Oncology

With a surge in development of oral oncolytic agents for a variety of therapy targets, the support pharmacists can provide patients in areas such as oral oncolytic medication adherence has come to the fore.

Prescribers, pharmacists, nurses, lab technicians, and other health care professionals must work as a team to create awareness and understanding of pharmacogenomics integration.

In an interview with Pharmacy Times®, Maria Whitman, Global Head of the Pharmaceutical and Biotech Practice at ZS, discusses the FDA’s Project Optimus, the FDA’s new guidance addressing dose optimization issues in oncology clinical trials, and how it has impacted drug manufacturers.

The investigators said these results suggest patients with low sTK1 activity levels have slow-growing disease, which can be initially controlled through single-drug endocrine therapy.

Margetuximab (Margenza) is indicated, in combination with chemotherapy, for the treatment of adult patients with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer.

Among 38 patients with B-cell derived malignancies who were seronegative after 2 COVID-19 vaccine doses, 55% had detectable antibodies after the third dose whereas 45% remained seronegative.

Patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia are generally divided by those exposed to Bruton's tyrosine kinase inhibitors (BTKi), patients relapsing after venetoclax, and patients relapsing after BTKi and B-cell lymphoma-2 inhibitors.

Lauren C. Pinter-Brown, MD, FACP, of UCI Health and Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, explains what the role of the pharmacist is during the treatment of patients with advanced cutaneous T cell lymphoma.

Robert Z. Orlowski, MD, PhD, director of the Myeloma Section at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, reviewed novel agents in the treatment of triple-class refractory myeloma during a session at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society of Hematologic Oncology (SOHO).

The recommendation for managing cytopenias among patients treated with tyrosine kinase inhibitors is to discontinue treatment at the onset of grade 3 or higher.

The combination of cetuximab and encorafenib resulted in a median overall survival of 8.4 months, compared to 5.4 months in the control arm among patients with colorectal cancer.

Lauren C. Pinter-Brown, MD, FACP, of UCI Health and Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, addresses the areas that may need further investigation to progress advanced cutaneous T cell lymphoma treatments in the future.

The medication has met the criteria of overall survival for individuals with this type of liver cancer who were previously treated with sorafenib, Merck says.

Risk stratification for survival should not dictate treatment, but stratification for thrombosis risk should play an important role in treatment decisions.

Cemiplimab-rwlc is being developed by Regeneron and Sanofi under a global collaboration agreement.

Durvalumab in combination with oleclumab reduced the risk of non-small cell lung cancer disease progression or death by 56%, whereas patients receiving durvalumab and monalizumab had a 35% reduction.

The combination maintained superior OS and response benefits versus sunitinib in both patients with intermediate- and poor-risk prognostic factors, the primary endpoint population, and across all randomized patients.

Lauren C. Pinter-Brown, MD, FACP, of UCI Health and Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, explains what research is underway in the advanced cutaneous T cell lymphoma field that she is currently keeping an eye on.

By deactivating a component of the MAPK signaling pathway, researchers were able to reduce the proportion of leukemia cells in blood and bone marrow.

Lauren C. Pinter-Brown, MD, FACP, of UCI Health and Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, describes some of the challenges providers face during the treatment of patients with advanced cutaneous T cell lymphoma and how to address them.

Treatment with neoadjuvant cisplatin and pemetrexed plus atezolizumab for pleural mesothelioma found to be safe in trial.

Enfortumab vedotin-ejfv (Seagen; Padcev) is a first-in-class antibody-drug conjugate approved for patients with previously treated locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer.

The prostate-specific membrane antigen-targeted positron emission tomography imaging technique will be part of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines beginning in 2022.

Ribociclib is an inhibitor of cyclin-dependent kinase 4 and 6 and causes tumor growth inhibition.

Lauren C. Pinter-Brown, MD, FACP, of UCI Health and Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, addresses how the treatment of advanced cutaneous T cell lymphoma has changed in recent years and whether there have been any advancements of note.

Andrea Silber, MD, said the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated disparities that already existed within oncology care, and she said the effects of these disparities on patients are very real and direct.

Lauren C. Pinter-Brown, MD, FACP, of UCI Health and Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, provides an overview of key trials that have been conducted in the advanced cutaneous T cell lymphoma space in recent years.

Patients with triple-negative breast cancer who received sacituzumab govitecan had a median progression-free survival of 4.6 months compared to 2.3 months with chemotherapy.

These patients had comparable levels of antibodies to individuals without the disease after a 2-dose course of the vaccination.

Lauren C. Pinter-Brown, MD, FACP, of UCI Health and Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, explained whether the current advanced cutaneous T cell lymphoma (CTCL) treatment strategies available are applicable for all patients with advanced CTCL and how patients are selected for treatment.