April 2 2019

Arjun V. Balar, MD, discusses key findings from updated data from the interim analysis of KEYNOTE-057, a phase II single-arm trial of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in Bacillus Calmette-Guérin-unresponsive, high-risk nonmuscle-invasive bladder cancer, which he presented during the the 2019 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

The results of several studies presented at the 2019 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium confirmed that the combination of PD-1/PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitors with tyrosine kinase inhibitors of the VEGF pathway was superior to VEGF inhibitors alone in patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma, which accounts for about 70% of patients with kidney cancer.

Findings from a study of tumor samples collected from patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma revealed that 17% of tumors harbored a known genomic alteration for which targeted therapies have already been developed, conferring feasibility to implementing precision medicine in a disease that has seen little progress in the development of effective therapeutic agents.

Since the approval of sipuleucel-T for the treatment of minimally symptomatic metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer in 2010, barriers to administration and the approval of competing drugs has tampered wide adoption of its use.

The immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab continued to demonstrate encouraging antitumor activity in an interim analysis of KEYNOTE-057, which involved a subset of 102 patients with nonmuscle-invasive bladder cancer.

A recent retrospective cohort study found that site of care may be a significant factor associated with racial and ethnic differences in the receipt of palliative care, according to results published in <em>JAMA Network Open.</em>

A discussion between&nbsp;regulators and special interest groups has cooled some of the excitement generated by the emergence of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy for treating hematologic cancers.

A retrospective study revealed an increase in the incidence of colorectal cancer in patients &lt;50 years across all income brackets and demographic groups, according to investigators from The University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School. The findings were presented at the 2019 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.