
Neratinib demonstrated durable responses and disease control and a manageable safety profile in patients with metastatic <em>HER2</em>-mutant cervical cancer, according to results from the ongoing phase II SUMMIT basket trial.

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Kristie L. Kahl is vice president of content at MJH Life Sciences, overseeing CURE®, CancerNetwork®, the journal ONCOLOGY, Targeted Oncology, and Urology Times®. She has been with the company since November 2017.
She is a graduate of Rider University, where she acquired a Bachelors of Art in journalism, as well as a graduate of Temple University, where she received her Masters of Science in Sports Management.
Follow Kristie on Twitter at @KristieLKahl, or email her at kkahl@mjhlifesciences.com.

Neratinib demonstrated durable responses and disease control and a manageable safety profile in patients with metastatic <em>HER2</em>-mutant cervical cancer, according to results from the ongoing phase II SUMMIT basket trial.

Women with recurrent ovarian cancer treated with the combination of pembrolizumab, bevacizumab, and metronomic cyclophosphamide had a 95% disease control rate and a 40% overall response rate, according to findings from an open-label phase II study presented during the 2019 SGO Annual Meeting.

Activity was seen with lenvatinib plus a weekly dose of paclitaxel in patients with recurrent endometrial and platinum-resistant epitherlial ovarian cancer, according to a presentation at the 50th SGO Annual Meeting. The combination resulted in a 65% overall response rate in a phase I trial.

Patients with high-risk ovarian cancer being treated with niraparib experienced a decrease in adverse events when treated with a 200- or 300-mg individualized starting dose based on bodyweight and platelet count compared with patients who received a fixed starting dose of 300 mg, according to data from a recent analysis of the ongoing ENGOT-OV26/PRIMA study.

Repeated use of PARP inhibitors may be a beneficial treatment strategy in the future for women with recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer, according to the results of a retrospective, multi-institutional study presented at the 2019 SGO Annual Meeting. The findings suggested that prior exposure to PARP inhibition may not lead to resistance, which could lead to increased use of repeat PARP treatment going forward.

Treatment with maintenance niraparib led to extended progression-free survival time in patients with recurrent ovarian cancer without the patients experiencing symptoms or toxicity compared with placebo, according to results of an analysis from the phase III ENGOT-OV16/NOVA trial. In patients with germline <em>BRCA</em>-mutated disease, the benefit was increased 4-fold and in patients non–germline <em>BRCA</em>-mutated ovarian cancer the benefit was increased 2-fold.

Guardant360—a 73-gene next-generation sequencing panel—detected all of the guideline-recommended biomarkers in patients newly diagnosed with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer at a similar rate, but in a faster turnaround time than tissue genotyping, according to data from the NILE study.

Although African-American men are at a higher risk for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer and have worse survival outcomes compared with Caucasian men, findings of a recent retrospective study suggested they may have a better response to several prostate cancer treatments.

According to data from the phase IIIb CASSINI trial presented at the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting, rivaroxaban could significantly reduce venous thromboembolism occurrence in patients currently receiving treatment with systemic therapy.

Patients with breast cancer who achieved pathologic complete response following neoadjuvant chemotherapy were more likely to have improved survival outcomes, according to findings of a meta-analyses data presented at the 2018 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

The gold standard of predicting how long patients with myelodysplastic syndromes could live with the disease may soon be replaced by a new approach. According to Aziz Nazha, MD, this newer approach utilizes machine learning to analyze genomic and clinical data from patients to more accurately predict survival.

It may be possible for hematologists to determine subtypes of acute myeloid leukemia based on genetic analsysis of blood samples in 7 days or less. According to Amy Burd, PhD, this process could play an important role in diagnosing and treating patients.

Patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia saw a reduction in the risk for recurrence after receiving a stem cell transplant for the first time following treatment with CD19 chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy.

The need for frequent red blood cell transfusions was reduced with luspatercept in nearly 53% of patients with anemia associated with low- to intermediate-risk myelodysplastic syndrome.

Durvalumab (Imfinzi) demonstrated an improvement in overall survival compared with placebo in patients with stage III, unresectable non–small cell lung cancer who have not progressed following chemoradiotherapy, according to updated findings from the PACIFIC trial recently presented at the 19th World Conference on Lung Cancer and simultaneously published in the <em>New England Journal of Medicine</em>.

Second-line treatment with the combination of lurbinectedin (Zepsyre; PM1183) and doxorubicin demonstrated significant clinical activity in patients with small cell lung cancer, especially when excluding refractory patients, according to findings presented at the 19th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Toronto, Canada.

Enhanced clinical benefit may be derived from the combination of entinostat and pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in a subgroup of patients with PD-1/PD-L1–refractory non–small cell lung cancer who have high levels of peripheral blood monocytes, ongoing analyses suggest.

Adding atezolizumab (Tecentriq) to standard carboplatin and etoposide significantly prolonged survival in patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer compared with the chemotherapy regimen alone in the frontline setting, according to results from the IMpower133 study.

Adult patients with <em>ALK</em>-positive, locally advanced or metastatic non–small cell lung cancer who had not received a prior ALK inhibitor experienced a more than 50% reduction in the risk of disease progression or death with treatment with brigatinib (Alunbrig), compared with the first-line standard of care, crizotinib.

Patients with <em>ROS1</em> fusion–positive non–small cell lung cancer had clinically meaningful and durable benefit across multiple doses of repotrectinib (TPX-0005), according to interim findings from the ongoing phase I/II TRIDENT-1 study, presented at the 19th World Conference on Lung Cancer.

Promising efficacy was seen with the novel targeted therapy poziotinib in patients with metastatic, heavily pretreated <em>EGFR </em>and <em>HER2 </em>exon 20 mutant non–small cell lung cancer, with a best response rate to date of 55%, according to phase II study results presented at the 19th World Conference on Lung Cancer.

A supplemental biologics license application for pembrolizumab (Keytruda) has been granted a priority review designation by the FDA for the frontline treatment of patients with locally advanced or metastatic nonsquamous or squamous non–small cell lung cancer with a PD-L1 expression level of ≥1% and no <em>EGFR</em> or <em>ALK</em> genomic tumor aberrations.

In patients with peritoneal carcinomatosis undergoing surgery, the addition of heated chemotherapy to the abdomen during surgery did not provide a survival benefit, data from a phase III study presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, in Chicago, Illinois, showed.

According to findings from the phase III KEYNOTE-042 trial, patients with non–small cell lung cancer demonstrated improved survival of 4 to 8 extra months with upfront pembrolizumab therapy compared with chemotherapy, the current standard of care. Patients treated with pembrolizumab also experienced fewer adverse events.

According to the results of a study presented during the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, microsatellite instability-high tumors are more likely to be associated with the presence of Lynch syndrome.

According to study results presented at the 2018 ASCO Annual Meeting, women with head and neck cancer (HNC) are less likely to recieve intensive chemotherapy and radiation when compared with their male counterparts.

According to phase Ib study findings presented at the 2018 AACR Annual Meeting, combining the intratumoral toll-like receptor 9 (TLR9) agonist CMP-001 and pembrolizumab showed clinical activity in reversing PD-1 checkpoint inhibition resistance in patients with metastatic melanoma.

Findings, presented at the 2018 AACR Annual Meeting, demonstrated that an off-the-shelf, dual-targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell approach found positive results in preclinical specificity, functionality, and efficacy studies.

According to the results from a phase I study, BLU-667, a next-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor, was well-tolerated and demonstrated clinical benefit in patients with advanced, <em>RET</em>-altered solid tumors who had progressed on previous therapies. These findings were presented April 14 to 18 at the ASCR Annual Meeting 2018 in Chicago, Illinois.

According to data from a randomized phase III trial presented at the 2017 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, a mix of traditional and customized acupuncture techniques were effective in reducing pain and stiffness associated with aromatase inhibitor therapy in women with early-stage breast cancer.