Articles related to Oncology, Surgical

This one-credit activity features an expert panel providing their perspectives on the latest trends and emerging research regarding biomarker testing and evidence-based biomarker-guided targeted therapy for patients with NSCLC with ROS1 and ALK rearrangements.

With a median follow-up of more than 2.5 years, sintilimab added to chemotherapy improved OS in patients with advanced, nonsquamous NSCLC. The median OS was 24.2 months with sintilimab and 16.8 months with chemotherapy alone. Nearly half of patients in the chemotherapy-only arm crossed over to receive sintilimab after disease progression. When the data were adjusted for the crossover effect, the OS benefit derived from sintilimab was more pronounced.

This comprehensive review highlights the history of discovering RAS and the decades of studies targeting KRAS-driven lung cancer, to the present applications. Although KRAS inhibitors have 36%–45% objective response rates with a median duration of response of 10 months, many tumors do not respond, and a variety of mechanisms of resistance have been observed, including new KRAS alterations, activation of alternate RTK pathway proteins, bypass pathways, and transcriptional remodeling. The authors conclude with a discussion of ongoing clinical trials aimed at overcoming resistance to KRAS inhibitors.

In this trial of nivolumab + chemotherapy vs. chemotherapy alone, nivolumab prolonged EFS by nearly 11 months and improved the pathologic complete response rate more than tenfold. There was also a trend toward improved OS with nivolumab. The study also reported an EFS improvement with nivolumab in both squamous and non-squamous NSCLC. Grade 3-4 treatment-related adverse events occurred in 34% of patients in the nivolumab arm and 37% of those in the chemotherapy-alone arm.

Nivolumab plus ipilimumab added to standard of care chemotherapy did not improve outcomes as 1st line therapy for unresectable or metastatic bladder cancers with PD-L1 expression > 1%.

CAR T-cell therapy has changed the treatment paradigm for relapsed/refractory aggressive B-cell NHL. The approach has seen strong response rates and durable remission in those whose disease has progressed despite multiple prior treatments. This review outlines current indications for CAR T-cell therapy, major toxicities, novel CARs under investigation, CARs for various hematologic malignancies, and future directions.