Latest Conference Articles

Patients with relapsed and difficult-to-treat Hodgkin lymphoma who received brentuximab vedotin had an unprecedented 50% higher likelihood of continuing to experience PFS at 2 years.

Two studies spotlighted at the 2014 ASH Annual Meeting characterized the efficacy of treatment with anti-CD38 monoclonal antibodies in the frontline setting and for patients with refractory disease.

Treatment with carfilzomib in combination with lenalidomide and dexamethasone increased PFS by 8.7 months in patients with relapsed multiple myeloma when compared with lenalidomide and dexamethasone alone.

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

At least 80% of patients with B-precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia had a complete minimal residual disease response after a single cycle of treatment with the CD19-directed antibody blinatumomab.

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

A. Keith Stewart, MBChB, from the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, discusses findings from the phase III ASPIRE trial that evaluated the novel proteasome inhibitor carfilzomib in combination with lenalidomide and dexamethasone for patients with relapsed multiple myeloma.

Stephan Grupp, MD, PhD, of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, discusses the optimal treatment settings for novel CD19-specific CAR-modified T cell therapies in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

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.

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.

Jeffrey J. Raizer, MD, Co-Director, Northwestern Brain Tumor Institute, Professor in Neurology, Ken and Ruth Davee Department, Medicine-Hematology/Oncology, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, discusses a study that analyzed the overall survival and toxicity of proton therapy for large-volume re-irradiation for recurrent glioma.

The oncolytic virus Delta-24-RGD can infect, replicate, and kill glioma cells in patients, according to phase I research presented at the 2014 Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO) Annual Meeting in Miami.

John F de Groot, MD, nuro-oncologist, MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses the efficacy of the novel c-MET inhibitor altiratinib in glioblastoma.

Roger Stupp, MD, Professor of Oncology, University of Zürich; Chairman, Department of Oncology and Cancer Center, University of Zürich Hospital, Zürich, Switzerland, discusses the interim analysis of the EF-14 trial, which compared NovoTTF-100A together with temozolomide versus temozolomide alone in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme (GBM).

Use of the NovoTTF system along with adjuvant temozolomide led to longer progression-free survival and overall survival in patients with glioblastoma.

Nicholas Butowski, MD, associate professor, University of California, San Francisco, neuro-oncologist, UCSF Medical Center, discusses a phase I/II study of dianhydrogalacitol in patients with recurrent glioblastoma multiforme (GBM).

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.

Martin J. van den Bent, MD, professor, Neuro-Oncology, Erasmus MC-Daniel den Hoed Cancer Center, Rotterdam, the Netherlands, discusses the BELOB trial, which examined bevacizumab versus bevacizumab plus lomustine versus lomustine single agent in recurrent glioblastoma.

The next-generation ALK inhibitor ceritinib showed clinically significant antitumor activity in patients with ALK-rearranged NSCLC, including those with brain metastases.

David Reardon, MD, clinical director, Center for Neuro-Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, president, Society for Neuro-Oncology, discusses the ReACT study, which examined the rindopepimut vaccine (CDX-110) plus bevacizumab in patients with relapsed glioblastoma.

The vaccine rindopepimut plus bevacizumab induced tumor regression in a subset of patients with recurrent glioblastoma.

The combination of bevacizumab and lomustine showed superior efficacy compared with either agent alone in patients with recurrent glioblastoma, warranting further study.

Roeland GW Verhaak, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, Division of Quantitative Sciences, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, discusses a study that examined the comprehensive and integrative genomic characterization of diffuse lower grade gliomas.

The combination of radiation therapy with procarbazine, CCNU, and vincristine prolonged OS and PFS compared with radiation therapy alone in grade 2 glioma.

Steven A. Toms, MD, director, neurosurgery, Geisinger Health System, discusses how targeting MEK can be an effective treatment strategy for CNS metastasis.

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.

How should oncologists respond when initial treatment of EGFR-mutant or ALK-positive lung cancer with a tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) no longer prevents all disease progression?

Although testing for EGFR mutations and ALK rearrangements in patients with NSCLC has become widespread, the time has come to translate into clinical practice next-generation sequencing assays that provide exponentially more information about tumor biology.