Solid Tumors

San Antonio, TX—Extended adjuvant endocrine therapy beyond 5 years with an aromatase inhibitor (AI) failed to improve disease-free survival (DFS) in patients with hormone receptor (HR)-positive breast cancer who were enrolled in the 3 large National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) B-52, IDEAL, and DATA studies, which were presented at the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

San Antonio, TX—Two HER2-targeted drugs improve progression-free survival (PFS) compared with a single drug when combined with an aromatase inhibitor in patients with advanced breast cancer, as reported at the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

San Antonio, TX—The use of an investigational electronic scalp-cooling device in patients with breast cancer who had received alopecia-inducing chemotherapy resulted in reduced or no hair loss in 50% of the patients, according to results of a randomized clinical trial reported at the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. By contrast, no patient in the control group had hair preservation.

San Antonio, TX—Neoadjuvant therapy with the investigative CDK4/CDK6 inhibitor abemaciclib, alone or in combination with anastrozole (Arimidex), showed promising activity in postmenopausal hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer enrolled in the phase 2 NeoMONARCH study. Correlative tissue studies demonstrated that abemaciclib inhibited cell-cycle proliferation and activated the immune system, supporting its anticancer activity. Abemaciclib received a breakthrough therapy designation in 2015 as monotherapy for the treatment of patients with refractory HR-positive advanced breast cancer in heavily pretreated patients.

San Antonio, TX—The addition of the mTOR inhibitor everolimus (Afinitor) to the antiestrogen chemotherapy fulvestrant (Faslodex) led to a 2-fold increase in progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with advanced hormone receptor (HR)-positive breast cancer compared with fulvestrant alone, according to results of a randomized clinical trial presented at the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Copenhagen, Denmark—Immunotherapy for advanced non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) took a step toward first-line indication as results from a randomized clinical trial showed that patients who received pembrolizumab (Keytruda) plus chemotherapy had a significantly higher response rate compared with patients who received chemotherapy alone, reported Corey J. Langer, MD, Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress. The clinical trial results (KEYNOTE-021) were also published in Lancet Oncology, and are available online.

Copenhagen, Denmark—Immunotherapy competition in non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) continued to heat up as atezolizumab (Tecentriq) improved overall survival (OS) versus docetaxel, according to results from the randomized, phase 3 OAK clinical trial reported at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology Congress by Fabrice Barlesi, MD, Professor of Medicine, Aix-Marseille University, France.

Copenhagen, Denmark—Patients with heavily pretreated ALK mutation and non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) had significant improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) after receiving the next-generation ALK inhibitor ce­ritinib, according to results from the ASCEND-5 study reported at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology Congress by Giorgio Scagliotti, MD, Professor of Respiratory Medicine, University of Torino, Italy.

Copenhagen, Denmark—Patients with non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who lack targetable EGFR or ALK mutations typically receive platinum-based doublet chemotherapy as first-line therapy. Two phase 3 clinical trials presented at the 2016 European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Congress compared immunotherapy and platinum-based chemotherapy as first-line treatment for ­patients with NSCLC. In KEYNOTE-024, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was superior to chemotherapy in terms of progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS), whereas in CheckMate-026, nivolu­mab (Opdivo) failed to improve PFS compared with chemotherapy.