ASCO Annual Meeting

Overall survival was improved by 15 months for patients with macroscopically resected biliary tract cancer who were treated with adjuvant capecitabine compared with observation alone.

Ghassan K. Abou-Alfa, MD, medical oncologist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the potential impact that regorafenib (Stivarga) could have on the treatment landscape of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

The advent of targeted inhibitors that work on the fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) pathway may alter the disease course and outcomes in intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, suggests data from a four-center retrospective study. Lead investigator Apurva Jain, MD, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center presented the findings at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting.

The liquid biopsy testing method from a large genomic analysis of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in blood samples from more than 15,000 patients, was found to be closely correlated with mutations described in databases, and often from tumor biopsies as well, according to research presented at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Half of patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer had objective responses when treated with a novel inhibitor of heparin-binding growth factors in addition to conventional chemotherapy, a small preliminary clinical trial showed.

Gregory E. Idos, MD, discusses a study examining the yield of multiplex panel testing compared with expert opinion and validated prediction models.

Updated results of the prevalence of germline cancer susceptibility gene mutations in a clinic-based series of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) were given in an oral presentation at the 2016 ASCO Annual Meeting.

Interim analysis of a clinical trial of multiplex gene testing for inherited cancer risk suggests that fears of unnecessary surgery or adverse psychological effects associated with testing may be unwarranted.

An ongoing phase IIa basket study is evaluating treating patients who have molecular abnormalities with agents that target the HER2, BRAF, Hedgehog, or EGFR pathways, regardless of the patient's tumor type and the drug's original indication.

Patients with metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) who were treated with enzalutamide (Xtandi) were more likely to experience central nervous system (CNS) events or fatigue than patients treated with the combination of abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) and prednisone.

Men with nmCRPC demonstrated a median time to PSA progression of 28.7 months and a median time to radiographic progression of 41.4 months, according to updated safety and efficacy data involving abiraterone acetate and low-dose prednisone.

A preliminary safety and efficacy trial of a device using tumor treating fields (TTF) administered to unresectable pancreatic cancer patients found that the treatment was tolerable and safe when combined with gemcitabine.

Clinical trials studying a biomarker-based treatment showed substantially better results than non-personalized treatment methods in a meta-analysis that examined 13,203 patients from phase I trials.

The 1.8-mg/kg dose of polatuzumab vedotin is as effective as the 2.4-mg/kg dose on the endpoint of progression-free survival in patients with relapsed/refractory non-Hodgkin lymphoma while improving tolerability, according to a pooled analysis of phase I and phase II clinical studies.

In the first phase III trial to show a benefit for adjuvant therapy in prostate cancer, treatment with an adjuvant combination of docetaxel, androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), and radiation therapy (RT) improved 4-year overall survival (OS) rates in patients with high-risk localized prostate cancer, when compared with ADT plus RT alone.

Second-line treatment with trabectedin improved progression-free survival by 2.7 months compared with dacarbazine in patients with advanced soft tissue sarcoma following prior treatment with an anthracycline.

Lori J. Wirth, MD, hematology/oncology, Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, discusses the SELECT trial, which examined the effect of age and lenvatinib treatment on overall survival (OS) for patients with 131I-refractory differentiated thyroid cancer.

Lenvatinib alone and in combination with everolimus significantly improved progression-free survival compared with everolimus alone in a phase II study of patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

The combination of ibrutinib with bendamustin plus rituximab (BR) demonstrated a significant improvement in progression-free survival compared with BR alone in patients with pretreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia or small lymphocytic lymphoma.

Ian W. Flinn, MD, PhD, director, Blood Cancer Research Program, principal investigator, Sarah Cannon Research Institute, discusses a phase I story which examined cerdulatinib in patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell malignancies.

Matthew H. Taylor, MD, Oregon Health and Science University, discusses the efficacy and safety of lenvatinib for the treatment of patients with 131I-refractory differentiated thyroid cancer with and without prior VEGF-targeted therapy.

ASCO has revealed its first clinical trial, which will provide patients with limited options an opportunity to receive a potentially beneficial targeted therapy that matches their distinct genetic make-up and is FDA-approved for another type of cancer.

Marking the first time a phase III study has shown a survival advantage for patients with soft tissue sarcoma, treatment with eribulin (Halaven) demonstrated improved overall survival (OS) by 2 months compared with dacarbazine in patients with advanced leiomyosarcoma (LMS) and adipocytic sarcoma (ADI).

The addition of everolimus to sorafenib extended progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with metastatic differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC) that had progressed on sorafenib alone, according to findings from a single-arm open-label phase II study.

Patients with BRAF-mutant late-stage melanoma derive a lasting overall survival (OS) benefit from treatment with the combination of dabrafenib and trametinib compared with dabrafenib and placebo, according to the final results from the COMBI-d phase III double-blinded trial.

Marcia S. Brose, MD, PhD, associate professor of Otorhinolaryngology: Head and Neck Surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, discusses the effect of age and lenvatinib treatment on overall survival for patients with 131I-refractory differentiated thyroid cancer in the SELECT trial.

Compared with best available therapy, the novel JAK2 inhibitor pacritinib demonstrated significantly better outcomes in spleen volume reduction and symptom control when administered to patients with myelofibrosis.

Monotherapy with daratumumab demonstrated promising overall survival and objective response rates in patients with double-refractory multiple myeloma.

Patients of all ages with iodine-refractory thyroid cancer lived significantly longer when treated with the targeted agent lenvatinib, a new analysis of a randomized trial showed.

Treatment with obinutuzumab in combination with bendamustine nearly doubled progression-free survival compared with bendamustine alone in patients with rituximab-refractory indolent non-Hodgkin lymphoma.