Articles

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a rare but deadly cancer. In 2018, approximately 19,500 new cases of AML were estimated to be diagnosed in the United States and more than 10,600 people to die from the disease. Clinical trials data show that up to 70% of adults with AML have disease that completely responds to initial treatment with cytotoxic chemotherapy. However, the 3-year survival rate for patients with AML remains poor, at approximately 25%.

Febrile neutropenia is a serious complication of cancer chemotherapy that can require treatment delays and chemotherapy dose reductions, which compromise the efficacy of treatment. Among patients with cancer who are receiving chemotherapy, approximately 1% have febrile neutropenia. This condition affects patient morbidity and mortality and its clinical management requires significant healthcare resources.

Gene mutations or rearrangements in the tropomyosin receptor kinase (TRK) family of receptor tyrosine kinases are emerging as an important driver of cancer-cell growth in a wide range of cancers. Research has shown that neurotrophic receptor tyrosine kinase (NTRK) genes, which encode for TRK proteins, can fuse abnormally to other genes and enhance cell signals that support tumor growth. NTRK gene fusions are found in a variety of tumor types, including soft-tissue sarcoma, salivary gland cancer, infantile fibro­sarcoma, thyroid cancer, and lung cancer.

Lung and bronchus cancer is the second most common form of cancer in the United States. In 2018, lung cancer was newly diagnosed in 234,030 individuals, representing 13.5% of all new cancer cases. Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer mortality in men and women, accounting for more than 25% of all cancer deaths, which translated to 154,050 deaths in 2018. The relative 5-year survival rate for metastatic lung cancer is only 4.7%.

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a rare but deadly hematologic cancer. In 2018, approximately 19,500 new cases of AML were diagnosed, and more than 10,600 people died from the disease in the United States. Although up to 70% of adults with AML have a complete response to initial treatment with cytotoxic chemotherapy, the responses are not durable. The 5-year survival rate for people with AML is only 24%.

Prostate cancer is the third most common type of cancer in the United States, after breast cancer and lung cancer. In 2018 alone, 164,690 individuals were diagnosed with prostate cancer, accounting for nearly 10% of all new cancer cases, and 29,430 deaths were attributed to the disease. Prostate cancer is most frequently diagnosed in men aged 65 to 74 years (median age, 66 years). More than 98% of patients with prostate cancer survive ≥5 years; however, the 5-year survival rate drops to 30% for patients with metastatic disease.

Atlanta, GA—The combination of the investigational MET inhibitor savolitinib plus the EGFR inhibitor osimertinib (Tagrisso) achieved encouraging responses in patients with MET-amplified, EGFR-positive non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and acquired, MET-driven resistance to previous therapies, with an acceptable side-effect profile. These findings represent interim results of 2 expansion cohorts of a phase 1b clinical trial presented at the 2019 American Association for Cancer Research meeting.

The adjuvant use of the antibody-drug conjugate trastuzu­mab emtansine (T-DM1; Kadcyla) led to a clinically meaningful and significant improvement in disease-free survival versus trastuzumab (Herceptin) in patients with HER2-positive early breast cancer and residual invasive disease, despite the use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy plus HER2-targeted therapy.

San Francisco, CA—Moving combination immunotherapy into the neoadjuvant setting for patients with stage III melanoma induces a higher rate of pathologic response than adjuvant therapy, said Christian U. Blank, MD, PhD, Division of Molecular Oncology & Immunology, Netherlands Cancer Institute, ­Amsterdam, at the 2019 ASCO-­SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium.

San Francisco, CA—Ovarian cancers with BRCA mutations are less immunogenic than other DNA repair–deficient tumors. Targeting the DNA damage response using PARP inhibitors may help to improve the modest responses of ovarian cancer seen with single-agent immune checkpoint inhibitors, said ­Panagiotis A. Konstantinopoulos, MD, PhD, Director of Translational Research, Division of Gynecologic Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, at the 2019 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium.