May 2018

Recommendations from the first set of NCCN guidelines on the management of cancer in patients with HIV reflect that there are worse overall and cancer-specific survival outcomes seen in the HIV-infected population compared with the general population. The guidelines advise that HIV status alone should not be used for decisions about cancer treatment.

Adjuvant therapy for melanoma to lower the risk of disease recurrence and death in patients with high-risk disease who have undergone definitive surgical treatment has previously been administered primarily to patients with stage III disease, as well as a small group of patients with stage IV disease who could be rendered disease free surgically, according to Ahmad A. Tarhini, MD, PhD.

Risk stratification to guide molecular testing and treatment is emphasized in the latest prostate cancer guidelines from the NCCN. Recommendations for germline testing, molecular testing, and initial therapy have been developed for each risk category, each of which has its own management page in the newest version of the NCCN guidelines.

Findings from the CHAARTED, LATITUDE, and STAMPEDE trials showed various results for adding docetaxel or abiraterone acetate to androgen deprivation therapy in prostate cancer, and this kicked off a challenging issue for clinicians: Is it better to add docetaxel, abiraterone acetate, both, or neither to their patient’s treatment plan?

Editori-in-Chief of <em>Targeted Therapies in Oncology </em>discusses the importance of KEYNOTE-189 which investigated whether the best frontline treatment for any patient is chemotherapy, immunotherapy, or a combination of the 2. Data from the IMpower150 and CheckMate 227 also investigate this question in various patient populations.

Patients with prostate cancer and DNA damage repair defects could be candidates for therapy involving poly polymerase inhibitors, and there is strong justification for activating clinical trials&nbsp;in this space, according to Maha Hussain, MD, the Genevieve Teuton Professor of Medicine and deputy director of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.

In results published in April in the New England Journal of Medicine, corresponding author Peter J. M. Valk, PhD, of the Department of Hematology, Erasmus University Medical Center, and colleagues found that MRD positivity was associated with a higher rate of relapse and a lower rate of relapse-free survival and overall survival for patients with newly diagnosed AML.