Articles related to Oncology, Radiation

Dana Farber’s CLL Center associate director Matthew S. Davids, MD, MMSc highlights some of his key takeaways from the recent ASH meeting: Novel treatment approaches in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), including large phase 3 studies, some smaller studies combining novel drugs, and long-term follow-ups of prior phase 3 studies; three reports with practice-changing implications; and a surprising finding in the ECOG 1912 study, which demonstrated an overall survival benefit for patients who received ibrutinib with rituximab.

This study reports long term outcomes on CALGB 40603 at a median follow-up of 7.9 years. Event-free survival and other LTOs were not significantly improved with either study drug overall or in studied sub-populations. Results showed that patients with any residual disease had significantly worse outcomes. This finding supports considering adjuvant therapy even in the setting of minimal residual disease.

This update of the GO29365 study shows significant survival benefit with pola + BR vs BR alone in R/R, transplant ineligible DLBCL. In the randomization arms, median progression-free survival was 9.2 vs 3.7 months and median overall survival was 12.4 vs 4.7 months for the pola + BR arm vs the BR arm. In the extension cohort, the OR rate was 41.5%, and the CR rate was 38.7%; PFS and OS were 6.6 months and 12.5 months, respectively.

Presented at SABCS 2021, the EMERALD Study of elacastrant and the PHOEBE Trial of pyrotinib showed a better than doubling of 12-month PFS with the first agent, and an improvement in both OS and PFT with the second agent. And the results of the DESTINY-Breast03 study have been called “practice changing.”

This open-label, randomized phase II-III study of 191 patients with locally advanced or metastatic BTC compared triplet therapy of oxaliplatin, irinotecan, and infusional fluorouracil (mFOLFIRINOX), with doublet therapy consisting of cisplatin and gemcitabine (CISGEM). Triplet therapy did not outperform doublet therapy in this study.

Individuals with cancer often have an elevated platelet count at the time of diagnosis. But what, if any, is the relationship? This study of nearly nine million individuals followed over 10 years points to a positive correlation.