Immunotherapy

Sometimes patients may not report side effects to their health care team, in fear of their oncologist taking them off a drug that could prolong their survival.

After a recent FDA approval for an additional dosing schedule option for Opdivo, patients must be educated on the potential side effects that may occur between prolonged visits.

Immunotherapy use continues to expand in the cancer treatment space. So, it is important that patients and caregivers understand its potential side effects.

Recently, the Cancer Support Community (CSC) conducted a survey to better grasp the challenges that patients, caregivers and clinical staff members face regarding immunotherapy. The goal is to ultimately use that information to craft an empowerment program that will improve the patient experience.

To help educate patients and enable health care teams to effectively manage these side effects, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) issued new guidelines on understanding and managing immunotherapy-related toxicities.

Researchers from Israel, the United Kingdom (UK) and Canada sought to determine the cost-effectiveness of Keytruda for the second-line treatment of patients with advanced bladder cancer. Drug costs were compared between the US, UK, Canada and Australia.

Now that a number of immunotherapy agents have been approved in the bladder cancer space, identifying and managing the toxicities that may come along with them is critical.

Not all patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) respond to immunotherapy, so researchers are exploring the use of combination regimens, including immune checkpoint inhibitors and chemotherapy, to improve outcomes in these patients.

Marina Chiara Garassino, M.D., talks about how immunotherapy agents have vastly improved the treatment field of patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

Traditionally, desmoplastic melanoma was difficult to treat because the tumor tissue is so dense. However, researchers just discovered that immunotherapy agents have potential in this space.

To date, trials testing the use of immunotherapy in the treatment of ovarian cancer yielded disappointing results. However, researchers are not giving up. Instead, they’re investigating to see if immunotherapy drugs – such as PD1 and PDL-1 inhibitors – can be combined with other agents to benefit patients.

Ferdinandos Skoulidis, M.D., Ph.D. highlights potential treatment options for KRAS-mutated lung cancer and explores developments in biomarker research in other areas in the field.

Checkpoint inhibitors continue to show promise in the treatment of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), but researchers are now exploring the efficacy of these agents when combined with radiation therapy (RT).

When combined with other regimens in the treatment of patients with bladder cancer, immunotherapy has been shown to be beneficial, according to Arjun Balar, M.D.