IMMUNOTHERAPY

A number of new clinical and pre-clinical agents currently in development were explored during the SITC 31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs. 

Treatment with the combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab at selected doses led to a high response rate and marked improvements in overall survival ​for patients with pretreated metastatic urothelial carcinoma.

Treatment with pembrolizumab improved overall survival by 2.9 months compared with chemotherapy for patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma whose disease progressed after prior treatment.

Sonja Althammer, PhD, Team Leader Bioinformatics at Definiens, discusses a study looking to define a subgroup of patients with non–small cell lung cancer who respond best to treatment with the PD-L1 inhibitor durvalumab.

Though surgical resection and radiation therapy remain at the forefront of the treatment for localized disease, accurately predicting outcomes for individual patients remains a challenge, which radiomics, an emerging research field, hopes to alleviate.

The CheckPoints, which are considered the official house band of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC), performs every year at the annual meeting, as well as at a SITC sponsored event at the ASCO annual meeting each year.

A new immune checkpoint called PVRIG has emerged as a ripe target for anticancer therapy in solid tumors and an antibody that blocks its ability to suppress an antitumor response is in development.<br /> &nbsp;

Pembrolizumab plus low dose metronomic cyclophosphamide demonstrated limited patient benefit in adult patients with diverse types of unresectable locally advanced or metastatic sarcoma.<br /> &nbsp;

Elizabeth Loggers, MD, PhD, medical oncologist, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, discusses the role that she expects immunotherapy will play in the future treatment landscape of sarcoma.

Clinical benefit, including partial response and stable disease, was observed in 11 of 20 patients with relapsed metastatic sarcoma following nivolumab treatment that was administered either alone or in combination with pazopanib.

Omid Hamid, MD, chief, Translational Research and Immunotherapy, director, Melanoma Therapeutics, discusses current and emerging immunotherapeutic strategies in the field of melanoma during an interview at the 34th Annual Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium^TM.

Updated results of the multicenter phase II study SARC028 demonstrate both a favorable safety profile as well as encouraging efficacy for the use pembrolizumab (Keytruda) as a treatment for patients with advanced sarcomas.

The PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab extended overall survival versus placebo for patients who were refractory or intolerant to standard therapy&nbsp;with unresectable, advanced, or recurrent gastric cancer, according to topline data from the phase III ONO-4538-12 trial.

Treatment with pembrolizumab, an immunotherapeutic agent approved in melanoma, lung, and head and neck cancer, and which is undergoing investigation in several other cancer types, reduced the size of tumors in patients with a specific soft tissue sarcoma.

The FDA has approved the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab as a treatment for patients with metastatic or recurrent squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck following progression on platinum-based therapy.

Immune checkpoint inhibitor development is progressing as treatments for patients with acute myeloid leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome, with a number of studies currently assessing new combination strategies.

Studies testing immune checkpoint inhibitors in combination with other agents for the treatment of both Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma are garnering attention among researchers.

Alessandro Gronchi, MD, president, Connective Tissue Oncology Society (CTOS), discusses some of the exciting data that will be presented at the 21st annual CTOS meeting in Lisbon, Portugal.

The key to inducing durable responses with immunotherapy in multiple myeloma may depend on the effective use of combination strategies, particularly for the use of monoclonal antibodies.

David F. McDermott, MD, discusses methods of expanding on progress seen in the field of immunotherapy, both in the case of kidney cancer and other tumor types at the PER&reg; European Congress on Immunotherapies in Cancer held in Barcelona.

An overview of the data and rationale that led to the approval of nivolumab and&nbsp;pembrolizumab for NSCLC, with an emphasis on specific patient&nbsp;populations likely to benefit from this approach and future&nbsp;directions for clinical research in this area.

In an interview, Yvonne Saenger, MD, discussed&nbsp;ongoing developments with immunotherapy in&nbsp;melanoma.

The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer&rsquo;s (SITC) Annual Meeting &amp; Associated Programs are renowned as a catalyst for future advances in the cancer immunotherapy field. This year marks the 31st such conference (SITC 2016), which will be held in National Harbor, Maryland from November 9 to 13, 2016.

James Allison, PhD, discusses exciting advancements in immunotherapy combinations, the potential synergistic effects of radiation with immunotherapies, and considerations that must be made when combining other agents with immunotherapy.

For the first time, Physicians&rsquo; Education Resource (PER&reg;) will host 2 European conferences, providing&nbsp;more opportunities for oncology professionals worldwide to learn and collaborate with leading experts in the fields.