutation T790M.

The FDA’s recent approval of olaparib for women with BRCA-mutated advanced ovarian cancer marks a significant therapeutic advance for women with the malignancy, but the specific indication is far too restrictive and the drug should be offered to many more patients.

Treatment with the third-generation EGFR inhibitor AZD9291 was found to be highly active in patients with EGFR T790M-mutated NSCLC following progression on prior therapy with an EGFR TKI.

The PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) has been has been assigned priority review designation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a treatment for previously untreated patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma.

Members of the FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) and Cellular, Tissue and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee (CTGTAC) voted 22-1 in a combined decision to recommend approval of the oncolytic immunotherapy talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC) as a treatment for patients with advanced melanoma.

Topline findings from the phase III COMPLEMENT 2 study indicated that treatment with ofatumumab (Arzerra) plus fludarabine and cyclophosphamide significantly improved progression-free survival (PFS) compared with fludarabine and cyclophosphamide alone in patients with relapsed chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

Two different types of liquid biopsies—plasma and urine—can detect the number of copies of the KRAS mutation in circulating DNA in patients with colorectal cancer who have resectable liver metastases with near 100% concordance with tissue biopsies, according to a pilot study presented at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).

Following the FDA fast track designation in November 2014, Merrimack Pharmaceuticals and Baxter International have completed the submission of a new drug application for MM-398 in combination with 5-fluorouracil and leucovorin, according to a statement from the drug's developers.

MedImmune Limited, a subsidiary of AstraZeneca PLC, and Celgene International II Sàrl, a subsidiary of Celgene Corporation, have formed a strategic collaboration for the development and commercialization of AstraZeneca’s anti-programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) agent MEDI4736.

The chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy JCAR017 elicited a 91% complete remission rate in pediatric patients with relapsed/refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).

The FDA has issued a label update for pomalidomide (Pomalyst) plus low-dose dexamethasone to include data from the phase III MM-003 study.

The FDA has approved second-line ramucirumab (Cyramza) in combination with FOLFIRI as a treatment for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) following progression on a first-line bevacizumab-containing regimen.

Despite their promise, checkpoint inhibitors are not effective in every patient, and research suggests the STING (stimulator of interferon genes) pathway may hold important clues as to why some tumors fail to respond.

A new study has found that a psychosocial telephone counseling intervention helps improve mood and quality of life in cervical cancer survivors.

To gain insight into this novel approach and its potential benefit, Targeted Oncology interviewed Bradley J. Monk, MD, FACOG, FACS, who presented phase II results at the 2015 SGO's Annual Meeting on Women's Cancer.

The availability of mutation-specific treatments and an increasing understanding of potential resistance mechanisms have provided immense opportunities for research and development of new therapies in lung cancer.

The PALOMA-3 trial examining a palbociclib regimen in HR+/HER2- breast cancer was halted after an independent panel determined it met the primary endpoint of improving progression-free survival (PFS).

Almost half of patients with cancer who receive genetic testing may be given information that leads to unsuitable targeted treatments, according to researchers from Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.

The continuing contentious debate about screening for prostate cancer remains top of mind among the public and lay press, but, Leonard G. Gomella, MD, says the decision to screen or not to screen boils down to “using common sense.”

A research team led by investigators at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas has published a study in Nature Communications identifying several new genetic mutations in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.

Updated data from a phase II trial of ibrutinib (Imbruvica) in Waldenström’s Macroglobulinemia (WM) showed a 2-year overall survival (OS) rate of 95% with the BTK inhibitor.