December 1

New clinical practice guidelines for HCT have been published by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. The guidelines provide step-by-step information on best practices in evaluating patients for HCT and managing complications.

Selumetinib, an oral MEK inhibitor, demonstrated clinical benefit without significant toxicity in adult patients affected by symptomatic neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) with associated plexiform neurofibromas (PN), according to Geraldine O’Sullivan Coyne, MD, PhD, in a preconference briefing of the 2019 American Association for Cancer Research–National Cancer Institute–European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, held October 26 to 30, 2019, in Boston, Massachusetts.

Treatment with immunotherapy has become ingrained in the standard of care for treating patients with melanoma, but investigators continue to research new combinations and treatment strategies that can improve patients outcomes. One approach that has generated a great deal of interest and is a significant focus of ongoing trials involves adjuvant and neoadjuvant therapy, according to Jeffrey S. Weber, MD, PhD.

The signal transduction inhibitor tipifarnib induced disease control in all patients with HRAS-mutant head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and a high variant allele frequency, according to preliminary results of a phase II trial presented at the 2019 American Association for Cancer Research–National Cancer Institute–European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics.

It is clear that cancer immunotherapy has progressed dramatically over the past 10 years, with over 20 FDA approvals for immune checkpoint receptor inhibitors targeting PD-1 and CTLA-4. However, we are still awaiting the next major advance in these inhibitory receptor targets that yields clinical benefit. In the meantime, additional advances have appeared.

Immotherapuetic agents have grown in popularity for treating mismatch repair&ndash;deficient (dMMR) metastatic colorectal cancer, becoming the standard of care in the second line, <strong>Howard Hochster, MD</strong>, told an audience at the 2019 Gastrointestinal Oncology Conference. Furthermore, ongoing clinical trials suggest that these agents may play a larger role in treating CRC going forward.

A technique involving BH3 profiling is emerging as a promising drug discovery tool for assessing whether a tumor is primed for cell death and would respond to anticancer therapy, according to a presentation at the 2019 Association for Molecular Pathology Annual Meeting and Expo.

Following the FDA&rsquo;S approval of gilteritinib in November 2018, adult patients with FLT3-mutant acute myeloid leukemia were able to receive the FLT3 tyrosine kinase inhibitor when they relapsed or became refractory to a prior therapy. The agent has demonstrated promising efficacy in the population of patients with AML harboring FLT3 mutations.

In patients whose solid<strong> </strong>tumors harbor a mutation in <em>KRAS </em>G12C, therapy with MRTX849 has produced promising responses and acceptable toxicity across 3 tumors types, according to data presented at the 2019 American Association for Cancer Research&ndash;National Cancer Institute&ndash;European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics.

What is the ideal first-line<strong> </strong>therapy for nonresectable, non&ndash; transplant eligible, liver-only hepatocellular carcinoma? In a debate at the 2019 Gastrointestinal Oncology Conference, Mark Yarchoan, MD, had the unenviable task of convincing the audience that systemic therapy was the way to go.