February 2 2020

Microsatellite instability has been an FDA-indicated biomarker for immunotherapy since 2017, when the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab was approved for patients with solid tumors found to be mismatch repair deficient or MSI high. Other approvals since then, such as for the combination of ipilimumab and nivolumab in patients with MSI-H/dMMR metastatic colorectal can­cer, have established the relevance of cancer thera­pies for tumors with this biomarker specifically rather than tumor histology alone.

The addition of apalutamide to androgen deprivation treatment improved time to pain progression and other quality-of-life out­come measures in patients with metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer in the phase III TITAN trial.

The current national Comprehensive Cancer Network Guidelines for Genetic/Familial High-Risk Assessment, Version 1.2020, have been expanded to provide information about pancreatic cancer in addition to recommendations regarding genetic testing in patients with breast and ovarian cancer.

Adjuvant treatment with talimogene laherparepvec in patients with resectable advanced melanoma demonstrated better recurrence-free survival and overall survival compared with surgery alone, according to results of a study presented at a poster session at the 16th International Congress of the Society for Melanoma Research.

PARP inhibitors have the potential to change standards of care in prostate cancer, according to Daniel P. Petrylak, MD, who, along with his colleague, Leonard G. Gomella, MD, will cochair the New York GU: 13th Annual Interdisciplinary Prostate Can­cer Congress® and Other Genitourinary Malignancies conference, held in New York, New York.

To help clinicians cope with an increasing number of geriatric patients with cancer, the Association of Community Cancer Centers is addressing this problem with a 2-pronged approach that focuses on the delivery of care and diagnostic assessment.

As one of the main challenges faced by cli­nicians who treat non small cell lung cancer, drug resistance continues to thwart efforts to mitigate disease progression. This is especially true for the class of drugs called tyrosine kinase inhibitors, which inhibit adenosine triphosphate at the binding site of tyrosine kinase.

The use of agents targeting Bruton tyrosine kinase have moved into the standard of care for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma in recent years. New data have indicated that more effective therapy by way of combination regimens and newly approved agents may further improve the prognosis of this disease.

Frequencies of certain genomic mutations associated with upper tract urothelial carcinoma versus urothelial carcinoma of the bladder may serve as the rationale for differ­ing response rates, Sumati V. Gupta, MD, said during a presentation of the data at the 11th European Multidis­ciplinary Congress on Urological Cancers.

Patients with metastatic breast cancer who carry rare mutations identified by circulat­ing tumor DNA responded to matched targeted therapies, according to results of the plasmaMATCH trial presented during the 2019 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Specifically, patients with HER2 mutations responded to neratinib and patients with AKT1 mutations responded to capivasertib.