Silas Inman

The combination of nab-paclitaxel and carboplatin reduced the risk of progression or death by 40% compared with 2 other chemotherapy doublets as a frontline therapy for patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.

Treatment with pembrolizumab continued to show a consistent durable benefit with an additional year of follow-up for heavily pretreated patients with recurrent PD-L1-positive metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.

The combination of pembrolizumab and eribulin demonstrated a 33.3% objective response rate for patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer who received 0 to 2 prior lines of therapy.

Treatment with sacituzumab govitecan was well-tolerated and induced durable responses, some lasting longer than 1 year, for heavily pretreated patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.

Prophylactic treatment with the combination of loperamide and budesonide reduced the rate of grade ≥3 diarrhea associated with neratinib to 15% compared with 39.9% observed in the ExteNET trial.

There has been renewed interest in eribulin mesylate following its FDA approval for advanced or unresectable liposarcoma and with the introduction of a growing body of preclinical work suggesting the agent has a novel anti–mesenchymal mechanism of action.

The addition of an aromatase inhibitor (AI) to pertuzumab and trastuzumab improved progression-free survival by 3.09 months, when compared with trastuzumab plus an AI.

Median progression-free survival was improved by 2.1 months with the addition of the pan-PI3K inhibitor buparlisib to fulvestrant for women with HR-positive/HER2-negative advanced breast cancer who received a prior aromatase inhibitor and progressed on or after an mTOR inhibitor.

The CD19-directed CAR T-cell therapy JCAR017 demonstrated a 60% complete response rate in patients with relapsed or refractory CD19-positive non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Higher levels of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes were associated with improvements in overall survival for patients with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer treated with docetaxel, trastuzumab, and pertuzumab in the phase III CLEOPATRA trial.

Treatment with the CD19-directed CAR T-cell therapy KTE-C19 showed a complete remission rate of 73% for patients with aggressive, chemorefractory primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma and transformed follicular lymphoma.

Treatment with the BTK inhibitor BGB-3111 had an objective response rate of 96% for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and small lymphocytic leukemia.

The combination of the PI3 kinase inhibitor TGR-1202 and ibrutinib demonstrated a high response rate without dose-limiting toxicities for patients with relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia and mantle cell lymphoma.

Treatment with the combination of pembrolizumab, pomalidomide, and dexamethasone demonstrated promising durable efficacy and a tolerable safety profile for patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.

Treatment with enasidenib was active and was well tolerated in pretreated patients with IDH2-mutated myelodysplastic syndrome, including those who failed hypomethylating agents.

The CAR T-cell therapy CTL019 demonstrated an 82% complete remission (CR) or CR with incomplete blood count recovery rate for pediatric and young adult patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

TKIs can safely be stopped or dose-reduced without jeopardizing long-term outcomes for select patients with chronic myeloid leukemia who have obtained a major molecular response.

The next-generation BTK inhibitor acalabrutinib produced an objective response rate of 38.1% as a monotherapy for patents with Richter transformation.

Treatment with the combination of nivolumab and ibrutinib showed encouraging activity and safety in a small phase II study of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia and Richter transformation.

Checkpoint blockade immunotherapies that have moved quickly from the development stage to clinical use in a range of solid tumors are also being explored in hematologic malignancies.

The FDA has granted a priority review to a biologics license application for avelumab as a treatment for patients with metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma.

The European Commission has granted a conditional approval to ixazomib in combination with lenalidomide and dexamethasone for adult patients with multiple myeloma following at least 1 prior therapy.

A biologics license application (BLA) has been submitted for ABP-215, a biosimilar version of bevacizumab (Avastin), based on data from analytical, pharmacokinetic, clinical data, pharmacology, and toxicology data, according to a statement from Amgen and Allergan, the developers of the biosimilar.

The combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab led to a high response rate and improved overall survival versus historical controls for patients with pretreated metastatic urothelial carcinoma.

The combination of lirilumab and nivolumab resulted in an objective response rate of 24.1% in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.

The European Commission has granted an accelerated approval to olaratumab in combination with doxorubicin as a frontline therapy for patients with advanced soft tissue sarcoma, making it the first new therapy for this indication in over 40 years.

Treatment with nivolumab significantly extended overall survival compared with placebo for patients with unresectable, advanced, or recurrent gastric cancer who were refractory or intolerant to standard therapy.

Using combination regimens in an effective manner will likely be a go-to method with immunotherapy in multiple myeloma, in an effort to induce durable responses in patients.

Treatment with the combination of dabrafenib and trametinib before and after surgery demonstrated a dramatic improvement in relapse-free survival compared with the standard of care for patients with stage IIIb/c or oligometastatic BRAF-mutant melanoma.

The combination of the BRAF inhibitor encorafenib and the MEK inhibitor binimetinib reduced the risk of progression or death by 46% compared with vemurafenib (Zelboraf) for patients with BRAF-mutant unresectable melanoma.