ASCO: American Society of Clinical Oncology

Regeneron's Matthew Fury, MD, said the decision to move immediately to a phase 3 trial came after 2 of 3 patients in a phase 1 trial showed durable responses.

A late-breaking abstract presented on Sunday at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting confirmed that pembrolizumab significantly improved the primary endpoint of overall survival over platinum-based chemotherapy in treatment-naïve advanced/metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The effect, the authors found, was agnostic of PD-L1 expression, meaning the monoclonal antibody was effective for tumors expressing PD-L1 at ≥50%, ≥20%, and ≥1%.

Trial Assigning IndividuaLized Options for Treatment (Rx), or TAILORx, successfully confirmed the benefit of endocrine therapy alone in patients with early-stage breast cancer who have an Oncotype DX Breast Recurrence Score of 11 to 25.

In the era of real-world data and its growing role in oncology, panelists discussed collecting and using this information in combination with clinical trials to inform evidence-based care during a session at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting.

Michael Thompson, MD, PhD, FASCO, Aurora Advanced Healthcare, discusses the role precision medicine currently plays in the community setting and how that role differs from that in an academic medical center.

There are multiple challenges associated with trying to pursue precision medicine, explained Victoria Villaflor, MD, associate professor of Medicine, hematology and oncology, Northwestern University.

Treatment with cetuximab, concurrent with chemoradiation (CRT), in older patients diagnosed with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) has similar toxicity as CRT treatment, but overall survival is inferior. These are the results of a retrospective analysis that were presented by Dan Paul Zandberg, MD, University of Maryland, Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center, at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting.

A long-term follow-up of the chimeric antigen receptor T-cell treatment, axicabtagene ciloleucel (Axi-cel) in patients with B-cell lymphoma, presented at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, found that a response at 3 months may be prognostic for long-term remission in those patients.

Treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC)—the third leading cause of cancer-related death in the United States—remains challenging even today. But according to leading oncologists in the field, who were speaking at a session at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, screening patients diagnosed with CRC for deficient mismatch repair (dMMR) could help create a roadmap for precision treatment.

While utilization management in general is a pain point for everyone, it’s a necessary evil in the United States, where we spend 18% of our gross domestic product on healthcare, explained Debra Patt, MD, MPH, MBA, vice president, policy and strategy, Texas Oncology; medical director, analytics, McKesson Specialty Health, during a session at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting in Chicago, Illinois.

In order for precision oncology to be fruitful and to be effective, we need interoperability and we need to be able to share patient data, said James Lin Chen, MD, Ohio State University, and chair of ASCO CancerLinQ Oncology Informatics Task Force.

Ellen Miller Sonet, MBA, JD, chief strategy and policy officer, CancerCare, discusses the financial burden cancer patients face and how novel therapies and next-generation sequencing impact the burden.

Leading global experts believe that for immunotherapy to work in glioblastoma—which has an estimated 5-year survival rate of 33% in the United States—combination treatments are the way forward.

The ability to create health information technology tools is happening much faster than the ability to figure out what to do with them, explained Peter Paul Yu, MD, FASCO, FACP, physician-in-chief, Hartford HealthCare Cancer Center.

At the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, June 1-5, Chicago, Illinois, Noopur S. Raje, MD, director, Center for Multiple Myeloma, Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, presented results from the phase 1 multicenter study with a second-generation chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy called bb2121.

There is going to be an increased use of next generation sequencing testing, and the challenge is going to be to figure out when and how, said Leonard B. Saltz, MD, executive director of Clinical Value and Sustainability, head of Colorectal Oncology Section, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

A phase 3 study, conducted by the Children’s Oncology Group among children and young adults between ages 1 and 30 diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia or T-cell lymphoblastic leukemia, has found a 90% survival rate at 4 years posttreatment initiation—84% of these patients were declared cancer free at that point in their treatment trajectory. Results from this study will be presented at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, June 1-5, in Chicago, Illinois.

A retrospective analysis conducted by researchers at the University of Louisville has found that less than 2% of the more than 7.5 million eligible smokers were screened for lung cancer in 2016 despite recommendations by the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF). These results will be presented at the 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, June 1-5, Chicago, Illinois.

Use of the mobile and sensor technology, CYCORE—CYberinfrastructure for COmparative Effectiveness Research—to remotely monitor symptoms in patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) undergoing radiation therapy found CYCORE patients had lower symptoms overall and specific to HNC. These results are a part of the research to be presented at the upcoming 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, June 1-5, Chicago, Illinois.

During a press cast hosted by the American Society of Clinical Oncology ahead of the annual meeting, women with HER2-positive early-stage breast cancer who were treated with trastuzumab (Herceptin) for 6 months had a similar rate of disease-free survival as women who received the drug for 12 months, which is the current standard of care.

The main value of the COME HOME model for oncology practices is that it can help reduce hospitalization rates, leading to better quality of life for patients and clinicians, according to Barbara McAneny, MD, chief medical officer of New Mexico Oncology Hematology Consultants.

Data presented by the FDA at the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting identified a need for educating community-based oncology practices on testing for programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) protein expression before patients diagnosed with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (mNSCLC) are treated with nivolumab or pembrolizumab.

A discussion at the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting addressed the practical solutions to address the financial toxicity of cancer care and identified leads for future intervention studies aiming to prevent or reduce this burden.

The collaboration between Innovative Oncology Business Solutions and the American Society of Clinical Oncology on the COME HOME Model should help give community oncology practices a path forward to be competitive, said Barbara McAneny, MD, chief medical officer of New Mexico Oncology Hematology Consultants.

Updated results from the POLLUX and CASTOR trials, presented at the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, have found that including daratumumab in standard-of-care regimens prolonged progression-free survival (PFS) and improved the depth of response, independent of the patients’ cytogenetic risk.

At the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, oncologists heard from fellow experts on the best way to navigate this daunting payment reform challenge.

Craig Portell, MD, of the University of Virginia Health System, highlights some of the latest and most exciting treatments in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, including CAR-T therapies and targeted therapies such as venetoclax.

The impact that generics have on bringing down the cost of branded drugs needs to happen in the biologics space so the industry can save money and improve access to medications and population outcomes, according to Edward Li, PharmD, MPH, BCOP, of the University of New England.

A phase 3, randomized, double-blind registration study in patients with breast cancer receiving neoadjuvant myelosuppressive chemotherapy has found clinical equivalence between filgrastim and its biosimilar after switching studies.

A poster discussion session at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology examined retrospective surveillance data in 3 different cancers: non-small cell lung cancer, head and neck cancer, and colorectal cancer.