FDA approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in combination with pemetrexed and platinum as first-line treatment of patients with metastatic, non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer, with no EGFR or ALK genomic tumor aberrations.
FDA has updated the prescribing information for Keytruda (pembrolizumab) and Tecentriq (atezolizumab) to require the use of an FDA-approved companion diagnostic test to determine PD-L1 levels in tumor tissue from patients with locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer who are cisplatin-ineligible. FDA approved two different companion diagnostic tests, one for use with Keytruda and one for use with Tecentriq, as described below.
FDA granted an accelerated approval to nivolumab (Opdivo) for patients with metastatic small cell lung cancer with progression after platinum-based chemotherapy and at least one other line of therapy.
Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co. Ltd. said FDA has granted approval for Poteligeo (mogamulizumab-kpkc) for the treatment of adult patients with relapsed or refractory mycosis fungoides or Sézary syndrome after at least one prior systemic therapy. FDA granted Priority Review and Breakthrough Therapy Designation in late 2017.
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network has released new treatment guidelines for a group of rare cancers that impact women during pregnancy. Gestational trophoblastic neoplasia, also known as gestational trophoblastic disease, can occur when tumors develop in the cells that would normally form the placenta during pregnancy.
A cache of brain cancer biomedical data has been made freely available to researchers worldwide, say researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. The dataset, Repository for Molecular Brain Neoplasia Data, also known as REMBRANDT, hosted and supported by Georgetown, is one of only two such large collections in the country.
Almost one year after FDA approval of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy for children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, researchers at MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Pediatric Acute Lung Injury and Sepsis Investigators Network published treatment guidelines for managing the treatment in the online issue of Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology.
In the first such clinical trial in the United States, physician-scientists with the University of Maryland School of Medicine are investigating the use of MRI-guided focused ultrasound to open the blood-brain barrier. The trial will be conducted with patients undergoing brain cancer surgery at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
Researchers at UC Davis, Genentech, and Foundation Medicine are the first to show that a blood-based test to assess tumor mutational burden accurately identifies non-small cell lung cancer patients who could benefit from immunotherapies called checkpoint inhibitors.
Steven RosenbergCarl JuneJames AllisonSteven Rosenberg, Carl June and James Allison received the 2018 Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research.
