The February issue of The Oncology Pharmacist (TOP) features presentations and studies from national and international meetings, including the 2018 Palliative and Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium, the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) 2018 Congress, and the 2018 International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer World Conference on Lung Cancer.
In a presentation at the 2018 Palliative and Supportive Care in Oncology Symposium, Tatiana M. Prowell, MD, Breast Cancer Scientific Liaison at the FDA, and Assistant Professor of Oncology, Johns Hopkins University, discussed ways in which the FDA is working to help alleviate the financial burden on patients with cancer while improving access to clinical trials.
“Our system is broken,” Dr Prowell stated. “It’s not really designed for the disease that we treat, and the kind of drugs that we prescribe, so it’s necessary to explore alternative payment models.”
In a presentation at ESMO 2018, Peter Schmid, MD, PhD, FRCP, Centre Lead, Centre for Experimental Cancer Medicine, Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, UK, discussed results from the phase 3 IMpassion130 clinical trial, which showed promising efficacy with atezolizumab plus nab-paclitaxel in the treatment of patients with advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, including improvements in progression-free survival and overall survival.
“This combination should become a new treatment option for patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer,” Dr Schmid advised.
In another presentation at ESMO 2018, Fabrice André, MD, PhD, Breast Cancer Unit, Department of Medical Oncology, Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus, Villejuif, France, discussed data from the SOLAR-1 clinical trial, which showed a benefit with the combination of alpelisib plus fulvestrant in patients with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative advanced breast cancer characterized by a PIK3CA mutation.
“Alpelisib is the first drug to show a benefit in a genomic subgroup of breast cancer patients,” Dr André noted.
This issue of TOP also features results from the phase 3 IMpower133 clinical trial, which were presented at the 2018 International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer World Conference on Lung Cancer. Investigators noted that the combination of atezolizumab, carboplatin, and etoposide may become a new standard of care for the first-line treatment of extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer, based on the improved overall survival and progression-free survival associated with this regimen.
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