Vanessa Caceres

A plenary session held November 15 at the Society of Neuro-Oncology’s (SNO) 2014 Annual Meeting in Miami Beach focused on immunotherapy’s promise as well as its challenges as a treatment for patients with brain cancer.

According to data from a phase I study, the oncolytic virus Delta-24-RGD can infect, replicate, and kill glioma cells in patients.

Adjuvant temozolomide and the use of the Novo Tumor Treating Fields (NovoTTF) system led to longer progression-free survival and overall survival in patients with glioblastoma.

The vaccine rindopepimut appears to benefit patients with epidermal growth factor receptor variant III mutation (EGFRvIII) in glioblastoma with regard to progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS).

Ceritinib (Zykadia) showed clinically significant antitumor activity in patients with ALK-rearranged non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), including those with brain metastases.

The vaccine rindopepimut (CDX110) in combination with bevacizumab induced tumor regression in a subset of patients with recurrent glioblastoma.

The addition of lomustine to bevacizumab showed superior efficacy compared with either agent alone in patients with recurrent glioblastom, according to the phase II BELOB study presented by Martin van den Bent, MD.

The combination of radiation therapy and procarbazine, CCNU, and vincristine (PCV) prolonged both overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) compared with radiation therapy (RT) alone in a phase III study of patients with grade 2 glioma.