Immuno-Oncology

Karen Kelly, MD, associate director for Clinical Research, Jennifer Rene Harmon Tegley and Elizabeth Erica Harmon Endowed Chair in Cancer Clinical Research, professor of Medicine, UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, UC Davis Health System, discusses the potential of immunotherapy combinations as treatment for patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Jedd D. Wolchok, MD, PhD, discusses two pivotal studies, their impacts, and how far the field of immunotherapy has come in melanoma.

Michael Poch, MD, provides deeper insight into how immunotherapy has propelled the field of bladder cancer forward, as well as the research that still needs to be done.

Robert L. Ferris, MD, PhD, discusses the findings of the CheckMate-141 study, potential biomarkers for nivolumab (Opdivo), and questions that remain regarding the use of the immunotherapy in squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.

Shirish Gadgeel, MD, medical oncologist, leader of the Thoracic Oncology Multidisciplinary Team at Karmanos Cancer Institute, Wayne State University, discusses the KEYNOTE-021 study, which is examining the combination of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and chemotherapy as a potential treatment for patients with non–small cell lung cancer.

Joshua M. Bauml, MD, discusses the impact of pembrolizumab's (Keytruda's) success in recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, the results of the KEYNOTE-055 study, and what he sees on the horizon for the PD-1 inhibitor in this field.

Joshua M. Bauml, MD, assistant professor of Medicine, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the Veteran's Administration Medical Center, discusses the differences between pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and cytotoxic chemotherapies.

Biomarkers, such as immune cell PD-L1 expression, mutational burden, and immune system activation should be investigated further to clarify the mechanisms behind response and nonresponse to immunotherapy in patients with lung cancer.

Treatment with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) led to a reduction of tumor size in 33% of patients with undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma and dedifferentiated liposarcoma.

Norman E. Sharpless, MD, discusses the impact of the CheckMate-069 trial, the toxicities that are associated with nivolumab (Opdivo)/ipilimumab (Yervoy), and what the future holds for immunotherapy combinations in the field of melanoma.

Paul A. Bunn Jr, MD, discusses the meaning of the CheckMate-026 results with frontline nivolumab in NSCLC and issues with the trial's primary endpoint of progression-free survival.

Gary D. Steinberg, MD, discusses the impact of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) on the treatment landscape of bladder cancer, the resistance to finding effective therapies for the disease, and what potential role immunotherapy may have in the field going forward.

Randy F. Sweis, MD, covers the immunotherapy advancements in prostate cancer, renal cell carcinoma, and bladder cancer, and what refinement lies ahead in each of these areas.

The past few years have seen rapid evolution in the treatment and handling of advanced non–small cell lung cancer, prompting questions on how to optimize immunotherapies and targeted agents as well as incorporate biomarker testing.

Paul A. Bunn Jr, MD, discussed how combining immunotherapy with chemotherapy, molecular therapy, or anti-angiogenic therapy has shown promising results in recent randomized trials of patients with lung cancer, although the combinations have yet to demonstrate clear superiority.

The value of PD-L1 expression when using checkpoint inhibitors in non–small cell lung cancer is underscored by the just-announced disappointing progression-free survival findings from the phase III CheckMate-026 study of frontline nivolumab (Opdivo) versus physician's choice of combination chemotherapy.

Jeffery S. Weber, MD, PhD, discusses findings from the phase II CheckMate-064 trial, in which patients were randomized to receive either nivolumab followed by ipilimumab followed by nivolumab maintenance therapy, or ipilimumab followed by nivolumab and maintenance therapy with nivolumab.

The FDA has granted an accelerated approval to pembrolizumab as a treatment for patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma following progression on a platinum-based chemotherapy.

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 the impact of the FDA approval of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for the treatment of patients with head and neck cancer.

Paul A. Bunn Jr, MD, Distinguished Professor, Division of Medical Oncology/University of Colorado, James Dudley Chair in Lung Cancer Research, University of Colorado Denver, 2014 Giant of Cancer Care in Lung Cancer, discusses the phase III results from CheckMate-026, which explored nivolumab (Opdivo) monotherapy in treatment-naïve patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer.

Monotherapy with nivolumab failed to improve progression-free survival compared with physician's choice of combination chemotherapy for patients with PD-L1–positive non–small cell lung cancer.

Edward B Garon, MD, director, Thoracic Oncology, Jonnson Comprehensive Cancer Center, UCLA, discusses the evolution of immunotherapy for the treatment of patients with non–small cell lung cancer.

New classes of immunotherapies emerging in lung cancer are building on previous success with PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors.

Alexander I. Sankin, MD, discusses how bladder cancer researchers are looking beyond PD-L1 and CTLA-4 to HHLA2, a potentially druggable new checkpoint target.

The European Commission has approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) as a treatment for patients with locally advanced or metastatic PD-L1–positive non–small cell lung cancer following at least 1 chemotherapy regimen.

There is some evidence that relatively short treatment courses might also be appropriate for other checkpoint inhibitors approved for treating some cancers, but the data are fairly sparse.