The randomised phase 3 POLO trial found that maintenance therapy with the PARP inhibitor olaparib significantly delayed the progression of metastatic pancreatic cancer in patients with BRCA gene mutations compared with placebo (median progression-free survival: 7.4 months vs 3.8 months,...
Promising front-line alternative for advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma
Front-line pembrolizumab was comparable to standard chemotherapy in select patients with advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma. 39% of patients with HER2-negative, advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma with PD-L1 combined positive scores of 10 or more who received front-line...
Ribociclib plus hormone therapy prolongs survival of younger patients with advanced breast cancer
The international, randomised phase 3 MONALEESA-7 trial found that adding ribociclib to standard-of-care endocrine therapy significantly improved overall survival for premenopausal women with advanced HR-positive/HER2-negative breast cancer compared with endocrine therapy alone. After 42 months of follow-up, the survival rate...
Pembrolizumab quadruples survival in selected advanced non-small cell lung cancer patients
Pembrolizumab quadrupled pre-immunotherapy era 5-year survival rates for patients when used as initial therapy (23.2% vs 5.5 %). For patients who received prior therapies, pembrolizumab increased survival rates to 15.5%. Across both patient populations studied, 5-year survival rates were highest...
Prostate cancer: Early enzalutamide substantially improves time to progression and overall survival when added to standard mHSPC therapy (testosterone suppression ± docetaxel)
An interim analysis of the international randomised, phase 3 ENZAMET trial found that 80% of men with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (mHSPC) who received the non-steroidal anti-androgen (NSAA) medicine enzalutamide along with the standard-of-care treatment were alive after 3 years...
Post-study immunotherapy confounds primary survival outcome
An exploratory analysis of the phase 3 MYSTIC trial suggests that the high rate of subsequent post-study immunotherapy received by patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who previously received chemotherapy, confounded the primary overall survival (OS) outcome. Durvalumab...
Head-to-head comparison of two ALK inhibitors
Brigatinib showed a statistically and clinically relevant improvement in PFS vs crizotinib in patients with anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor-naïve, ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). This was the result of the first interim analysis from the ALTA-1L study comparing the...