All Oncology News

Lewis Au, MBBS, BMedSci, FRACP, discusses the impact that COVID-19 has had and will continue to have on cancer care.

The FDA has issued a complete response letter to Merck stating that regulatory decision for the supplemental biologics license application seeking approval for pembrolizumab for use in patients with high-risk, early-stage triple-negative breast cancer plus chemotherapy as neoadjuvant treatment, then continuing as a single agent as adjuvant treatment following surgery, should be deferred.

The combination of mirvetuximab soravtansine and rucaparib was found to be well tolerated, with encouraging activity reported in heavily pretreated patients with endometrial, ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer.

The European Commission has granted conditional marketing authorization for selinexor for use in combination with dexamethasone for the treatment of adult patients with multiple myeloma who have previously received at least 4 therapies and whose disease is refractory to at least 2 proteasome inhibitors, 2 immunomodulatory agents, and an anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody, and have experienced progressive disease on their last therapy.

Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has approved lisocabtagene maraleucel, a CAR T-cell therapy designed to target CD19, for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma, as well as relapsed/refractory follicular lymphoma.

The use of biosimilars to treat patients may differ across drug classes, according to a new study examining the relationship between biosimilar use and practice setting and patient/physician characteristics.

The European Medicines Agency has validated its type II variation application for nivolumab as an adjuvant treatment for patients with surgically resected, high-risk muscle-invasive urothelial carcinoma.

The rolling submission of a biologics license application to support the approval of ublituximab plus umbralisib as a treatment for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia has been completed.

Nikhil C. Munshi, MD, discusses the FDA approval of idecabtagene vicleucel for patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma after 4 or more prior lines of therapy, including an immunomodulatory agent, a proteasome inhibitor, and an anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody.

The COVID-19 pandemic created new patient care challenges in oncology, such as how to reduce risks of virus exposure for patients who may be immunocompromised and switching from in-person visits to telemedicine.

Aditi Shastri, MBBS, discusses risk stratification tools, her treatment algorithm for patients with low-risk MDS, and the role of luspatercept in this population.

A regimen comprised of a single 300-mg priming dose of tremelimumab and 1500 mg of durvalumab every 4 weeks yielded favorable efficacy and an acceptable safety profile in patients with advanced HCC.

Suresh S. Ramalingam, MD, FASCO, deputy director, director, Lung Cancer Program, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, professor, assistant dean, Roberto C. Goizueta Distinguished Chair for Cancer Research, director, Division of Medical Oncology, Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Emory University School of Medicine, discusses treatment after osimertinib (Tagrisso) in EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

More patients with stage III non–small cell lung cancer received sequential chemoradiation and delayed the time to durvalumab treatment in a real-world setting compared with those enrolled on the phase 3 PACIFIC trial.

Janakiraman Subramanian, MD, discusses the use of EGFR TKIs in the treatment of patients with non–small cell lung cancer.

Osimertinib (Tagrisso) showcased encouraging efficacy and acceptable safety in patients with EGFR-positive, advanced non–small cell lung cancer. according to real-world findings from an observational, multicenter study.

Options for systemic treatment for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma have significantly expanded since 2017, when the sole available option was sorafenib. Now, the arsenal includes checkpoint inhibitors, targeted therapies, and combinations of both classes of drugs.

The FDA has approved idecabtagene vicleucel as the first BCMA-directed CAR T-cell therapy for patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma after 4 or more prior lines of therapy, including an immunomodulatory agent, a proteasome inhibitor, and an anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody.

Although the combination of atezolizumab and bevacizumab has become the standard frontline treatment for patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma, whether immunotherapy could play a role in earlier lines of treatment remains the subject of ongoing research.

Treatment with chemotherapy plus immunotherapy did not demonstrate significant clinical benefit over chemotherapy alone in patients with EGFR-mutated non–small cell lung cancer after progression on osimertinib.

Previous exposure to immune checkpoint inhibitors or osimertinib has been linked with poor outcomes in patients with non–small cell lung cancer who were receiving a subsequent atezolizumab-containing regimen.

The half-life extended, DLL3-targeting bispecific T-cell engager AMG 757 demonstrated early signals of efficacy and a favorable safety profile in patients with small cell lung cancer.

The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use has recommended the approval of atezolizumab for use as a frontline treatment in adult patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer whose tumors have a high PD-L1 expression and no EGFR or ALK aberrations.

The European Medicines Agency has validated a Marketing Authorization application for sacituzumab govitecan-hziy for the treatment of adult patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer who had previously received at least 2 therapies, including at least 1 therapy for locally advanced or metastatic disease.

The European Medicines Agency has accepted a marketing authorization application for enfortumab vedotin-ejfv for the treatment of adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer who have previously received a PD-1 or PD-L1 inhibitor and a platinum-containing chemotherapy in the neoadjuvant or adjuvant, locally advanced or metastatic setting.

Tipifarnib showed promising clinical activity in patients with recurrent and/or metastatic, HRAS-mutant head and neck squamous cell carcinoma whose disease had progressed after prior therapy.

Adagrasib yielded durable responses and broad disease control, in addition to providing extensive predicted coverage throughout the dosing interval, in patients with KRAS G12C–mutant advanced non–small cell lung cancer.

The fatty acid synthase inhibition caused by AZ12756122 could represent a promising therapeutic alternative to overcome resistance to EGFR TKIs because of the synergistic interaction that it has with osimertinib and its ability to reduce cancer stem cell properties in EGFR-mutant non–small cell lung cancer cell models.

The frontline combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab plus 2 cycles of chemotherapy demonstrated an improvement in overall survival vs chemotherapy alone in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer regardless of tumor mutational burden status in the tissue or blood.

The addition of farletuzumab to carboplatin plus paclitaxel or carboplatin plus pegylated liposomal doxorubicin did not demonstrate superiority over placebo plus chemotherapy in patients with platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer who are in their first relapse and have low cancer antigen-125 levels.