June 1, 2019

The international, randomized phase III MONALEESA-7 trial found that adding ribociclib to standard-of-care endocrine therapy significantly improved overall survival for premenopausal women with advanced HR-positive/HER2-negative breast cancer compared with endocrine therapy alone.

June 1, 2019

The KEYNOTE-062 phase III randomized clinical trial achieved its primary endpoint, showing that for patients with PD-L1-positive, HER2-negative, advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction (G/GEJ) cancer, initial therapy with pembrolizumab (Keytruda) resulted in comparable (non-inferior) overall survival as standard chemotherapy.

June 1, 2019

CHICAGO – Five-year data from the phase Ib KEYNOTE-001 clinical trial show that pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was safe and effective and substantially increased overall survival for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (aNSCLC). Specifically, 23.2% of people who had not previously been treated with chemotherapy and 15.5% of previously-treated patients were alive after five years, with the greatest benefit observed in patients with higher PD-L1 expression. This represents a marked improvement over 5-year survival rates from the pre-immunotherapy era, which averaged 5.5% for aNSCLC. This is the longest follow-up study to date of people with aNSCLC treated with pembrolizumab, according to the researchers.

The study will be featured in a press briefing today and presented at the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting and is in press with the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

 

May 15, 2019

In a phase I/IB study of 29 patients, age 4.9 months to 20 years, with rare central nervous system tumors, neuroblastoma, or other solid tumors, responses to entrectinib, a novel targeted treatment, were seen in 12 of the 28 evaluable patients. The 12 pediatric patients who experienced a response to therapy had fusions in NTRK1/2/3, ROS1, or ALK genes (11 patients) or an ALK mutation (1 patient). The study will be presented at the upcoming 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago.

May 15, 2019

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – At the launch of the National Cancer Institute-Children’s Oncology Group Pediatric Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice (NCI-COG Pediatric MATCH) trial in 2017, it was estimated that tumor sequencing in children, adolescents, and young adults with treatment-refractory cancers – cancers that do not respond to treatment– would identify genetic alterations that matched an investigational targeted therapy in 10% of study participants. An interim analysis of more than 400 patients screened has revealed the match rate appears to be significantly higher, with 24% of participants eligible to receive treatment with at least one drug being tested in the trial. The first update on the study will be presented at the upcoming 2019 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago.

May 15, 2019

The federally funded Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) clinical trial of dietary modification in nearly 49,000 postmenopausal women with no previous history of breast cancer reported that women who followed a balanced diet that was low in fat and included daily servings of fruits, vegetables, and grains had a 21% lower risk of death from breast cancer than women in the control group who continued their normal diet, which was higher in fat overall.

May 15, 2019

The phase II/III E3A06 randomized clinical trial found that lenalidomide (Revlimid) significantly reduces the risk of smoldering multiple myeloma (SMM) -- a precancerous condition -- from progressing to cancer in patients at moderate or high-risk.

April 17, 2019

Cancer experts from around the world will gather to share the latest clinical cancer research impacting patient care at the 55th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). Advances in targeted therapies for pancreatic, prostate, and pediatric cancers, as well as new approaches to overcoming limited access to cancer care are among the topics that will be highlighted in the meeting’s official Press Program.

March 1, 2019

Nine studies exploring a variety of trends and approaches in immuno-oncology, including adaptive cell therapies, immune checkpoint inhibitors, the use of predictive biomarkers, and more, were presented at the 2019 ASCO-SITC Clinical Immuno-Oncology Symposium.

February 11, 2019

A single-arm, phase II trial in men with PSMA-positive metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) that progressed despite standard therapies, found that in the majority of men, the cancers were responsive to treatment with a novel, targeted radiation therapy called Lutetium-177 PSMA-617 (LuPSMA).

February 11, 2019

A large, retrospective study analyzing five years of data from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) found that African-American men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) who were treated with newer prostate cancer drugs abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) or enzalutamide (Xtandi) – and who had not received prior chemotherapy – lived 20% longer compared with white men who received the same treatment.

February 11, 2019

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Results from the randomized, phase III KEYNOTE-426 clinical trial show that first-line therapy with a combination of the PD-1 targeted immunotherapy pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and the VEGF-targeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor axitinib (Inlyta) extended both overall survival and progression-free survival for patients with clear-cell metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC), compared with the current standard of care, sunitinib (Sutent). Findings from this international study will be presented at the upcoming 2019 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium in San Francisco, California.

January 17, 2019

Five noteworthy studies exploring new approaches in the treatment and management of liver, esophageal, colorectal, and colon cancers will be presented at the 2019 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, taking place January 17-19, 2019 at the Moscone West Building in San Francisco, California.

January 3, 2019

Advances in medicine and technology are emerging faster than ever before. To harness this momentum, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is convening Breakthrough: A Global Summit for Oncology Innovators – a new meeting focused on the intersection of medicine, scientific discovery, and innovations in technology. The inaugural meeting will take place October 11-13, 2019 at the Centara Grand Hotel CentralWorld in Bangkok, Thailand.

November 13, 2018

An analysis of nearly 2,800 people with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who received the immune checkpoint inhibitors nivolumab (Opdivo), pembrolizumab (Keytruda), or atezolizumab (Tecentriq) found that unexpected medical problems, known as adverse events, may be more common than reported in the initial trials that led to the approval of these therapies.

Pages