Author: Neil Canavan

Haematologists are now deploying an attack strategy that has already stormed the beaches of solid tumour treatment paradigms by unleashing the patient’s own immune system with so-called “checkpoint inhibitors.”

 As reported in two studies at the American Society of Hematology meeting in San Francisco, the anti-PD-1 checkpoint inhibitors from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck & Co – Opdivo (nivolumab) and Keytruda (pembrolizumab) respectively – have shown remarkable efficacy in classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) patients who relapsed after failing all prior treatments.

Agios Pharmaceuticals’ AG-120, a first-in-class inhibitor of the IDH1 mutant protein has shown remarkable efficacy in an early-stage trial in patients with acute myeloid leukaemia.

Interim results for rociletinib, Clovis Oncology’s third-generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor have shown impressive activity in lung cancer patients with the T790M mutation – a patient population with few treatment options.

A novel compound developed to prevent the ravages of cancer-induced anorexia-cachexia (CACS) has for the first time demonstrated a significant improvement in lean body mass in patients with advanced cases of non-small cell lung cancer.

Results of IMPRESS, a lung cancer study presented at the European Society of Medical Oncology in Madrid last week, suggest that the common practice of continuing treatment with epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) beyond disease progression is misguided, and needlessly expensive.