IMMUNOTHERAPY

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Prasad S. Adusumilli, MD, FACS, discussed the expansion of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell research in the solid tumor space and the challenges researchers will need to overcome in order to make this therapy effective for patients outside of the hematologic treatment landscape.

Jonathan C. Trent, MD, PhD, discusses some of the recent immunotherapeutic advances in the treatment landscape for patients with sarcoma, particularly with immune checkpoint inhibitors.

GEN-1 immunotherapy demonstrated dose-dependent efficacy results in newly diagnosed patients with advanced epithelial ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer when treated in combination with the standard of care, according to results from the OVATION 2 study. Based on positive data in the phase I portion, the study is moving on to phase II with enrollment expected to begin in the second half of the year.

Microsatellite instability has been an FDA-indicated biomarker for immunotherapy since 2017, when the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab was approved for patients with solid tumors found to be mismatch repair deficient or MSI high. Other approvals since then, such as for the combination of ipilimumab and nivolumab in patients with MSI-H/dMMR metastatic colorectal can­cer, have established the relevance of cancer thera­pies for tumors with this biomarker specifically rather than tumor histology alone.

David Miklos, MD, PhD, describes the toxicity profile of KTE-X19, a chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, in the ZUMA-2 trial.

In an interview with Targeted Oncology at the 2020 International Congress on Hematologic Malignancies, Noopur Raje, MD, discussed emerging CAR T-cell therapies in multiple myeloma. She also explained how CAR NK cells differ from other CAR agents.

Dylan Essner explains how Epic, an electronic medical record, can be used by nurses and oncology providers who are treating patients with chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy.

Use of an off-the-shelf chimeric antigen receptor T-cell product may be feasible for use in patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell malignancies for whom no other available therapies exist, according to results of a phase I trial in adult and pediatric patients that were presented at the 2020 Transplant & Cellular Therapies Meeting in Orlando, Florida.

Treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors appears to elicit limited clinical activity in patients with osteosarcoma. In a study, investigators at MD Anderson Cancer Center found that certain factors like poor infiltration of the tumor by immune cells, low activity from available T cells, a lack of immune-stimulating neoantigens, and multiple immune-suppressing pathways may interfere with response to immunotherapy in these patients, according to a press release from the organization.<br /> &nbsp;

Craig L. Slingluff, MD, explains the rationale behind part B1 of the MAVIS study , which is investigating the use of the Seviprotimut-L&nbsp;vaccine in melanoma.

Outpatient treatment with&nbsp;lisocabtagene maraleucel&nbsp;had consistent efficacy and safety with that of a previously reported clinical trial involving patients who were treated at university medical centers, according to results of 3 studies reported at the 2020 Transplantation &amp; Cellular Therapy Meetings in Orlando, Florida.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology at the&nbsp;2020 Transplantation &amp; Cellular Therapy Meetings, Craig Sauter, MD, discussed the retrospective real-world review of patients with hematologic malignancies who developed cytopenia post-chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy.

Plinabulin in combination with docetaxel, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, and pegfilgrastim led to a dose-dependent increase in mean haptoglobin and absolute neutrophil count, demonstrating potency in the stimulation of the adaptive and innate immune system following previous positive efficacy and safety results, according to data analyzed from the phase III BPI-2358-106 study presented at the 2020 American Society of Clinical Oncology-Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium.

Matthew Krebs, MBChB, PhD, explains the rationale for a phase II study of bemcentinib, a first-in-class selective AXL inhibitor, in combination with pembrolizumab in patients with advanced non&ndash;small cell lung cancer, which he presented at the 2019 Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer Annual Meeting.

Jason Luke, MD, FACP, discusses promising clinical research around intratumoral immunotherapy.

The majority of patients with relapsed or refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia who were participants in a phase I/IIa trial had clinical responses to treatment with TAK-007, a cord blood&ndash;derived chimeric antigen receptor natural killer&ndash;cell therapy that targets CD19, with no major toxicities experienced by patients, according to a press release from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Jason Williams, MD, the director of Interventional Oncology and Immunotherapy oncologist at the Williams Cancer Institute, discusses a study in which an immunotherapy combination was administered intratumorally to patients with liver metastases linked to breast cancer, which he presented in a poster at the 2019 Society of Immunotherapy of Cancer Annual Meeting.

The combination of talimogene laherparepvec plus pembrolizumab led to a promising objective response rate in patients with advanced sarcoma who typically have limited treatment options, according to a phase II clinical trial&nbsp;&nbsp;published in&nbsp;<em>JAMA Oncology</em>.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Shoba A. Navai, MD,&nbsp;discussed the evolving role of CAR T-cell therapy in solid tumors, including sarcomas and how the efficacy and safety compare with CAR T cells in this space compared with hematologic malignancies.

The Investigational New Drug application for small molecule dual antagonist TPST-1495 was cleared by the FDA to begin a clinical investigation into the treatment of prostaglandin-driven tumors, according to a press release from Tempest Therapeutics.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Elizabeth Mittendorf, MD, PhD, discussed the highlights from the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium for the treatment of patients with triple-negative breast cancer, as well as those with&nbsp;HER2-positive breast cancer. She also shared her thoughts on the key takeaways from the 2019 meeting.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Benjamin Besse, MD, PhD,&nbsp;<a>discussed&nbsp;</a>the research around the Tedopi vaccine and how it addresses an unmet medical need for the treatment of patients with non-small cell lung cancer who have failed immune checkpoint inhibitors. He also explained the use of genomic testing to aid the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer.

Nina Shah, MD, discusses the question of whether CAR T-cell therapy is ready for primetime in patients with multiple myeloma.

In an interview with&nbsp;Targeted Oncology, Andrew J. Cowan, MD, discussed the findings from the first-in-human clinical trial evaluating the combination of a GSI and BCMA CAR T cells in patients with heavily pretreated multiple myeloma. He highlighted the next steps for this research and how he sees CAR T-cell therapy evolving over the coming years.

The real-world efficacy and safety demonstrated with tisagenlecleucel, a chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy for the treatment of patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, was similar to results from the pivotal JULIET trial, according to Samantha Jaglowski, MD professor at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center patients.

The CD19-directed CAR T-cell therapy lisocabtagene maraleucel demonstrated promising responses and a manageable toxicity profile in patients with high-risk chronic lymphocytic leukemia or small lymphocytic leukemia who have previously progressed on ibrutinib in the updated findings from the phase I/II TRANSCEND CLL 004 study.

Progress in the development of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy and other cell-based therapies has led to new therapeutic options for advanced malignancies. CAR T-cell agents approved by the FDA in recent years include axicabtagene ciloleucel for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and tisagenlecleucel for both DLBCL and acute lymphoblastic leukemia.&nbsp;

Early-stage skin cancers that remain localized are often successfully treated through a variety of surgical techniques as well as radiation therapy, photodynamic therapy, and topical chemotherapy, but advanced cases that are beyond surgery may respond to immunotherapies. This setting will be discussed during the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer&rsquo;s 34th Annual Meeting.

The clinical development and application of cancer immunotherapy over the past decade has translated the long-standing knowledge of the close relationship between cancerous tissues and lymphoid immune cells, dating back to the late 19th century.

A Biologic License Application has been submitted for isocabtagene maraleucel, a chimeric antigen receptor T-cell agent, as a treatment for adult patients with relapsed or refractory large B-cell lymphoma after a minimum of 2 prior therapies, Bristol-Myers Squibb, the manufacturer, reported in a press release.