Immunotherapy

Triple wild-type melanoma may not respond to approved targeted drugs, but immunotherapy can be an excellent option.

Treatment for the polio virus may eventually move into the treatment realm for brain cancer, thanks to a breakthrough therapy designation by the FDA.

The immunotherapy combination of Opdivo and Yervoy continues to show promise as it presented overall survival benefits for patients with advanced melanoma.

The approval of atezolizumab will change the treatment paradigm of bladder cancer overnight, says Robert Dreicer.

Algenpantucel-L failed to improve OS for patients with pancreatic cancer in a phase 3 trial.

“This is a small-site, single-arm study, but these preliminary data are encouraging,” says lead study author Roberto Pili. “It suggests that this combination of an HDAC inhibitor can induce a greater benefit with an immunotherapy — in this case, IL-2.”

“There are a lot of drugs, many targets, and still no cures,” says Figlin. “There is still an unmet need, despite the plethora of agents that have been approved in this space.”

The combination of Yervoy and Opdivo showed a 42 percent improvement in overall survival compared with Yervoy monotherapy for patients with advanced melanoma in a two-year assessment of the phase 2 CheckMate-069 trial.