May 2020, Vol 10, No 5

During a recent Association for Value-Based Cancer Care (AVBCC) webcast, titled Wholesale Supply Channels: COVID-19 Impact on Cancer Care and Road to Recovery, a panel of healthcare experts discussed issues related to wholesale supply channels for the distribution of drugs and medical/surgical supplies to community oncology care providers. Read Article ›

MicroRNAs have all the characteristics to be a potential game changer as a biomarker in germ-cell tumors (originating in the testes, ovaries, and a few other sites), with high sensitivity, specificity, and clinical validity in pilot studies, said Lucia Nappi, MD, PhD, Medical Oncologist, British Columbia Cancer, Vancouver Centre, Canada, at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium. Read Article ›

The challenges of managing cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic raise new concerns for oncologists, nurses, and the entire cancer care team. The management of patients with cancer, who are at increased risk from this new respiratory infection, has rapidly become even more urgent. Read Article ›

The clinical course of prostate cancer is highly variable, reflecting the heterogeneity of the disease. Although most men diagnosed with prostate cancer have low-risk, favorable disease characteristics, some may harbor aggressive features and experience disease progression despite conventional therapy. Therefore, initial risk stratification is vitally important for determining effective treatment strategies and improving clinical outcomes. Read Article ›

The addition of a second immunotherapy, ipilimumab (Yervoy), to the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and cabozantinib (Cabometyx) produced durable responses and longer progression-free survival (PFS) than cabozantinib plus nivolumab alone in patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common type of liver cancer. The overall survival (OS) was not yet reached in the triplet arm. Read Article ›

The combination of atezolizumab (Tecentriq) immunotherapy plus bevacizumab (Avastin) improves survival as well as significantly delaying deterioration in quality of life compared with the current standard of the targeted therapy sorafenib (Nexavar) in the treatment of patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Read Article ›

Although there is a biological rationale that supports the “abscopal” effects of radiation therapy plus checkpoint immunotherapy in fighting cancer, this combination showed mixed results and no robust effects in patients with metastatic renal-cell carcinoma (RCC), according to results of 2 preliminary studies presented at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium. Read Article ›

Treatment with the novel agent MK-6482 led to promising results in a phase 1/2 clinical trial of patients with metastatic clear-cell renal-cell carcinoma (RCC). In heavily pretreated patients, the objective response rate (ORR) with single-agent MK-6482 was 24%, and a response was consistently seen across patients with favorable-, intermediate-, and poor-risk disease. These results were greeted with optimism at the 2020 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium. Read Article ›

Cholangiocarcinoma (CCA), a type of biliary tract cancer, is a rare malignancy, with no FDA-approved medications specifically for this type of cancer. The current standard first-line treatment for patients with locally advanced or metastatic CCA is a chemotherapy combination of gemcitabine and cisplatin. Read Article ›

Although medicinal cannabis has been used successfully as a palliative therapy in patients with cancer, it is still stigmatized because of its illicit scheduling. However, as research on cannabis use in oncology matures and the stigma begins to fall away, more states are allowing for pharmacist oversight of this product, and its legalization continues to spread. Read Article ›