European Cancer Congress

Patients with a urological cancer who were also infected with COVID-19 and undergoing elective surgery for their disease, were found to have a significantly higher likelihood of experiencing respiratory complications and mortality than those without the virus.

Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) induced an overall response rate of 25.9% and was well tolerated in patients with PD-L1–positive recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Raffit Hassan, MD, Co-Chief Thoracic and Gastrointestinal Oncology Branch, Senior Investigator Head, Thoracic and Solid Tumor Immunotherapy Section at the Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, discusses a recent phase IB trial investigating avelumab in unresectable mesothelioma.

Philip Poortmans, MD, PhD, head of Department of Radiation Oncology, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and president of European Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology, discusses the impact of a multidisciplinary approach on survivorship and side effect management for patients with prostate cancer.

Matteo Lambertini, MD, Department of Medical Oncology, U.O. Oncologia Medica A, Hospital San Martino, Genova, Italy, discusses the use of luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone agonists (LHRHa) during chemotherapy to preserve ovarian function and fertility in patients with breast cancer.

Andrea Apolo, MD, medical oncologist at the National Cancer Institute and chief of the bladder cancer section of the Genitourinary Malignancies Branch, discusses treatment challenges for patients with refractory, metastatic urothelial carcinoma.

Johan F. Vansteenkiste, MD, PhD, professor of Internal Medicine at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, discusses the primary analysis of the phase II POPLAR study, which looked at atezolizumab versus docetaxel in patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Catherine Pietanza, MD, assistant attending physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses novel targeted therapy rovalpituzumab tesirine (Rova-T), which showed activity in relapsed and refractory small cell lung cancer (SCLC) in a recent phase I study.

Treatment with telotristat etiprate reduced the average number of daily bowel movements by up to 35% for patients with carcinoid syndrome that was not adequately controlled by a somatostatin analog.

Treatment with the frontline combination of erlotinib and bevacizumab was highly effective in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer who harbored an EGFR T790M mutation.

Treatment with nivolumab reduced the risk of death by 28% compared with docetaxel for patients with previously treated nonsquamous non–small cell lung cancer.

The antibody-drug conjugate rovalpituzumab tesirine demonstrated activity across a range of patients with relapsed and refractory small-cell lung cancer.

Data from the pivotal KEYNOTE-001 trial showing pembrolizumab's efficacy in pretreated non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were presented at the 2015 European Cancer Congress, just days before the FDA is scheduled to make its approval decision on the PD-1 inhibitor in this setting.

Adding fosaprepitant (Emend) to an antiemetic regimen significantly improved emesis control versus standard care in women receiving radiotherapy and cisplatin for cervical cancer.

Andrea B. Apolo, MD, medical oncologist at the National Cancer Institute, chief of the bladder cancer section of the Genitourinary Malignancies Branch, discusses a phase 1b trial investigating avelumab, an anti-PD-L1 antibody, in patients with refractory, metastatic urothelial carcinomas.

Dirk Arnold, MD, Director Department of Medical Oncology at Klinik für Tumorbiologie, Freiburg, Germany, Arnold Discusses the CONSIGN Study.

The combination of dabrafenib plus trametinib improved overall survival by 7.6 months compared with single-agent vemurafenib in patients with unresectable or metastatic BRAFV600E/K-mutant melanoma.

The combination of the attenuated oncolytic virus talimogene laherparepvec and the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab for unresectable melanoma has passed an early safety evaluation.

Second-line atezolizumab demonstrated significant clinical benefit in patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma who had a poor prognosis after progressing following platinum-based chemotherapy.

Inhibition of PD-L1 with atezolizumab demonstrated significant clinical efficacy as monotherapy in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer.

Paul Nghiem, MD, PhD, Michael Piepkorn Endowed Chair in Dermatology Research, professor of Dermatology/Medicine at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, University of Washington Medicine discusses a phase II trial investigating the PD-1 blockade pembrolizumab as first systemic therapy in patients with advanced Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC).

Two strategies of sequential immunotherapy for advanced melanoma showed similar safety and tolerability but substantially different efficacy.

Toni Choueiri, MD, Clinical Director, Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology Director, Kidney Cancer Center, Senior Physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the results of the METEOR trial in advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC).

Hisham Mehanna, MBChB, PhD, Chair, Head and Neck Surgery, Director, Institute of Head and Neck Studies and Education at University of Birmingham, discusses differences in the quality of life (QoL) and functional outcomes of treatment between HPV-positive and HPV-negative head and neck squamous cell cancer patients (HNSCC).

More than half of brain metastases harbored clinically actionable genetic alterations that were distinct from those associated with the primary tumor.

Philippe Ruszniewski, MD, Professor of Gastroenterology, Chief of Division of Gastroenterology and Pancreatology, University of Paris VII, Beaujon Hospital, discusses the results of the phase 3 NETTER-1 study.

Treatment with the novel peptide receptor radionuclide therapy Lutathera significantly increased progression-free survival over octreotide LAR in patients with advanced midgut neuroendocrine tumors.

Treatment with everolimus was associated with a 52% improvement in median progression-free survival compared with placebo in patients with advanced lung and gastrointestinal neuroendocrine tumors.

More than a fifth of patients with previously treated metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma showed a measurable response when treated with the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab.

The final analysis of phase III data for trabectedin were consistent with interim results by showing a lack of improvement for the primary endpoint of overall survival in patients with advanced soft tissue sarcoma.