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Interviews

Alice Shaw, MD, PhD, director of Thoracic Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital, discussed the efficacy results from a recent trial investigating lorlatinib as treatment for patients with anaplastic lymphoma kinase-positive (ALK) non–small cell lung cancer that had failed other treatments prior, including crizotinib (Xalkori) and other multiple ALK tyrosine-kinase inhibitors.

Fabrice André, MD, PhD, professor in the Department of Medical Oncology at the Institut Gustave Roussy in Villejuif, France, addresses questions regarding the use of platinum regimens for patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). He discusses 2 platinum agents, cisplatin and carboplatin, and when it is recommended that these agents be used. 

Owen O’Connor, MD, PhD, director of the Center for Lymphoid Malignancies at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, discusses the possibility of using chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies for the treatment of patients with mantle cell lymphoma (MCL). This can be tricky for a number of reasons, but O’Connor is hopeful that there are treatment regimens for this patient population that can work.

Joshua R. Richter, MD, a hematologist/oncologist at John Theurer Cancer Center, discusses results from the Living with Cancer patient-reported outcomes (PROs) tool, which is a survey to record self-reported symptoms from patients. Richter used this tool to survey 239 patients with multiple myeloma on their symptoms and psychological distress.

Miguel-Angel Perales, MD, deputy chief of Adult Bone Marrow Transplant Service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses what experts are expecting to change in the treatment landscape of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in the next year. Perales says by the end of 2018, there may be 3 CAR T-cell therapies approved for the treatment of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Ursula A. Matulonis, MD, director, Gynecologic Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, discusses initial safety and activity findings from a phase IB escalation study of mirvetuximab soravtansine, a folate receptor alpha-targeting antibody-drug conjugate, with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in patients with platinum-resistant epithelial ovarian cancer.

Tanios Bekaii-Saab, MD, professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic, discusses results of the ReDOS trial. In the trial, investigators compared 2 arms with different dosing strategies for regorafenib in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

Jason J. Luke, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the The University of Chicago Medicine, discusses the importance of conducting research into less common subsets of melanoma. After giving a talk on non-cutaneous melanoma, a rare subtype, Luke explained that not all cases of melanoma arise on the skin and shared why more research is necessary in the field.

Hans Hammers, MD, PhD, associate professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, discusses what he believes is most important in future investigation for the treatment of patients with renal cell carcinoma. With combination therapies on the rise in the field of kidney cancers, new pivotal and early clinical trials are constantly arising looking at new combination regimens.

Frederick Locke, MD, co-leader of the Department of Blood and Marrow Transplant and Cellular Immunotherapy Program at Moffitt Cancer Center, discussed the long-term follow-up results of the pivotal ZUMA-1 trial. These updated findings were presented at the 2017 ASH Annual Meeting, showing promise in the treatment of patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Elizabeth Mittendorf, MD, PhD, director of the Breast Oncology Program at the Susan F. Smith Center for Women’s Cancers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, discusses the importance of identifying biomarkers in patients with breast cancer. Current studies are looking at PD-L1 as a possible biomarker, but Mittendorf believes there may be other biomarkers that will prove to be more reliable.