ASCO 2015 Highlights

The combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) plus cabozantinib (Cabometyx) continued to show superior survival outcomes compared with single-agent sunitinib (Sutent) as first-line treatment for patients with advanced renal-cell carcinoma (RCC), according to extended follow-up data from the phase 3 CheckMate-9ER clinical trial presented at the 2021 ASCO Genitourinary (GU) Cancers Symposium.

Patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) have a high relapse rate and poor outcome after standard treatment. Capecitabine (Xeloda), a chemotherapy that has been used widely in the treatment of metastatic breast cancer, is a potential maintenance treatment option for the prevention of TNBC recurrence based on results of a recent study.

Induction chemotherapy leads to remission in many patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) aged ≥60 years; however, the disease relapses in the majority of the patients, and the overall survival (OS) is poor. For patients who are not candidates for hematopoietic stem-cell transplant, effective maintenance treatments for AML are needed that can reduce the risk for relapse and improve OS, without causing unacceptable adverse events or compromising quality of life.

Patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma and disease progression after treatment with platinum-based chemotherapy and PD-1 or PD-L1 inhibitors have limited treatment options. Enfortumab vedotin (Padcev), a Nectin-4–directed antibody and microtubule inhibitor conjugate, demonstrated an objective response rate (ORR) in more than 40% of patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma who had progression after previous treatment.

Cellular immunotherapy was featured prominently during ASH 2020, with many presentations detailing deep and durable responses in a range of hematologic malignancies, mostly large B-cell lymphoma.

In a phase 3 clinical trial, ruxolitinib (Jakafi) led to superior overall response rates and durable responses compared with best available therapy (ie, control group) in patients with steroid-dependent or steroid-refractory chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), with acceptable safety, according to results presented at ASH 2020.

Asciminib, an investigational first-in-class STAMP (specifically targeting the ABL myristoyl pocket) inhibitor, was superior to standard treatment with bosutinib (Bosulif) in patients with chronic-phase chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) who previously received 2 or more tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) in the phase 3 ASCEMBL clinical trial. The results were presented at a late-breaker session at ASH 2020 by lead investigator Andreas Hochhaus, MD, Director, Department of Hematology and Oncology, Klinik für Innere Medizin II, Jena, Germany.

Single-agent mosunetuzumab is a safe and clinically promising chemotherapy-free therapy for elderly and unfit patients with untreated diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), said Adam J. Olszewski, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Brown University, Providence, RI, at ASH 2020. Dr Olszewski reported the results of a phase 1/2 clinical study of mosunetuzumab in patients with DLBCL.