ASCO Annual Meeting

Anas Younes, MD, chief, Lymphoma Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses a phase III study of ibrutinib in combination R-CHOP in patients with newly diagnosed nongerminal center B-cell subtype of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

Combining panobinostat (LBH589) with bortezomib and dexamethasone delayed disease progression by 3.9 months over bortezomib and dexamethasone alone in patients with relapsed or relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma.

The CD38-specific monoclonal antibody SAR650984 demonstrated encouraging efficacy as a monotherapy and in combination with dexamethasone and lenalidomide without reaching a maximum tolerated dose in patients with heavily pretreated multiple myeloma.

Long-term follow-up results demonstrated nearly doubled median OS with the combination of ipilimumab and nivolumab compared with either agent alone.

David Spigel, MD, director of Lung Cancer Research at the Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses current trials involving MPDL3280A in lung cancer.

The addition of the investigational hypoxia-targeted drug TH-302 to dexamethasone has demonstrated beneficial activity and a manageable adverse event profile in the treatment of patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.

The novel agents idelalisib and ABT-199 in combination with rituximab have demonstrated impressive activity with manageable toxicity for patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

A joint analysis of two phase III trials involving a total of 4690 premenopausal women with hormone-receptor–positive (HR+) breast cancer demonstrated that adjuvant use of the aromatase inhibitor (AI), exemestane, reduced relative risk of developing subsequent invasive cancer by 28% compared with tamoxifen when both agents were combined with ovarian function suppression (OFS).

The intratumoral injection talimogene laherparepvec demonstrated promise in combinations and utility as a monotherapy in certain subsets of patients with unresectable melanoma.

Two patients with metastatic cervical cancer achieved durable complete responses that have so far lasted from 15 to 22 months through an adoptive T-cell therapy (ACT) targeting the human papillomavirus (HPV) in a study that researchers say supports the concept that the experimental immunotherapy approach may be beneficial in a variety of tumor types.

The anti-PD 1 checkpoint inhibitor, pembrolizumab, continues to deliver impressive results in patients with advanced melanoma-producing long-lasting responses and improved overall survival, regardless of whether patients have been previously treated with ipilimumab.

The immunotherapy drug ipilimumab reduced the relative risk of cancer recurrence in the adjuvant setting by 25% compared to placebo for patients with high-risk, lymph-node positive melanoma.

Robert H. I. Andtbacka, MD, CM, from the Huntsman Cancer Institute, discusses OS findings from the phase III OPTiM study that explored T-VEC in patients with unresectable melanoma.

Lawrence Fong, MD, from the University of California, San Francisco, discusses the systemic antitumor effect and clinical response in a phase II trial of intratumoral electroporation of plasmid interleukin-12 in patients with advanced melanoma.

Johanna Bendell, MD, director of GI Cancer Research Program, associate director, Drug Development Program, Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses two studies in BRAF-mutated colorectal cancer.

The third-generation EGFR inhibitor CO-1686 continues to demonstrate promising activity in patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who developed resistance after prior treatment with an EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI).

Naiyer A. Rizvi, MD, an associate attending physician, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the safety and response with plus erlotinib in patients with epidermal growth factor receptor mutant (EGFR MT) advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

Frontline therapy with bevacizumab (Avastin) or cetuximab (Erbitux) combined with either FOLFOX or FOLFIRI yielded a comparable survival benefit of approximately 29 months in patients with KRAS wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer

In what was described as "an almost unprecedented improvement in median survival," the addition of the chemotherapy drug docetaxel to standard hormone therapy prolonged life for men with newly diagnosed metastatic, hormone-sensitive prostate cancer by nearly 14 months.

A dual HER2-blockade strategy that added lapatinib to trastuzumab for the adjuvant treatment of women with early breast cancer failed to demonstrate a significant improvement in DFS over the standard therapy with trastuzumab alone.

John C. Byrd, MD, from The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the promising findings from the phase III RESONATE trial that compared ofatumumab to ibrutinib in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

MPDL3280A reduced tumors in 43% of patients with previously treated PD-L1-positive metastatic bladder cancer, resulting in the first breakthrough therapy designation from the FDA for a treatment in this setting.

Adding the VEGFR-2 inhibitor ramucirumab to standard docetaxel improved overall survival by 1.4 months versus docetaxel alone in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer.

Mark D. Pegram, MD, from the Stanford University Medical Center, discusses a phase II study of margetuximab in patients with relapsed or refractory advanced breast cancer whose tumors express HER2 at the 2+ level by immunohistochemistry and lack evidence of HER2 gene amplification by FISH.

Combining the oral targeted agents olaparib and cediranib resulted in a near-doubling of median progression-free survival (PFS) among women with recurrent ovarian cancer in a phase II study highlighted Saturday during the 2014 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting.

Treatment with single-agent ibrutinib dramatically increased PFS by nearly 80% and significantly extended OS by 57% compared with ofatumumab in patients with relapsed or refractory CLL.

Lenvatinib, a novel multityrosine kinase inhibitor, is highly effective against differentiated thyroid cancer that has become resistant to standard RAI therapy.

Patients with less aggressive, HPV-positive oropharyngeal cancer can be effectively treated with a lower-dose radiation regimen depending upon their response to combination induction therapy.

Denise A. Yardley, MD, hematologist/oncologist, Sarah Cannon Research Institute discusses a pilot study to assess safety, pharmacokinetics, and effects on circulating estrogens in women with advanced hormone-positive breast cancer when given enzalutamide plus exemestane.

Adding goserelin to chemotherapy for women with early-stage hormone receptor (HR)-negative breast cancer helps both to preserve their fertility and to prolong their survival.