ASCO 2015 Highlights

San Francisco, CA—There is no shortage of research on psychosocial issues in patients with cancer, but implementation of this evidence in clinical practice has a long way to go, according to data presented at the 2019 Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium.

Barcelona, Spain—The immunotherapy combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) plus ipilimumab (Yervoy) improved overall survival (OS) compared with chemotherapy as first-line treatment in patients with advanced non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and PD-L1 expression ≥1%, according to results of CheckMate 227.

Barcelona, Spain—Osimertinib (Tagrisso), a third-generation EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), extended overall survival (OS) compared with older TKI EGFR inhibitors, including gefitinib (Iressa) or erlotinib (Tarceva), as first-line treatment for patients with advanced non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and EGFR mutation in the phase 3 clinical trial called FLAURA.

On October 23, 2019, the FDA approved a new indication for the PARP inhibitor niraparib (Zejula; Tesaro) for the treatment of patients with homologous recombination deficiency repair (HRD)-positive advanced ovarian, fallopian tube, or primary peritoneal cancer, after receiving ≥3 chemotherapy regimens.

On November 21, 2019, the FDA accelerated the approval of acalabrutinib (Calquence; AstraZeneca) for adults with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or with small lymphocytic lymphoma. This drug was approved 4 months earlier than the FDA PDUFA date.

On December 3, 2019, the FDA approved atezolizumab (Tecentriq; Genentech), in combination with paclitaxel protein-bound (Abraxane) and carboplatin chemotherapy, for the first-line treatment of adults with metastatic nonsquamous non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that does not harbor EGFR or ALK genomic mutations.

On November 5, 2019, the FDA approved pegfilgrastim-bmez (Ziextenzo; Sandoz) as a third biosimilar to Neulasta (pegfilgrastim), a granulocyte colony-stimulating factor. The previous 2 biosimilars to Neulasta were approved in 2018.

On November 14, 2019, the FDA granted accelerated approval to zanubrutinib capsules (Brukinsa; BeiGene), a Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor, for the treatment of adults with mantle-cell lymphoma who have received at least 1 previous therapy.

Barcelona, Spain—Results of the new clinical trial RADICALS-RT indicate that using salvage radiotherapy immediately after surgery leads to equivalent outcomes in terms of progression-free survival (PFS) versus adjuvant radiotherapy in men with prostate cancer undergoing radical prostatectomy.

Barcelona, Spain—The poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor olaparib (Lynparza) delayed disease progression and showed a trend toward improved survival compared with newer hormonal agents in men with pretreated metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) and homologous recombinant repair (HRR) gene mutations or with BRCA1, BRCA2, and ATM mutations. Results of this late-breaker were reported at the ESMO Congress 2019 during the presidential session.