June 2020, Vol 10, No 6

Over the past several decades, we have seen the delivery of chemotherapy shift from the hospital inpatient setting to the hospital outpatient setting to the specialized community practice setting. Now, amid the many seismic changes that have been occurring as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, a battle has emerged over the question of whether a patient’s home should be a site of care for the infusion of certain chemotherapy drugs. Read Article ›

The first “off-the-shelf” chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell platform targeting CD7 induced a complete response (CR) with no minimal residual disease (MRD) in 4 of the first 5 adults with relapsed or refractory T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) who received treatment with the universal CAR T-cell therapy currently labeled GC027. Read Article ›

Large community care centers remain committed to providing necessary treatments to patients with cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic. During a recent webcast titled Community Cancer Care Providers, which is part of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care (AVBCC) webcast series: COVID-19 Impact on the Cancer Care Delivery Ecosystem, a panel of healthcare executives discussed how the pandemic is reshaping the ways in which community cancer centers provide care to their patients, the challenges that providers face as they navigate an evolving healthcare ecosystem, and how practices can continue to deliver care in the months ahead. Read Article ›

A bispecific chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell product directed against CD19 and CD22 antigens induced a complete response (CR) in 5 of 12 (42%) evaluable children and young adults with relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Read Article ›

Data from the TRACERx lung study suggest that circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) may be a biomarker for the detection of postsurgical minimal residual disease (MRD) in patients with non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), suggesting which patients are at increased risk for disease relapse and will require more aggressive adjuvant therapy. Read Article ›

The combination of the checkpoint inhibitor durvalumab (Imfinzi), the poly (ADP ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor olaparib (Lynparza), and chemotherapy with paclitaxel used as neoadjuvant therapy improved the pathological complete response (pCR) of patients with high-risk HER2-negative stage II or III breast cancer compared with the physician’s choice of chemotherapy. Read Article ›

A combination of nivolumab (Opdivo), gemcitabine (Gemzar), and cisplatin as neoadjuvant therapy resulted in a pathologic nonmuscle-invasive rate of 66% and a pathologic complete response rate (pCR) of 49% in patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC), according to results from the phase 2 BLASST-1 clinical trial. Read Article ›

The combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) plus the investigational drug sitravatinib improved progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with pretreated metastatic clear-cell renal-cell carcinoma (RCC) and the historical disease control rates compared with nivolumab alone, according to the results of a phase 1/2 clinical trial reported at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium. Read Article ›

A biosimilar is a “highly similar” copy of a biologic drug, but it is not a generic. This definition understandably causes confusion among patients and providers alike, but it is an important distinction, according to Jim Koeller, MS, FHOPA, Professor, Pharmacotherapy, The University of Texas at Austin. Read Article ›

On May 8, 2020, the FDA accelerated the approval of a new kinase inhibitor, selpercatinib (Retevmo; Loxo Oncology) capsules, for the treatment of 3 types of cancer—metastatic non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), metastatic medullary thyroid cancer, and other types of thyroid cancer—that are associated with RET gene mutations or fusions, as determined by an FDA-approved test. Selpercatinib is the first therapy approved specifically for the treatment of patients with cancer that is linked to RET mutations or fusions. The FDA granted selpercatinib breakthrough therapy and orphan drug designations. Read Article ›