Web Exclusives

At the 2018 NCCN conference, Sharon H. Giordano, MD, MPH, FASCO, Professor of Medicine, Department of Breast Medical Oncology, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, provided an update on the treatment of patients with HER2-positive breast cancer, noting an “explosion of new therapies” in recent years that have had a tremendous impact on survival.

Three cancer centers share their experiences related to the struggle of understanding wide variations in the application of sterile compounding and safe handling of oncology hazardous drugs, and the costs and operating burdens of compliance with and adherence to current pharmacy standards.

New results from the phase 3 QuANTUM-R trial showed that quizartinib, an oral, selective FLT3 inhibitor, significantly extended overall survival compared with chemotherapy in patients with relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and the FLT3-ITD mutation.

“Mogamulizumab demonstrated convincing clinical activity, not just in skin but also in clearing malignant T-cells in the blood and lymph nodes. PFS and overall global response outcomes are clearly superior,” said Dr Kim.

“The main rationale from the cytotoxic era is to increase efficacy by combining agents that have different mechanisms and nonoverlapping toxicities. The question is whether we can replace nonspecific cytotoxic agents with a specific, more effective immunotherapeutic,” said Donna Przepiorka, MD, PhD, at ASH 2017.