Highlights From AACR

The combination of nivolumab plus ipilimumab extended progression-free survival (PFS) versus stan­dard chemotherapy as first-line treatment for patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with a high tumor mutational burden (TMB).

A burning question is whether immunotherapy combinations will further improve outcomes over checkpoint inhibitor therapy alone; and if so, which combinations will rise to the top.

Preliminary data show excellent and durable responses to atezolizumab in 10% of women with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), one of the most aggressive and difficult cancers to treat.

The novel combination of the investigational IDO pathway inhibitor indoximod plus pembrolizu­mab led to higher response rates in patients with advanced melanoma than what is seen with pembrolizumab alone, according to interim analysis of a phase 2 clinical trial reported at the 2017 Annual Meeting of AACR.

CAR T-cell therapy achieved excellent responses in an updated report on a series of 50 patients with relapsed B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) treated with CAR T-cells at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City.

Using a “double whammy” of 2 HER2-directed therapies achieved a clinical benefit rate of 70% and an objective response rate (ORR) of 30% in patients with heavily pretreated, HER2-positive metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC), according to final results from the phase 2 HERACLES-A trial.

Targeted therapies used to treat hematologic malignancies can cause unintended cardiac toxicity in some patients and can lead to cardiac-related mortality, according to study results presented at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting.