Immuno-Oncology

In attending the Society of Urologic Oncology's annual meeting in Bethesda in early December, I was struck by the number of presentations focusing sharply on the burgeoning fields of biomolecular markers and immunotherapy and their application to urologic oncology.

Rita Nanda, MD, assistant professor of medicine and associate director of the Breast Medical Oncology Program at the University of Chicago, discusses the potential of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). A recent small-scale trial showed treatment response for 18.5% of patients with PD-L1 positive TNBC.

Edith A. Perez, MD, the deputy director at large for the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, discusses the potential for immune checkpoint blockage as treatment for patients with advanced breast cancer.

The PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab has demonstrated promising clinical activity with an acceptable safety profile in heavily pretreated patients with recurrent metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.

The anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor-modified T-cell therapy CTL019 demonstrated an impressive 92% complete response rate in pediatric patients with relapsed/refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Treatment with the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab generated responses in 66% of patients with heavily pretreated classical Hodgkin lymphoma.

In a small phase I trial, most patients with classical Hodgkin lymphoma, having previously failed three or more therapies, responded to the immunotherapy nivolumab.

The top research being presented at the 2014 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting will focus on immunotherapies and novel agents, according to Marcel R.M. van den Brink, MD, PhD.

Marcel R.M. van den Brink, MD, PhD, Head, Division of Hematologic Oncology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, provides an overview of five notable studies being presented at the 2014 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Meeting and Exposition.

The presence of an immune-suppressing protein in non-cancerous immune cells may predict how patients with different types of cancer respond to treatment, a multi-center phase I study using an investigational immune therapy drug has found.

Pfizer and Merck KGaA have agreed to collaborate on the development of the PD-L1 inhibitor MSB0010718C as a potential treatment for multiple types of cancer.

Recent advances with immune checkpoint inhibitors could improve outcomes for patients with squamous cell non-small cell lung cancer, a traditionally hard to treat histology.

Christopher Sweeney, MBBS, medical oncologist, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the future of prostate cancer research.

Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, professor, Yale Cancer Center, chief of medical oncology, Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale-New Haven, discusses the state of immunotherapy in lung cancer.

Immunotherapy's promise as well as its challenges as a treatment for patients with brain cancer was the focus of a plenary session held November 15 at the Society of Neuro-Oncology's (SNO) 2014 Annual Meeting in Miami Beach.

Frontline treatment with nivolumab significantly extended OS and PFS compared with dacarbazine in patients with untreated BRAF wild-type advanced melanoma.

The PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab significantly improved PFS by over 43% compared with chemotherapy as a treatment for patients with metastatic melanoma who were refractory to ipilimumab.

The vaccine rindopepimut appears to help PFS and OS in patients with epidermal growth factor receptor variant III mutation in glioblastoma-a patient group with traditionally poor outcomes.

Dendreon, the maker of the first FDA-approved immunotherapy for advanced prostate cancer, sipuleucel-T (Provenge), has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, led some of the first trials of gefitinib, the EGFR inhibitor that helped introduce targeted therapies of this important mutation into the treatment landscape of non–small cell lung cancer.

Benjamin P. Levy, MD, director, Thoracic Medical Oncology, Mount Sinai Beth Israel, associate director, Cancer Clinical Trials Office, Mount Sinai Hospital, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, discusses new data on immunotherapy for lung cancer.

Lung cancer experts provided insights into recent developments in the treatment of the disease, covering topics ranging from resistance to targeted therapies to immunotherapy agents under study, during the 9th Annual New York Lung Cancer Symposium in New York City.

Vassiliki Papadimitrakopoulou, MD, provides an update on research into pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for the treatment of lung cancer.

Both HPV-positive and -negative head and neck cancers are "outstanding candidates for immunotherapeutic strategies," said Andrew G. Sikora, MD, PhD, Baylor College of Medicine, at the 2014 Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium.

The addition of the GM-CSF agent sargramostim to the CTLA-4 inhibitor ipilimumab (Yervoy) prolonged overall survival (OS) and lowered toxicity for patients with unresectable stage III or IV melanoma

The combination of a FLT3L-primed in situ vaccine, low-dose radiotherapy, and a toll-like receptor 3 (TLR) 3 agonist has been shown to be feasible, safe, and immunologically and clinically effective in a phase I/II study for patients with low-grade lymphoma

Roy S. Herbst, MD, PhD, presented a top 10 list on immunotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer at the 2014 Multidisciplinary Symposium in Thoracic Oncology.

Nivolumab combined with platinum-based doublet chemotherapy achieved a manageable safety profile with clinical efficacy that was similar to single-agent nivolumab in patients with advanced NSCLC.

The PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab achieved an ORR of 15% with a median duration of response that was not yet reached at a median 11-month follow-up for patients with advanced, refractory NSCLC.