Sep 29th, 2021 - In a phase II study conducted by the MD Anderson Cancer Center researchers, poziotinib resulted in a 27% confirmed partial response (PR) rate and a median progression-free survival (PFS) of 5 months in patients with advanced HER2 exon 20 mutated non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The study team observed responses across HER2 exon 20 insertions subtypes. Furthermore, an additional 46% of patien...

Sep 28th, 2021 - On 16 September 2021, the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA’s) Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) adopted a positive opinion, recommending the granting of a conditional marketing authorisation for the medicinal product pralsetinib (Gavreto), intended for the treatment of patients with rearranged during transfection (RET) fusion positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The ...

Sep 27th, 2021 - In the randomised, phase III study, treatment with tebentafusp, a soluble T-cell receptor and CD3-directed bispecific fusion protein, was associated with longer overall survival (OS) than the investigator’s choice of therapy in HLA-A*02:01–positive patients with metastatic uveal melanoma. The results are published on 23 September 2021 in The New England Journal of Medicine by Dr. Paul Nathan of...

Sep 24th, 2021 - In a large population of patients with solid tumours undergoing active anticancer treatment, the researchers confirmed a favourable safety profile of mRNA-BNT162b2 vaccine, which may reassure on maintaining active anticancer treatment throughout the whole vaccination schedule. Humoral response to first vaccine dose was inadequate, but the second, booster dose resulted in an exponential increase...

Sep 23rd, 2021 - On 20 September 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to tisotumab vedotin-tftv (Tivdak, Seagen Inc.), a tissue factor-directed antibody and microtubule inhibitor conjugate, for adult patients with recurrent or metastatic cervical cancer with disease progression on or after chemotherapy. Approval was based on innovaTV 204, an open-label, multicentre, singl...

Sep 22nd, 2021 - The findings from the first randomised study that evaluated the addition of an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) antibody to fluorouracil/folinic acid maintenance therapy in patients with RAS wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) show that panitumumab adds efficacy to fluorouracil/folinic acid as maintenance therapy in terms of progression-free survival (PFS). Moreover, overall su...

Sep 21st, 2021 - In the COSMIC-021 study, cabozantinib plus atezolizumab demonstrated encouraging clinical activity in patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Robust clinical activity was observed across dose levels and histologic subtypes. The safety profile with the combination was tolerable with dose modification and comparable to previous reports. The findings are published by Dr. Sumanta K. Pal ...

Sep 21st, 2021 - People with intellectual disability are at an increased risk of any cancer, as well as several specific cancer types. The findings from a population-based cohort study of Swedish children born to mothers from the Nordic countries suggest a need for extended surveillance and early intervention in cancer among people with intellectual disability. Excess cancer risk was higher for syndromic intell...

Sep 20th, 2021 - The researchers of PRODI (Center for Protein Diagnostics, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany) used tissue sections from the prospective multicentre AIO ColoPredictPlus 2.0 registry study to verify the novel label-free infrared (IR) imaging combined with artificial intelligence (AI) for tumour detection and classification of microsatellite status. The label-free IR images are measured by innovative...

Sep 20th, 2021 - A subset analysis of the randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase III CHRONOS-3 study that focused on patients with relapsed marginal zone lymphoma, showed superior efficacy of treatment with a PI3K inhibitor, copanlisib plus rituximab compared to placebo plus rituximab. The safety profile of copanlisib plus rituximab was consistent with copanlisib and rituximab given as monotherapy. ...

Sep 20th, 2021 - The impact of clinical studies in adult oncology performed within the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) National Cancer Clinical Trials Network (NCTN) groups has never been systematically examined. It prompted Prof. Joseph M. Unger of the Public Health Sciences Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, WA, US and colleagues to analyze the randomised studies conducted within ...

Sep 20th, 2021 - According to results of the KEYNOTE-122, multicentre, open-label, randomised phase III study that evaluated the efficacy and safety of pembrolizumab versus chemotherapy in patients with platinum-pretreated, recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma, pembrolizumab did not prolong overall survival (OS) over chemotherapy in that population. The results were presented by Prof. Anthony T.C. C...

Sep 20th, 2021 - On 14 September 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to zanubrutinib (Brukinsa, BeiGene) for adult patients with relapsed or refractory marginal zone lymphoma (MZL) who have received at least one anti-CD20-based regimen. Approval is based on two open-label, multicentre, single-arm studies: BGB-3111-214 (NCT03846427), which evaluated 66 patients with MZL w...

Sep 19th, 2021 - To better identify patients with early breast cancer who are at risk of relapse, the researchers from the startup Owkin and Gustave Roussy conceived a diagnostic tool that applies deep learning to digital pathology slides and clinical data. They showed that their model could predict the risk of relapse in patients with oestrogen receptor (ER)-positive, HER2-negative early breast cancer. The fin...

Sep 19th, 2021 - In a phase II open-label study performed among patients with localised, unresectable or high risk resectable, microsatellite instability high (MSI-H)/deficient mismatch repair (dMMR) solid tumours, treatment with neoadjuvant pembrolizumab was safe and resulted in high rates of radiographic and endoscopic responses. The results were presented by Dr. Kaysia Ludford, assistant professor in the Div...

Sep 18th, 2021 - The DESTINY-Lung01 study assessed the efficacy and safety of HER2 antibody-drug conjugate trastuzumab deruxtecan in patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with HER2 mutations. Trastuzumab deruxtecan demonstrated robust and durable activity in this population, with a manageable safety profile. The results from this multicentre, international, phase II study were presented by...

Sep 18th, 2021 - Tolerability, pharmacokinetics and efficacy of samuraciclib were assessed in a first-in-human, modular study. Treatment with this first-in-class, oral, selective inhibitor of CDK7 demonstrated an acceptable safety profile and evidence of antitumour activity in patients with advanced solid tumours, according to Dr. Matthew G. Krebs, a clinical senior lecturer in the Experimental Cancer Medicine ...

Sep 17th, 2021 - Bintrafusp alfa, a first-in-class bifunctional fusion protein composed of the extracellular domain of the TGF-βRII receptor fused to a human IgG1 monoclonal antibody blocking PD-L1, showed a long-term efficacy and a manageable safety profile in patients with pretreated, immune checkpoint inhibitor-naive malignancies associated with human papillomavirus (HPV). The findings are reported by Prof. ...

Sep 17th, 2021 - On 15 September 2021, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to mobocertinib (Exkivity, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) for adult patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) exon 20 insertion mutations, as detected by an FDA-approved test, whose disease has progressed on or after plati...

Sep 17th, 2021 - In a prospective evaluation of the role of comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) to personalise therapy in the elderly patients with locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), geriatric intervention changed therapeutic choices in about one out of 10 patients and played an important role in tailoring supportive care needs. Furthermore, G8 screening tool showed a good sens...