2017 December

The poor prognosis for patients with esophagogastric cancers (EGC) requires the development of newer more effective therapies to further improve the treatment outcomes for this disease. Immunotherapy is a novel treatment strategy that is dramatically changing the treatment landscape for several types of cancers. Cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4) antibody and antagonists of the programmed death (PD)-1/PD-ligand 1 are essential immune checkpoint inhibitors that suppress T-cell activation.

The emerging arena of checkpoint inhibitors and immunotherapy in the treatment of urothelial carcinomas is explored and discussed.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) therapy is guided mainly by cytogenetic profile, such as chromosomal duplication or deletion, and molecular mutations. <em>FLT3</em> mutations are the most common genetic abnormalities detected in patients with AML and are usually associated with a high relapse rate and short overall survival. Given the dismal outcomes in patients with <em>FLT3</em>-mutant AML, a great effort has been underway over the last several years to develop clinically effective FLT3 inhibitors.

The combination of the novel tumor-associated macrophage (TAM)-targeting agent cabiralizumab and the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) resulted in intriguing objective response rates in heavily pretreated patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer, according to findings from a phase I study presented at the 2017 SITC Annual Meeting.

An extension in overall survival (OS) with the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and ipilimumab (Yervoy) has completely changed the standard of care for patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC), Thomas Powles, MD, MBBS, MRCP, told audience members during the 9th European Multidisciplinary Meeting on Urological Cancers.<br /> &nbsp;