July 2019

A study aimed at exploring genomic diversity and defining its associations with clinical outcomes in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer found that alterations in RB1 were a potent predictor of poor survival and that other common aberrations may serve as prognostic indicators of treatment response, according to recent work published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

To move the treatment of colon cancer forward, investigators are identifying better biomarkers for response to adjuvant chemotherapy and as early indicators of chemotherapy success, said Jeanne Tie, MD, MBChB, to an audience at the ASCO: Medical Crossfire®: How to Use Liquid Biopsies in Oncology Care hosted by Physicians’ Education Resource®, LLC.

The SOLAR-1 findings were presented during a satellite symposium at the 2019 European Society for Medical Oncology Breast Cancer Annual Congress in Berlin, Germany.&nbsp;The trial demonstrated the role of&nbsp;<em>PIK3CA&nbsp;</em>as a predictive marker for alpelisib&rsquo;s clinical efficacy, said Peter A. Fasching, MD, associate professor of gynecology and obstetrics at Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, during the symposium.

The ability to activate pattern recognition receptors, carry other genetic &ldquo;cargo&rdquo; to modify immunity, and induce lymphocyte infiltration into cancer is an appealing strategy accomplished by intralesional oncolytic viruses. Thus, the concept of combining these novel therapeutics in the preoperative setting to enhance in situ immunization and antitumor activity systemically, as well as to increase R0 complete resection, may be a useful approach to lead to cure, according to Robert L. Ferris, MD, PhD.

Preventive strategies for severe diarrhea associated with adjuvant treatment with neratinib improved tolerability for the agent when patients received budesonide or colestipol-with-loperamide prophylaxis, according to findings from the CONTROL study.

Patients with nonmetastic&nbsp; squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx and unknown primaries treated with induction chemotherapy followed by chemoradiotherapy had fewer symptom burdens, including need of a feeding tube, due to a significant response in primary and nodal sites.

Biomarker expansion has enjoyed a boom since 2006, with patient incidence of positive biomarkers reaching up to 50% in non&ndash;small cell lung cancer and melanoma and 25% in acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndromes, according&nbsp; to the <em>Global Oncology Trends 2018</em> report.

Patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer receiving frontline HER2-targeted therapy with pertuzumab&nbsp;and trastuzumab followed by T-DM1 in the second-line setting may be able to forgo chemotherapy without increasing the risk of early death, according to results from the phase II PERNETTA trial.

Bradley J. Monk, MD, noted the FDA&rsquo;s approval of the biosimilar agent bevacizumab-awwb across multiple indications including metastatic colorectal cancer, non&ndash;small cell lung cancer, glioblastoma, metastatic renal cell carcinoma, and cervical cancer,&nbsp;but he wondered aloud why ovarian cancer was not on the list.

In a posthoc analysis of the phase III SPARTAN trial, lead investigator Julie N. Graff, MD, and colleagues examined the study&rsquo;s apalutamide (Erleada) arm to determine whether the agent affected metastasis-free survival (MFS), time to metastasis (TTM), and location of metastasis as a function of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) nadir.

Based on the ongoing and positive data observed with VEGFR targeted therapies, novel tyrosine kinase inhibitors and those already approved for other disease indications may become available to patients with bone and soft tissue sarcomas.