News

A lower dose of radiation therapy following surgery did not improve limb function and was not found to be non-inferior compared with standard dose radiation 2 years post procedure in patients extremity soft tissue sarcoma. 

An expert panel, consisting of the College of American Pathologists, American Society for Clinical Pathology, and the American Society of Clinical Oncology issued comprehensive, evidence-based guidelines for clinicians and pathologists regarding the testing of HER2 status for patients with gastroesophageal adenocarcinoma. 

If an overall survival advantage is found for patients receiving first-line FOLFOX6 with or without bevacizumab plus Yttrium-90 resin microspheres for liver metastatic colorectal cancer.

Practitioners received insight into treating patients across the GI field during the GI cancers track at the 2016 Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium.

The FDA has granted a priority review to the multikinase inhibitor midostaurin as a treatment for patients with newly-diagnosed&nbsp;<em>FLT3</em>-mutated acute myeloid leukemia or advanced systemic mastocytosis.

The addition of the PD-L1 inhibitor atezolizumab to the MEK inhibitor cobimetinib and the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib induced a high response rate for patients with&nbsp;<em>BRAF</em>-mutant unresectable melanoma.

Treatment with&nbsp;the BRAF inhibitor encorafenib combined with the MEK inhibitor binimetinib improved median progression-free survival by 7.6 months&nbsp;compared with monotherapy with vemurafenib for patients with&nbsp;<em>BRAF</em>-mutant unresectable melanoma.

The European Commission has approved the CDK4/6 inhibitor palbociclib as a treatment for adult patients with HR-positive, HER2-negative locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer, either in combination with an aromatase inhibitor in the frontline setting or combined with fulvestrant after progression on endocrine therapy.

The FDA has granted a breakthrough therapy designation to the brentuximab vedotin for the treatment of patients with CD30-positive mycosis fungoides or primary cutaneous anaplastic large cell lymphoma following at least 1 prior systemic therapy.&nbsp;<br /> &nbsp;

The PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab extended overall survival versus placebo for patients who were refractory or intolerant to standard therapy&nbsp;with unresectable, advanced, or recurrent gastric cancer, according to topline data from the phase III ONO-4538-12 trial.

The FDA has approved the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab as a treatment for patients with metastatic or recurrent squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck following progression on platinum-based therapy.

A subgroup analysis from a phase III, open-label, randomized study showed that eribulin (Halaven) had comparable activity to dacarbazine (DTIC) in patients with leiomyosarcoma.

In an interview with <em>Targeted Oncology</em>, Frankie Holmes, MD, discusses HER2-directed therapy with trastuzumab (Herceptin) and pertuzumab (Perjeta).

New findings from a study suggest it is unlikely that any single gene can predict response to targeted therapy for patients with HER2-positive breast cancer. Instead, gene networks&mdash; specifically those involving PI3 kinase &mdash;may provide a clearer picture of patient outcomes.

Though some clinicians may characterize the treatment landscape of HER2-positive breast cancer as overcrowded, Mark Pegram, MD, firmly believes that there is still much to learn in this space.

Bertram Yuh, MD,&nbsp;discussed the selection of surgery or radiation therapy in patients with localized disease, as well as the potential for using active surveillance with these patients.

A supplemental new drug application (sNDA) for the use of regorafenib (Stivarga) as a second-line treatment for patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has been submitted to the FDA for approval.

Clayton S. Lau, MD, highlights the importance of active surveillance, the evolution of surgical techniques and radiation therapy, and the steps oncologists should take once early-stage prostate cancer progresses.

In an interview with <em>Targeted Oncology</em>, Tanya Dorff, MD, discussed developments in the upfront treatment of hormone-sensitive metastatic prostate cancer.

The FDA has granted priority review designation to a new drug application for ribociclib for use in combination with letrozole as a frontline therapy for patients with HR&ndash;positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer.

Among patients with HER2-negative stage IIIb/IV breast cancer who have progressed after a taxane or anthracycline therapy, a multicenter single-arm study of third-line eribulin demonstrated both safety and efficacy.

In the &ldquo;real world&rdquo; NABUCCO trial, results with nab-paclitaxel were consistent with those reported in the pivotal trial among patients with metastatic breast cancer who are ineligible to receive anthracycline therapy.

Toxicities associated with capecitabine may be better managed by dose reductions and/or a week-on/week-off (WOWO) dosing schedule among patients aged 70 years or older with metastatic breast cancer.

The addition of palbociclib (Ibrance) to endocrine therapy led to a consistent improvement in progression-free survival (PFS), according to a biomarker analysis of a recently reported randomized trial.¹

Alessandra Ferrajoli, MD,&nbsp;discusses the challenge with secondary malignancies in patients with CLL.

James Allison, PhD, discusses exciting advancements in immunotherapy combinations, the potential synergistic effects of radiation with immunotherapies, and considerations that must be made when combining other agents with immunotherapy.

The combination of cabozantinib (Cabometyx) plus nivolumab (Opdivo) in patients with advanced/refractory genitourinary cancers demonstrated promising activity in the second-line setting and beyond at all dose levels tested.

A new drug application for brigatinib for patients with metastatic ALK-positive NSCLC who are resistant to prior crizotinib (Xalkori) has been granted priority review by the FDA.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has accepted and validated a marketing authorization application for avelumab as a treatment for patients with metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma.

According to an updated survival analysis of the large randomized phase III COMBI-v trial, co-inhibition of BRAF and MEK pathways with dabrafenib and trametinib continued to be superior to sole BRAF inhibition with vemurafenib in patients with unresectable metastatic melanoma at 3 years.