Two studies presented at the 2020 American Association for Cancer Research virtual annual meeting confirm the value of different liquid biopsies in the early detection of different types of cancer.
Tumors with KRAS mutation are notoriously difficult to treat. Early data presented at the 2020 American Association for Cancer Research virtual annual meeting suggest 2 new routes for the treatment of cancers with KRAS mutation, including (1) the combination of a RAF/MEK inhibitor and a FAK inhibitor, and (2) the use of onvansertib, an investigational competitive inhibitor of the PLK1 enzyme, together with chemotherapy.
For most patients with early-stage testicular germ cell tumors, surgery is curative and mitigates the risk for long-term toxicities associated with chemotherapy and radiation, according to results presented by Clint Cary, MD, MPH, Associate Professor, Department of Urology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.
Treatment with a combination of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and enzalutamide (Xtandi) continues to show substantial activity in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) who have already been treated with abiraterone (Zytiga), according to results of a recent clinical trial, which were presented during the virtual 2020 American Urological Association Annual Meeting.
Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) analysis is a useful sequencing platform in metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), and ctDNA alterations are detected in most patients with this type of prostate cancer, according to Justin Shaya, MD, Hematology/Oncology Fellow, UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, CA.
Most patients in the United States who receive stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) for unfavorable 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.
Preliminary results from a single-arm study demonstrated promising progression-free survival (PFS) and a clinically meaningful objective response rate (ORR) with the combination of pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) as second- or third-line therapy in patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma.
Combining cabozantinib (Cabometyx) with atezolizumab (Tecentriq) induced responses in 32% of patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) who had soft-tissue progression after previous novel hormonal therapy. In an interim analysis of the expansion phase of the COSMIC-021 phase 1b study, the objective response rate (ORR) in 44 patients who received the combination was 32%, including 2 complete responses and 12 partial responses, said Neeraj Agarwal, MD, MBBS, Director, Genitourinary Oncology Program, Huntsman Cancer Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, who presented the data at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.
Delivering the keynote address at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium, David F. Penson, MD, MPH, MMHC, Hamilton and Howd Chair in Urologic Oncology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, highlighted the need to move toward patient-centered decisions beyond survival, focusing on patient-centered outcomes by integrating quality of life (QOL) and financial toxicity into the shared, treatment-related, decision-making process.
Platinum-based therapy represents a new standard of care in patients with pancreatic cancer and germline BRCA or PALB2 mutation, based on data reported at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium. The findings were published simultaneously in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (O’Reilly EM, et al. J Clin Oncol. 2020 Jan 24. Epub ahead of print).
De-escalating chemotherapy based on a negative positron-emission tomography (PET) scan after 2 cycles of treatment is safe and feasible in most patients with low-volume metastatic seminoma, the most common type of testicular cancer, according to results presented at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium.
The combination of encorafenib (Braftovi) plus cetuximab (Erbitux), with or without binimetinib (Mektovi), improved the quality of life based on patient-reported assessments better than current standard of care in the treatment of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC) and BRAF V600E mutation, according to the BEACON CRC study, which was presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.
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.
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) recently released a major update to its Patient-Centered Oncology Payment (PCOP) model, an alternative payment model designed to enable all oncology practices to deliver higher-quality care at lower cost. The update comes more than 5 years after ASCO released its first model and incorporates feedback from medical oncologists in diverse practice settings, as well as practice administrators, payer representatives, and experts in physician payment and business analysis.
Almost 50% of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) who received treatment with the triplet of acalabrutinib (Calquence), venetoclax (Venclexta), and obinutuzumab (Gazyva) as first-line therapy achieved undetectable minimal residual disease (MRD) in the bone marrow after only 8 monthly cycles of therapy, according to data presented at ASH 2019.
An investigational oral form of azacitidine (CC-486) as maintenance therapy induced a statistically significant improvement in overall survival (OS) compared with placebo in patients with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) who achieved a complete response or complete response with incomplete hematologic recovery after treatment with induction chemotherapy.
The combination of duvelisib (Copiktra) plus venetoclax (Venclexta) is a promising all-oral regimen for the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL).
The combination of the BCL2 inhibitor venetoclax (Venclexta) and intensive chemotherapy has demonstrated notable results in fit patients with newly diagnosed or relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML), according to results from a phase 1b/2 single-center clinical trial presented at ASH 2019.
A potent, oral small-molecule bromodomain and extraterminal domain (BET) inhibitor—CPI-0610—improves spleen volume and symptoms when added to the Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor ruxolitinib (Jakafi) in ruxolitinib-naïve patients with myelofibrosis. Ruxolitinib is the only FDA-approved treatment for myelofibrosis.