Immuno-Oncology

Chandra P. Belani, MD, Miriam Beckner Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, deputy director, Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute, discusses how the FDA approval of nivolumab (Opdivo) has impacted the treatment paradigm of non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Tara C. Mitchell, MD, assistant professor of Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine, discusses atypical responses with immunotherapies in melanoma.

Randal S. Weber, MD, FACS, professor, department chair, John Brooks Williams and Elizabeth Williams Distinguished University Chair in Cancer Medicine, Department of Head and Neck Surgery, Division of Surgery, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses future treatment approaches for patients with melanoma.

Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD, discusses recent long-term follow-up data of dabrafenib and trametinib in melanoma that may shed some light on sequencing questions for BRAF-mutated patients.

Omid Hamid, MD, discusses promising agents and combinations that offer hope to patients with melanoma for whom standard checkpoint agents and/or targeted therapies are not an option.

New research is carving out a role for ipilimumab and a second CTLA-4-targeting drug, tremelimumab, as combination therapy with potential in a variety of solid tumors. In addition to combinations with other immune checkpoint inhibitors, the agents are being evaluated across a breadth of other strategies.

The phase III SUNRISE trial comparing bavituximab plus docetaxel with docetaxel and placebo for patients with non–small cell lung cancer has been halted following a futility analysis.

In The Death of Cancer, written by Vincent T. DeVita Jr, MD, a pioneering oncologist reveals, after 50 years on the front lines of medicine, why the war on cancer is winnable, and how to get there. In an interview with OncLive hosted by Maurie Markman, MD, he speaks with DeVita on his book and his thoughts on how the field has evolved.

An early-stage trial is examining the addition of nivolumab to a cetuximab regimen in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Robert Ferris, MD, PhD, vice chair for Clinical Operations, associate director for Translational Research, and coleader of the Cancer Immunology Program at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, discusses nivolumab's potential as a treatment of patients with head and neck cancer, as reported in the CheckMate-141 study.

The FDA has granted a breakthrough therapy designation to durvalumab as a treatment for patients with PD-L1–positive inoperable or metastatic urothelial bladder cancer following progression on prior treatment with a platinum-based regimen.

Naiyer Rizvi, MD, discusses the role of PD-L1 testing, which PD-1/PD-L1 agents have the most potential, and what is on the horizon for the use of immunotherapies in non-small cell lung cancer.

The search for immune system biomarkers that could prove clinically useful in treating patients with breast cancer is yielding promising results, particularly in triple-negative subtypes.

Renato G. Martins, MD, MPH, medical director, Outpatient General Oncology/Hematology, Thoracic/Head and Neck Oncology, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, professor, University of Washington School of Medicine, discusses patient selection for nivolumab (Opdivo) as a treatment for patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Arjun V. Balar, MD, discusses the phase II data demonstrating the efficacy of atezolizumab as a single agent, its potential as part of combination regimens, and planned clinical trials looking at immunotherapy in patients with metastatic bladder cancer.

Toni Choueiri, MD, discusses the CheckMate-025 and METEOR trials and the potential for nivolumab and cabozantinib in the first- and second-line settings for treating renal cell carcinoma.

A combination checkpoint blockade with the PD-L1 inhibitor durvalumab and the anti–CTLA-4 agent tremelimumab induced a response rate of 23% in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer.

Padmanee Sharma, MD, PhD, professor of Immunology, Department of Genitourinary Medical Oncology, Division of Cancer Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses PD-L1 as a predictive biomarker for immunotherapy in patients with bladder cancer.

The role of immunotherapy is emerging as an effective, and in some cases, dramatic treatment in the non-small cell lung cancer landscape.