All Oncology News

In a 6 to 2 vote, the FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee voted against maintaining the accelerated approval of pembrolizumab for the treatment of patients with PD-L1–positive recurrent or advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma who have received 2 or more lines of therapy.

The local recurrence rate after surgical excision was similar to the rate of progression with active surveillance in patients with extra-abdominal desmoid tumor fibromatosis, suggesting that observation may be sufficient in some cases.

Michael E. Devitt, MD, further underscored the importance of early genomic testing in patients with urothelial carcinoma, shared advice on factors to consider when choosing among second-line and later options, and highlighted enfortumab vedotin combination regimens that are under exploration.

A higher incidence of somatically acquired genetic alterations, including damaging mutations in ZMYM3 leading to genomic instability, as well as deletions in MAP3K7, BNIP3L, RB1, and NEIL3, and gain of MYC, may lead to more aggressive prostate cancer in Black/African American men.

The combination of atezolizumab and bevacizumab has become the frontline standard of care for most patients with unresectable or metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma who have not received prior systemic therapy.

In patients with renal cell carcinoma, factors that determine whether a partial or full nephrectomy should be performed include tumor location and size, but efforts should be made to perform partial nephrectomies whenever possible to preserve kidney function.

Centrally stratified risk-adapted clinical trials in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma were shown to be feasible, addressing an unmet need and providing the opportunity for rapid clinical development of novel therapies.

In a 10 to 1 vote, the FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee voted to support the accelerated approval of atezolizumab for the frontline treatment of patients with cisplatin-ineligible locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma.

Amgen has completed its planned acquisition of Five Prime Therapeutics for $38.00 per share in cash, or approximately $1.9 billion.

In a 5 to 3 vote, the FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee voted to uphold the accelerated approval of pembrolizumab for the frontline treatment of patients with cisplatin-ineligible and carboplatin-ineligible locally advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma.

Zanubrutinib demonstrated noninferiority in objective response rates and a trend toward improved progression-free survival when compared with ibrutinib in patients with relapsed/refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

The curative potential of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for many hematologic malignancies is hindered by the frequent development of graft-vs-host disease, a potentially fatal complication resulting from a complex interaction between donor immune cells in the graft and the host’s immune system.

The FDA has granted a priority review designation to a new drug application for mobocertinib for the treatment of adult patients with EGFR exon 20 insertion mutation–positive metastatic non–small cell lung cancer, as detected via an FDA-approved assay, who have received previous platinum-based chemotherapy.

Triaging individuals with the highest likelihood of cancer detection with their clinical indication and individual risk factors during periods of reduced capacity could be an efficient way of identifying the most cancers with the least examinations compared with a non–risk-based approach.

The FDA's Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee voted 7 to 2 in support of maintaining the indication of atezolizumab in combination with nab-paclitaxel as a treatment for adult patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer whose tumors are PD-L1 positive.

After years of stagnation, the paradigm for treating patients with unresectable intermediate-stage or advanced hepatocellular carcinoma is starting to change as a result of novel strategies and evolving views of appropriate patient populations for systemic therapies.

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® has added the CDK4/6 inhibitor trilaciclib to its Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology for small cell lung cancer as well as for supportive care for hematopoietic growth factors.

Michael Grunwald, MD, discusses the evolving landscape of cellular therapy in acute leukemias and key research efforts and hypotheses aimed at addressing ongoing challenges.

I-Mab Biopharma and ABL Bio, Inc set their sights on adding the bispecific antibody, TJ-CD4B, to the expanding armamentarium for patients with various types of advanced and metastatic solid cancers.

The FDA has granted an Orphan Drug designation to the investigational tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy ITIL-168 for the treatment of patients with stage IIB to IV melanoma.

Although chemotherapy is not likely to lose its place in the frontline treatment of patients with B-cell lymphomas, encouraging data from early-phase studies evaluating the use of targeted agents in combination with and without chemotherapy are capturing the interest of investigators in the field.

The CheckMate 274 trial may have captured attention during the 2021 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, but immunotherapy is not the only promising approach under study in urothelial carcinoma.

The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use has recommended osimertinib for the adjuvant treatment of adult patients with stage IB, II, or IIIA EGFR-mutated non–small cell lung cancer following complete tumor resection with curative intent.

The development of novel therapies aimed at tumors with RET alterations in non-small cell lung cancer and thyroid cancers sets the stage for a future tumor-agnostic role for this molecularly targeted approach.

Current breast cancer screening practices in the Caribbean exclude the majority of the younger patient population, thereby leaving many cases of breast cancer undiagnosed.

Apalutamide plus androgen deprivation therapy maintained an overall survival advantage over placebo for a broad population of patients with metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer after nearly 4 years of median follow-up.

The European Medicines Agency has validated a Type II Variation Marketing Authorization Application to Karyopharm Therapeutics Inc. for selinexor in combination with bortezomib and low-dose dexamethasone as a treatment for adult patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least 1 prior therapy.

The FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee is poised to move forward this week with a public review of 6 indications for immune checkpoint inhibitors granted under the agency’s accelerated approval process that later failed to reach thresholds for statistical significance for key end points in confirmatory clinical trials.

Natasha Garg, DO, discusses the impact of antiandrogens in the treatment of patients with nonmetastatic CRPC, shared advice for choosing among the available options, and projected what the future paradigm might look like.

With immunotherapy options expanding for patients with a range of gastrointestinal cancers to include combination strategies with chemotherapy, their use in the treatment course should come sooner rather than later for those with high PD-L1 expression.