All Oncology News

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan has approved quizartinib for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed/refractory FTL3-ITD–positive acute myeloid leukemia, as detected by an MHLW-approved assay.

Combining telaglenastat (CB-839) with everolimus (Afinitor) doubled the median progression-free survival versus everolimus alone in heavily pretreated patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma.

Entrectinib received its first regulatory approval, as Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has approved the drug for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients with NTRK fusion–positive, advanced recurrent solid tumors.

The European Commission has approved olaparib as a single agent for the maintenance treatment of adult patients with advanced BRCA1/2-mutated germline and/or somatic high-grade epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer who are in complete or partial response following first-line platinum-based chemotherapy.

The FDA has granted an accelerated approval to single-agent pembrolizumab for the treatment of patients with metastatic small cell lung cancer who have disease progression on or after platinum-based chemotherapy and ≥1 other prior line of therapy.

Pfizer Inc. has entered into a definitive merger agreement with Array BioPharma, in which Pfizer will acquire Array BioPharma for $48 per share in cash, leading to a total enterprise value of an estimated $11.4 billion.

Chemotherapy-free treatment with single-agent acalabrutinib provided a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in progression-free survival compared with physicians’ choice of standard therapy in patients with previously treated chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

Sujatha Nallapareddy, MD, discusses how personalized therapy has improved the outlook for patients with colorectal cancer and sheds light on some of the challenges that lie ahead.

Chad Pecot, MD, discusses practice-changing immunotherapy research that has read out in squamous non–small cell lung cancer, emerging biomarkers under investigation, and logical combinations that beg for further exploration.

Jeffrey M. Clarke, MD, discusses the optimal targeted therapies for the frontline treatment of patients with EGFR-positive NSCLC and sequencing beyond progression.

The FDA has approved ABP 980 (Kanjinti; trastuzumab-anns), a trastuzumab biosimilar, for the treatment of patients with HER2-overexpressing breast cancer as well as HER2-overexpressing metastatic gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma, marking the fifth approval by the agency for a trastuzumab biosimilar.

Neal E. Ready, MD, PhD, highlights recent advances that have been made in the treatment of small cell lung cancer, the promise of immunotherapy, and opportunities to improve patient care.

Christopher Lieu, MD, highlights updates on biomarker-directed therapy with colorectal cancer and ongoing research being done with immunotherapy.

Rutika Mehta, MD, MPH, provides insight on the ongoing study combining TAS-102 with ramucirumab in the treatment of patients with advanced gastric/GEJ cancer.

Nelson Jen An Chao, MD, discusses current understandings of minimal residual disease and the therapies that have helped promulgate its utility in acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Wells A. Messersmith, MD, discusses the evolving standards of care in colorectal cancer and the importance of molecular testing in guiding treatment decisions.

Toni Choueiri, MD, discusses the biomarker analysis results from JAVELIN Renal 101 and provided insight on where the renal cell carcinoma field stands following pivotal data presented at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting.

The FDA has approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic or unresectable recurrent head and neck squamous cell carcinoma as monotherapy whose tumors express PD-L1 (composite positive score [CPS] ≥1) and also in combination with platinum and fluorouracil (FU) for this patient population, irrespective of PD-L1 expression.

The FDA has granted an accelerated approval to polatuzumab vedotin (Polivy) for use in combination with bendamustine and rituximab for the treatment of patients with relapsed/refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

Mihaela C. Cristea, MD, emphasizes the use of molecular testing over tumor testing in ovarian cancer.

Ahmed Galal, MD, sheds light on the current use of CAR T-cell therapy in relapsed/refractory lymphomas and a handful of strategies to expand the reach of this therapy.

Thanh H. Dellinger, MD, provides insight on the treatment of patients with newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer.

Thomas W. LeBlanc, MD, shares advice for community oncologists on to how to better navigate the complex treatment paradigm of acute myeloid leukemia.

S. Lindsey Davis, MD, highlights the latest immunotherapy developments and other advances in gastric and gastroesophageal junction cancers.

The fixed-dose combination of cedazuridine and decitabine demonstrated decitabine exposure equivalence of total 5-day dosing compared with intravenous decitabine in patients with intermediate- and high-risk myelodysplastic syndromes or chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, meeting the primary endpoint of the phase III ASCERTAIN trial.

Brigatinib demonstrated promising response rates in patients with ALK-positive non–small cell lung cancer who have progressed on treatment with another next-generation ALK TKI, according to preliminary phase II results presented at the 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Yubin Kang, MD, discusses how progress made in frontline therapy has impacted the outlook of multiple myeloma and the remaining work that needs to be done across settings.

Mihaela C. Cristea, MD, discusses the impact of the SOLO-1 trial on current approaches to frontline maintenance therapy as well as the trials that are underway with niraparib, rucaparib, and the investigational PARP inhibitor veliparib.

Lindsay A.M. Rein, MD, discusses the current state of TKI discontinuation in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia.

The combination of acalabrutinib (Calquence) and obinutuzumab (Gazyva) demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in progression-free survival compared with obinutuzumab/chlorambucil in patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia, meeting the primary endpoint of the phase III ELEVATE-TN trial.