Research news

Immunotherapy could have a role in the treatment of patients with certain sarcoma subtypes in the advanced disease setting, suggests research presented at the 2017 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Here we provide a round-up of three studies investigating various immunotherapeutic strategies in advanced sarcoma patients.

ProfiLER-01 study data suggest that high-throughput genomic testing can be incorporated into routine practice, but only a subset of patients derive a clinical benefit.

This report provides an overview of three studies investigating the combination of immunotherapy with targeted agents in treatment-naïve patients with locally advanced or metastatic renal cell carcinoma.

Research presented at the 2017 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology shows childhood cancer survivors diagnosed in more recent years can expect to experience fewer serious chronic conditions than those diagnosed in earlier decades.

The doxorubicin conjugate aldoxorubicin could be a suitable alternative to standard therapies for patients with relapsed or refractory soft tissue sarcoma, say researchers.

The ARCHER 1050 investigators believe that their results establish dacomitinib as an addition to the first-line EGFR mutation-positive non-small-cell lung cancer treatment armamentarium, but caution that the associated toxicity needs to be managed.

Compared with crizotinib, alectinib significantly improves progression-free survival in treatment-naïve patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer harboring an anaplastic lymphoma kinase rearrangement, shows the ALEX trial.

REFLECT study findings indicate that lenvatinib offers non-inferior overall survival compared with the current standard of care, sorafenib, for the first-line treatment of patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma.

Administration of abiraterone acetate alongside first-line androgen deprivation therapy could be the new standard of care for men with locally advanced or metastatic prostate cancer, say the authors of two independent phase III trials.

Advanced urothelial carcinoma patients who are unsuitable for platinum-based chemotherapy could benefit from first-line pembrolizumab, suggest phase II results reported at the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2017 annual meeting in Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Preliminary findings for larotrectinib suggest that the agent may offer an effective tumor type-agnostic treatment for adults and children presenting with tropomyosin receptor kinase fusions.

A prespecified third analysis has confirmed initial findings of the KEYNOTE-045 trial of pembrolizumab in patients with advanced urothelial carcinoma who have progressed after platinum-based chemotherapy.

Pembrolizumab offers better survival outcomes than platinum-doublet chemotherapy for treatment-naïve, non-small-cell lung cancer patients with a programmed cell death ligand 1 tumor proportion score of 50% or greater, the KEYNOTE-024 investigators say.

Patients with melanoma and untreated, asymptomatic brain metastases benefit from treatment with a combination of nivolumab and ipilimumab, suggest the results of the ABC and CheckMate 204 trials.

Using an electronic patient-reported outcomes system improves overall survival and offers other clinical benefits for patients undergoing chemotherapy for metastatic solid tumors, research suggests.

Results from a phase Ib study indicate that atezolizumab could be feasible in combination with one of three different platinum-doublet regimens for patients with stage IIIb–IV non-small-cell lung cancer without actionable genetic mutations.

A post-hoc analysis of the OAK trial suggests that patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer who are performing well clinically at radiographic progression could benefit from continuation of treatment with atezolizumab.

Clinicians should be aware of the risk of hypogonadism in men who have been treated for testicular cancer, highlight findings from The Platinum Study.

Women with a history of early breast cancer can be reassured that becoming pregnant will not increase their risk of recurrence or death.

Routine vaccination against human papillomavirus has “tremendous potential” for reducing the risk of oral HPV infection and associated malignancy, suggests research presented at the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting, held in Chicago, Illinois, USA.