Clinical Trials Update from NCI, June 2018

Clinical Trials Update from NCI, June 2018

Clinical Trials Updates from the National Cancer Institute   Clinical Trials News     TAILORx trial finds most women with early breast cancer don’t benefit from chemotherapy Findings from the TAILORx clinical trial show chemotherapy does not benefit most women with early breast cancer. The new data, released at the 2018 ASCO annual meeting, will help inform treatment decisions for many women with early-stage breast cancer.   NCI-MATCH precision medicine clinical trial releases new findings The NCI-MATCH precision medicine clinical trial has reached a milestone with the release of results from several study treatment arms. Findings from three arms were released at the 2018 ASCO annual meeting, adding to findings from one arm released in 2017.     Potential New Treatment Option for Rare Leukemia People diagnosed with hairy cell leukemia (HCL) may have an effective new treatment option: moxetumomab pasudotox, a type of drug called an immunotoxin. Read more about how well this treatment worked in a phase 3 clinical trial in patients with advanced HCL.   Progress Made Treating Children with Neurofibromatosis Early clinical trial results show that an experimental drug called selumetinib can shrink tumors in children and young adults who have a genetic syndrome called neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), and it may improve symptoms such as pain and problems with movement.   Trial Results May Change Standard Treatment for T-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia An NCI-funded trial tested the addition of nelarabine (Arranon) to standard treatment for children and young adults with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL).   Find NCI-Supported Clinical Trials Use our search form to find a clinical trial or other research study that may be right for you or a loved one.     Clinical Trials Information for Patients and Caregivers   What Are Clinical Trials? Clinical trials are research studies that involve people. Through clinical trials, doctors find new ways to improve treatments and the quality of life for people with disease.   Where Do Trials Take Place? Cancer clinical trials take place in cities and towns across the United States and throughout the world—in doctors’ offices, cancer centers, medical centers, community hospitals and clinics, and veterans’ and military hospitals. A single trial may take place in one or two places, or at hundreds of different sites.     NCI-Supported Clinical Trials that Are Recruiting Patients    Immunotherapy helps a patient’s own immune system fight their cancer. These are just a few of the many clinical trials NCI conducts or funds to improve the efficacy and availability of immunotherapy for cancer.   Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocytes after Chemotherapy for Patients with Metastatic Cancers This phase 2 trial is testing an experimental cell transfer immunotherapy using tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) in patients with certain metastatic solid tumors that do not respond to approved treatments. Patients who progress following their TIL infusion will be treated with up to four courses of pembrolizumab (Keytruda). Read about a woman in this trial whose metastatic breast cancer disappeared entirely following TIL therapy.   Combining Antibody Therapies for Relapsed or Unresponsive Hodgkin Lymphoma In this phase 2 trial, patients with relapsed or treatment-resistant (refractory) classic Hodgkin lymphoma will be randomly assigned to treatment with the combination of nivolumab (Opdivo) and brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) alone or with the addition of ipilimumab (Yervoy). Both nivolumab and ipilimumab enhance immune response by blocking immune checkpoint molecules, and brentuximab vedotin is an antibody-drug conjugate that targets specific proteins expressed by cancer cells and delivers a cell killing drug once the conjugate is internalized by the cell.   Immunotherapy Combinations for Metastatic Prostate Cancer or Other Cancers This phase 1/2 trial is testing several combinations of immunotherapy agents in patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (prostate cancer that no longer responds to anti-androgen therapies) or other metastatic solid tumors. Researchers want to see if combining immunotherapies that act on the immune system in different ways will produce clinical benefits in patients with no other therapeutic options.