Articles related to CHEMOTHERAPY

After receiving a recently confirmed diagnosis of early-stage nodular sclerosing Hodgkin lymphoma, a 27-year-old woman is evaluated. She has not experienced weight loss, night sweats, or fever. She has an unremarkable medical history and doesn’t use any drugs. What is the best course of action after a physical examination, lab tests, and scans?

This is an 8-year follow-up to the author’s initial report of a randomized phase II study in patients with newly diagnosed primary CNS lymphoma treated with high-dose methotrexate-based induction chemotherapy followed by whole-brain radiotherapy (WBRT) or high-dose chemotherapy (thiotepa-busulfan-cyclophosphamide) with autologous stem-cell transplantation (ASCT). They conclude that 40 Gy WBRT should be avoided in first-line treatment in this population because of its neurotoxicity and suboptimal efficacy in reducing relapses, while ASCT appears to be highly efficient in preventing relapses.

In this study of neoadjuvant chemotherapy with ruxolitinib, approximately 130 patients were randomized to receive dose-dense neoadjuvant chemotherapy with or without ruxolitinib, followed by interval debulking and finally three more cycles of dose-dense neoadjuvant chemotherapy with or without ruxolitinib. The ruxolitinib group experienced a 3-month difference in progression-free survival.

The IMpassion050 study was the first to assess the question: Can addition of atezolizumab to neoadjuvant standard of care (pertuzumab and trastuzumab [PH], and chemotherapy) improve outcomes in high-risk, HER2–positive early breast cancer? The results are a click away.

The authors investigated the effect of adding radiotherapy to neoadjuvant chemotherapy on survival in patients with Stage III-N2 non-small cell lung cancer. Analysis included 1,175 patients diagnosed between 2004 and 2015; 799 (68.0%) underwent neoadjuvant CRT and 376 (32.0%) underwent neoadjuvant CT. Adding radiotherapy to chemotherapy showed a slightly higher median OS than chemotherapy alone (51 vs. 47 months, respectively), and a higher median CSS (75 vs. 59 months, respectively). However, these differences were not statistically significant.

The addition of the PD-1 inhibitor serplulimab to chemotherapy significantly prolonged survival compared with chemotherapy alone as first-line treatment of patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC). Interim analysis of the phase 3 ASTRUM-005 study – comparing serplumimab plus chemotherapy to chemotherapy alone in 1st line extensive stage SCLC – showed a median OS of 15.4 months with serplulimab compared with 10.9 months with placebo. Patients who received serplulimab also had significantly longer median progression-free survival (PFS) 5.8 vs. 4.3 months respectively. The study included 585 patients with untreated extensive stage-SCLC, were randomized 2:1 to serplulimab (4.5 mg/kg) or placebo every 3 weeks. All patients received carboplatin and etoposide every 3 weeks for up to four cycles.