Tony Berberabe, MPH

Gareth Morgan, MD, PhD, presented the findings for the final analysis from the phase III TOURMALINE-MM3 trial at the 2019 Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Meetings, where there was a 28% reduction in the risk of progression and death in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma.

Reduced-dose rituximab combined with cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisolone had a similar complete response rate, progression-free survival, and overall survival compared with standard-dose R-CHOP or previous dose-adjusted R-CHOP chemotherapy in elderly patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

In a presentation during the 2nd Annual Precision Medicine Through Plasma: Using Liquid Biopsies in Contemporary Oncology Care symposium, Bob T. Li, MD, MPH, explained ctDNA’s growing importance in lung cancer, given the disease’s challenging prognosis.

Despite encouraging results in other cancers, the use of immunotherapy to treat glioblastoma, which appeared promising in early-phase trials, has not panned out as well in larger, phase III trials. However, researchers continue to search and are optimistic about immunotherapy’s prospects.

More men than women are dying from malignant melanoma, according to findings presented at the National Cancer Research Institute Cancer Conference held in Glasgow, United Kingdom.

The combination of sorafenib and modified FOLFOX demonstrated encouraging efficacy in a small phase II study, but some patients exhibited moderate hepatoxicity, according to investigators from the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center.

Patients who continued receiving osimertinib after their non–small cell lung cancer had progressed demonstrated a prolonged benefit beyond the initial progression event, according to a retrospective analysis of 118 patients from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute.

In “Global Cancer Statistics 2018: GLOBOCAN Estimates of Incidence and Mortality Worldwide for 36 Cancers in 185 Countries,” Freddie Bray, BSC, MSC, PhD, and colleagues describe the global magnitude and distribution of the disease overall and discuss the associated risk factors and prospects for prevention of the major cancers observed worldwide in their study.

Adding aggressive, local radiation or surgery to frontline systemic therapy in patients with stage IV NSCLC whose disease has spread to a limited number of sites resulted in improved overall survival, according to findings presented by Daniel Gomez, MD, and colleagues at the 60th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology in San Antonio, Texas.

Patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma who received cabozantinib demonstrated improved clinical outcomes compared with patients who received everolimus in a subgroup analysis of clinical outcomes from the phase III METEOR trial. 

Women who received 5 fractions of 28.5 Gy over 5 weeks experienced similar adverse events as women who received 50.0 Gy in 25 fractions over 5 weeks, according to findings presented by A. Murray Brunt, MB, BS.

A phase II trial is currently recruiting patients with Merkel cell carcinoma to participate in a single-arm study evaluating the safety and efficacy of INCMGA00012.¹The open-label, multicenter study seeks to enroll 90 patients, including at least 52 patients who are treatment-naïve. In addition, only 40 patients who are chemotherapy-refractory will be allowed to participate

Results from a two-part, phase I dose-escalation and -expansion trial involving mogamulizumab in combination with durvalumab or tremelimumab for the treatment of patients with advanced solid tumors demonstrated mild-to-moderate adverse events that were tolerable and manageable, according to Dmitriy Zamarin, MD, PhD, medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, during his presentation at the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer.

In an effort to determine best practices and ensure consistent clinical interpretation of tumor mutational burden assessment for patients with cancer, a group of diagnostic test partners conducted an in silico analysis and found that panel-derived TMB strongly correlated with whole-exome sequencing data provided from The Cancer Genome Atlas. 

An overview of the regulatory activities of the Office of Oncology Drug Products and the Office of Hematology and Oncology Drug Products from 2008 to 2016 suggests that the FDA has made consistent use of regulatory mechanisms to expedite approvals during that period. Investigators from the Office of Biostatistics, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research completed an analysis to determine if changes in the laws, regulations, and the agency that occurred after 2007 had an effect on regulatory approvals.

Findings from a recent study have suggested that wearable activity monitors could potentially replace performance status and functionability assessments going forward. This could lead to more accurate PS scores as evaluations of PS are difficult to determine objectively in the clinic. 

A meta-analysis and systemic review specifically assessing carfilzomib-associated cardiovascular adverse events suggests an elevated risk in patients with multiple myeloma who are taking the proteasome inhibitor.

Using next-generation squencing methods, researchers are attempting to combine clinical and genomic biomarkers to identify patients with smoldering multiple myeloma who are at high risk for disease progression.

Regardless of smoking history, patients with cancer of the lung harboring specific genetic alterations who were treated with targeted therapies experienced longer survival than those patients who did not receive targeted treatment, according to results of a multi-institutional extension study to identify and treat oncogenic driver events.

An extension in overall survival (OS) with the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) has completely changed the standard of care for patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC), Thomas Powles, MD, MBBS, MRCP, told audience members during the 9th European Multidisciplinary Meeting on Urological Cancers.<br /> &nbsp;

A new study published in the August 7 issue of <em>Nature</em> identified genes that are necessary in cancer cells for immunotherapy to work, addressing the problem of why some tumors do not respond to immunotherapy or respond initially but then stop as tumor cells develop resistance to immunotherapy.

Four tumor serum markers commonly used in other solid tumors could be used in monitoring therapeutic outcomes in patients with stage IV lung adenocarcinoma, according to a single-center retrospective analysis.

About 71% of patients (17 of 24) with chronic lymphocytic leukemia exhibited an overall response (complete and/ or partial response) 4 weeks after receiving CAR T cell infusion therapy.

Patients with metastatic papillary renal cell carcinoma have limited therapeutic options, but results of a phase II safety and efficacy study suggest that a small-molecule inhibitor, savolitinib, could help patients with MET-driven disease.

Results from the phase I portion of the first trial testing axicabtagene ciloleucel, an autologous CD3&zeta;/CD28-based CAR T-cell therapy, indicate that the regimen can safely be administered and lead to durable CR after more than 12 months in refractory diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

Results of an initial study of tumors from patients with lung cancer or head and neck cancer suggest that acquired resistance to checkpoint inhibitors may be due to the elimination of certain genetic mutations needed to enable the immune system to recognize and attack malignant cells.

Measuring molecular biomarkers after metastasis could inform treatment decisions for women with breast cancer that has spread to the brain.

Howard L. Kaufman, MD, FACS discusses the abstracts chosen for presentation during the Presidential Session of the SITC 31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs.&nbsp;

Study results that examined patient-reported outcomes and quality of life measures demonstrate that hypofractionated radiotherapy (H-RT) is a viable, safe, and value-added alternative to patients with low-risk prostate cancer.

For patients who are likely to experience contiguous recurrence of glioblastoma, a new computer simulation using tumor treating fields (TTF) and employing a personalized transducer array, delivered electric field (EF) intensities that exceeded therapeutic intensities in 3 different tumor locations.