​ Unlike that of other gynecological malignancies, the etiology of cervical cancer is the human papillomavirus (HPV). This fact plays a role in how cervical cancer is perceived as immunogenic: T cells themselves are involved in the immune response and in the control of viral infections and the development of these tumors. In this discussion with i3 Health, Bradley Monk, MD, FACS, FACOG, Professor of Gynecologic Oncology at the University of Arizona and Creighton University, and Ramez Eskander, M...

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have finalized nationwide coverage of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, replacing the previous policy under which the decision of treatment coverage was left to Medicare's regional administrators. "As the first type of FDA-approved gene therapy, CAR T-cell therapies are an important scientific advancement in this promising new area of medicine and provide treatment options for some patients who had nowhere else to turn," c...

Researchers have developed a nanovaccine that, when combined with antibodies and ibrutinib, shows potential as an effective treatment for melanoma. Immune checkpoint therapy, a form of cancer therapy which targets the immune system, has proven to be an effective treatment method for melanoma, the most aggressive type of skin cancer. However, immune checkpoint therapy is limited by a low response rate, severe side effects, and acquired resistance to treatment. There is a need to develop an altern...

​ Five-year overall survival results have now been revealed for nivolumab in advanced melanoma, renal cell carcinoma (RCC), and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). "We report, to our knowledge, the longest combined clinical follow-up for patients with multiple cancer types receiving any anti–PD-L1 drug," the researchers comment in their secondary analysis of data from the phase I CA209-003 trial and expansion cohorts. This trial was the first multidose trial of nivolumab, an immunotherapy drug t...

Locally ablative therapy, which consists of surgery, radiation, and other definitive treatments at all sites of metastasis, has shown efficacy in oligometastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Given that immunotherapy has also shown efficacy in NSCLC, Joshua Bauml, MD, and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine investigated the combination of locally ablative therapy with pembrolizumab (Keytruda®, Merck). The investigators found that adding pembrolizumab ...