Immuno-Oncology

Jedd D. Wolchok, MD, PhD, chief, Melanoma and Immunotherapeutics Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses weighing the overall survival (OS) benefit with the increased risk of toxicities seen with the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) in treatment-naïve patients with advanced melanoma.

Adding the IDO inhibitor indoximod to pembrolizumab led to an overall response rate of 52% in patients with advanced melanoma, according to findings from a phase II trial reported at the 2017 AACR Annual Meeting.

Adding a formulation of the Coxsackievirus A21 (CAVATAK®) to ipilimumab (Yervoy) yielded an overall response rate of 50% and was well-tolerated in immunotherapy-naïve and pretreated patients with advanced melanoma.

Julie R. Brahmer, MD, associate professor of Oncology, Bloomberg Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at Johns Hopkins, discusses 5-year follow-up data from the CA209-003 study of nivolumab in previously treated advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Jason J. Luke, MD, assistant professor of Medicine, The University of Chicago Medicine, discusses the controversy surrounding the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) in treatment-naïve patients with advanced melanoma, which was explored in the CheckMate-067 trial, during the AACR Annual Meeting.

Long-term survival in patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer who received the immune checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) has proven to be much higher than expected, with 16% of these patients surviving after 5 years, equivalent to about 4 times what would be expected with chemotherapy.

The PD-1 and CTLA-4 inhibitor combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) was associated with a 12% reduction in the risk of death versus nivolumab monotherapy in patients with treatment-naïve advanced melanoma.

Treatment with the PD-L1 inhibitor avelumab induced an objective response rate of 33% in patients with advanced Merkel cell carcinoma in the phase II JAVELIN Merkel 200 study, including 2 additional complete responses since the primary analysis.

According to results presented at the 2017 AACR Annual Meeting, 10% of patients showed impressive long-term survival in a phase I study of single agent anti-PD-L1 atezolizumab (Tecentriq) in patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.

Mark B. Stoopler, MD, discusses ongoing developments in immunotherapy and his vision for the future of non-small cell lung cancer treatment.

Kiran K. Turaga, MD, associate professor of surgery, vice chief, section of general surgery and surgical oncology, director of the Surgical GI Cancer Program and the Regional Therapeutics Program at The University of Chicago Medicine, discusses whether patients vie for immunotherapy versus surgery as treatment for their melanoma.

Evan Y. Yu, MD, discusses the current treatment options for patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma, the unmet needs that still exist in this space, and the possibilities for the future treatment landscape.

Daniel Costin, MD, shares insight on understanding the deeper biology of the immune system, the emerging research with immunotherapy, and the importance of managing associated adverse events.

Alexander Drilon, MD, medical oncologist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses immunotherapy in patients with lung cancer.

Vassiliki A. Papadimitrakopoulou, MD, professor, Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses trials investigating combinations of immunotherapy regimens in lung cancer.

Thomas F. Gajewski, MD, PhD, professor of medicine at The University of Chicago Medicine, discusses what targets are currently being explored in patients with melanoma.

Daniel B. Costa, MD, PhD, discusses biomarker testing in non-small cell lung cancer and the necessary next steps for PD-L1 testing.

David Spigel, MD, chief scientific officer, director, Lung Cancer Research Program, principal investigator, Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses the results of cohort G from the KEYNOTE-021 trial, which explored pembrolizumab (Keytruda) combined with pemetrexed/carboplatin as a frontline treatment for patients with nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Sundar Jagannath, MD, director of the Multiple Myeloma program and professor of medicine at the Tisch Cancer Institute, Mount Sinai Cancer Center, discusses the potential impact of immunotherapy in multiple myeloma.

Jared Weiss, MD, offers his expert insight into the actual impact of the immunotherapy advances in lung cancer.

The EMA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use has recommended approval of pembrolizumab for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory classical Hodgkin lymphoma who have progressed following autologous stem cell transplant and brentuximab vedotin, or who are transplant-ineligible and have failed brentuximab vedotin.

The EMA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use has recommended approval of nivolumab for the treatment of patients with squamous cell cancer of the head and neck following progression on platinum-based therapy.

Tanguy Seiwert, MD, discussed advances and next steps with immunotherapy, as well as the overall challenges and goals for treating patients with head and neck cancer.

Michael A. Thompson, MD, PhD, medical director, precision medicine, Vince Lombardi Cancer Clinic, Aurora Health Care, discusses the future of treatment in multiple myeloma.

Tanguy I. Seiwert, MD, assistant professor of Medicine, University of Chicago Medicine, gives advice to community oncologists on administering immunotherapy to patients with head and neck cancer.

The FDA has granted an accelerated approval to the PD-L1 inhibitor avelumab (Bavencio) for the treatment of adults and pediatric patients 12 years and older with metastatic Merkel cell carcinoma, including those who have not received prior chemotherapy.

Ragini Kudchadkar, MD, assistant professor, Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology, associate director, Hematology and Medical Oncology Fellowship Program-Clinical/Service, Emory University School of Medicine, discusses the FDA approval of avelumab for the treatment of patients with Merkel cell carcinoma.

Susan F. Slovin, MD, PhD, discusses the current state of immunotherapy in prostate cancer.