Articles

No improvement in survival or in any key secondary end point was observed when the checkpoint inhibitor atezolizumab (Tecentriq) was added to enzalutamide (Xtandi) for the treatment of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) in the phase 3 IMbassador250 trial. The study results were presented at the 2020 American Association for Cancer Research virtual annual meeting.

San Francisco, CA—Today, patients who receive stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) for intermediate- or high-risk localized prostate cancer are not receiving concurrent androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT), despite national guideline recommendations that support the concurrent use of ADT with radiation therapy.

Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA), a group of heterogeneous cancers that originate in the bile ducts that connect the liver and gallbladder to the small intestine, affects 2000 to 3000 individuals annually in the United States.¹ The disease most often affects older people aged ≥65 years and occurs slightly more frequently in men than in women.

San Francisco, CA—The combination of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) immunotherapy plus bevacizumab (Avastin) improves survival as well as significantly delaying deterioration in quality of life compared with the current standard of the targeted therapy sorafenib (Nexavar) in the treatment of patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

San Francisco, CA—Second-line treatment with a 3-drug regimen that included the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo), the VEGF receptor antagonist ramucirumab (Cyramza), and chemotherapy with the taxane paclitaxel, showed durable and impressive response rates, regardless of PD-L1 expression, in patients with advanced gastric cancers. Shuichi Hironaka, MD, PhD, Chiba Cancer Center, Japan, reported the study results at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.

San Francisco, CA—The addition of a second immunotherapy, ipilimumab (Yervoy), to the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and cabozantinib (Cabometyx) produced durable responses and longer progression-free survival (PFS) than cabozantinib plus nivolumab alone in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common type of liver cancer. The overall survival (OS) was not yet reached in the triplet arm.

Although medical cannabis has been used successfully as a palliative therapy in patients with cancer, it is still stigmatized because of its illicit scheduling. However, as research on cannabis use in oncology matures and the stigma begins to fall away, more states are allowing for pharmacist oversight of this product, and its legalization continues to spread.

The first “off-the-shelf” chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell platform targeting CD7 induced a complete response (CR) with no minimal residual disease (MRD) in 4 of the first 5 adults with relapsed or refractory T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) who received treatment with the universal CAR T-cell therapy currently labeled GC027.

San Francisco, CA—The combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) plus the investigational drug sitravatinib improved progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with pretreated metastatic clear-cell renal-cell carcinoma (RCC) and the historical disease control rates compared with nivolumab alone, according to the results of a phase 1/2 clinical trial reported at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.

San Francisco, CA—Treatment with the novel agent MK-6482 led to promising results in a phase 1/2 clinical trial of patients with metastatic clear-cell renal-cell carcinoma (RCC). In heavily pretreated patients, the objective response rate (ORR) with single-agent MK-6482 was 24%, and a response was consistently seen across patients with favorable-, intermediate-, and poor-risk disease. These results were greeted with optimism at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.