Publications by authors named "Anthony D Elias"

Purpose: Doxorubicin is standard chemotherapy for metastatic soft tissue sarcomas (STS) but also enhances innate/adaptive immune responses by inducing immunogenic cell death. Most STS are immune "cold" tumors that do not respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) blocking PD-1 and cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen-4. We hypothesized that concurrent doxorubicin would improve tumor immunogenicity and boost the efficacy of ICI in STS.

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fusions are frequent oncogenic drivers in inflammatory myofibroblastic tumors. Treatment with crizotinib is effective in fusion-positive patients; however, acquired resistance remains a challenge. Here, we present a case of -positive metastatic inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor that initially responded to crizotinib but developed resistance.

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Introduction: This was the first phase 1 study conducted in the United States. It consisted of dose-escalation (part A) and multiple indication-specific cohort expansion (part B), investigating the safety and preliminary efficacy of toripalimab (anti-programmed cell death-1 inhibitor) in patients with advanced malignancies.

Methods: Patients with advanced malignancies that progressed after treatment with at least one prior line of standard systemic therapy, including the patients with advanced/recurrent cholangiocarcinoma (CCA), received toripalimab 240 mg every 3 weeks in part B.

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Article Synopsis
  • A phase II trial investigated the effectiveness of combining enzalutamide with fulvestrant in treating ER+/HER2- breast cancer to see if it reduces residual tumors at surgery compared to fulvestrant alone.
  • * The combination treatment showed a significantly higher rate of achieving complete tumor response (PEPI=0) and improved immune activation in tumors compared to fulvestrant only.
  • * Results indicated that the combination therapy not only lowered Ki67 levels (a marker for cancer proliferation) but also altered the tumor immune environment, suggesting increased anti-tumor activity.
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Sequential adaptive trial designs can help accomplish the goals of personalized medicine, optimizing outcomes and avoiding unnecessary toxicity. Here we describe the results of incorporating a promising antibody-drug conjugate, datopotamab-deruxtecan (Dato-DXd) in combination with programmed cell death-ligand 1 inhibitor, durvalumab, as the first sequence of therapy in the I-SPY2.2 phase 2 neoadjuvant sequential multiple assignment randomization trial for high-risk stage 2/3 breast cancer.

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Among the goals of patient-centric care are the advancement of effective personalized treatment, while minimizing toxicity. The phase 2 I-SPY2.2 trial uses a neoadjuvant sequential therapy approach in breast cancer to further these goals, testing promising new agents while optimizing individual outcomes.

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Article Synopsis
  • Breast cancer treatment involves a team of specialists from surgical, radiation, and medical oncology fields.
  • The NCCN Guidelines provide recommendations for various types of breast cancer, including different stages and specific conditions like Paget's disease and treatment during pregnancy.
  • This issue highlights the management of systemic therapies for nonmetastatic breast cancer, both before and after surgery.
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Importance: There has been little consideration of genomic risk of recurrence by breast cancer subtype despite evidence of racial disparities in breast cancer outcomes.

Objective: To evaluate associations between clinical trial end points, namely pathologic complete response (pCR) and distant recurrence-free survival (DRFS), and race and examine whether gene expression signatures are associated with outcomes by race.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This retrospective cohort study used data from the Investigation of Serial Studies to Predict Your Therapeutic Response With Imaging and Molecular Analysis 2 (I-SPY 2) multicenter clinical trial of neoadjuvant chemotherapy with novel agents and combinations for patients with previously untreated stage II/III breast cancer.

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  • Trebananib is a peptibody that stops angiopoietin-1 and -2 from activating Tie2 receptors, which helps inhibit cancer growth, and it was tested alongside paclitaxel in the I-SPY2 breast cancer trial.* -
  • The trial involved patients with high-risk, early-stage breast cancer being randomly assigned to receive either trebananib with paclitaxel or a control, with the main goal being to evaluate the pathologic complete response (pCR) rate.* -
  • Although trebananib did not meet the criteria to advance for further testing, it showed promising pCR rates and improved 3-year event-free survival without significantly increasing side effects, highlighting potential biomarkers
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The NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines) for Breast Cancer address all aspects of management for breast cancer. The treatment landscape of metastatic breast cancer is evolving constantly. The therapeutic strategy takes into consideration tumor biology, biomarkers, and other clinical factors.

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This clinical trial combined fulvestrant with the anti-androgen enzalutamide in women with metastatic ER+/HER2- breast cancer (BC). Eligible patients were women with ECOG 0-2, ER+/HER2- measurable or evaluable metastatic BC. Prior fulvestrant was allowed.

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  • Preclinical studies showed that cancer models with amplification responded better to adavosertib, a WEE1 kinase inhibitor, leading to a phase II study of its effectiveness in patients with advanced refractory solid tumors harboring amplification.
  • Thirty patients participated in the study, receiving a specific dosing schedule of adavosertib, and results showed an objective response rate (ORR) of 27%, with some patients achieving stable disease or partial responses over 6 months.
  • Notably, patients with epithelial ovarian cancer had a higher ORR of 36% and better survival rates, suggesting that adavosertib could be a promising treatment option, particularly for this demographic, warranting further research.
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HSP90 inhibitors destabilize oncoproteins associated with cell cycle, angiogenesis, RAS-MAPK activity, histone modification, kinases and growth factors. We evaluated the HSP90-inhibitor ganetespib in combination with standard chemotherapy in patients with high-risk early-stage breast cancer. I-SPY2 is a multicenter, phase II adaptively randomized neoadjuvant (NAC) clinical trial enrolling patients with stage II-III breast cancer with tumors 2.

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Background: Recurrence after resection of metastatic sarcoma is common. The gangliosides GM2, GD2 and GD3 are strongly expressed across sarcoma subtypes. We hypothesised that generation of anti-ganglioside antibodies would control micrometastases and improve outcomes in sarcoma patients who were disease-free after metastasectomy.

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Article Synopsis
  • The NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines for Breast Cancer provide comprehensive recommendations for managing various types of breast cancer, including noninvasive (like carcinoma in situ) and invasive forms.
  • This issue specifically covers the management strategies for ductal carcinoma in situ and early-stage invasive breast cancer, highlighting the complexities involved in patient care.
  • For detailed information, the complete NCCN Guidelines can be accessed at NCCN.org.
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The NCCN Guidelines for Breast Cancer include up-to-date guidelines for clinical management of patients with carcinoma in situ, invasive breast cancer, Paget disease, phyllodes tumor, inflammatory breast cancer, male breast cancer, and breast cancer during pregnancy. These guidelines are developed by a multidisciplinary panel of representatives from NCCN Member Institutions with breast cancer-focused expertise in the fields of medical oncology, surgical oncology, radiation oncology, pathology, reconstructive surgery, and patient advocacy. These NCCN Guidelines Insights focus on the most recent updates to recommendations for adjuvant systemic therapy in patients with nonmetastatic, early-stage, hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer.

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I-SPY2 is an adaptively randomized phase 2 clinical trial evaluating novel agents in combination with standard-of-care paclitaxel followed by doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide in the neoadjuvant treatment of breast cancer. Ganitumab is a monoclonal antibody designed to bind and inhibit function of the type I insulin-like growth factor receptor (IGF-1R). Ganitumab was tested in combination with metformin and paclitaxel (PGM) followed by AC compared to standard-of-care alone.

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Importance: Residual cancer burden (RCB) distributions may improve the interpretation of efficacy in neoadjuvant breast cancer trials.

Objective: To compare RCB distributions between randomized control and investigational treatments within subtypes of breast cancer and explore the relationship with survival.

Design, Setting, And Participants: The I-SPY2 is a multicenter, platform adaptive, randomized clinical trial in the US that compares, by subtype, investigational agents in combination with chemotherapy vs chemotherapy alone in adult women with stage 2/3 breast cancer at high risk of early recurrence.

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Purpose: CMB305 is a heterologous prime-boost vaccination regimen created to prime NY-ESO-1-specific CD8 T-cell populations and then activate the immune response with a potent TLR-4 agonist. This open-label randomized phase II trial was designed to investigate the efficacy and safety of adding the CMB305 regimen to atezolizumab (anti-programmed death ligand-1 therapy) in comparison with atezolizumab alone in patients with synovial sarcoma or myxoid liposarcoma.

Patients And Methods: Patients with locally advanced, relapsed, or metastatic synovial sarcoma or myxoid liposarcoma (any grade) were randomly assigned to receive CMB305 with atezolizumab (experimental arm) or atezolizumab alone (control arm).

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Article Synopsis
  • The phase II I-SPY2 trial evaluated the effectiveness of combining the PD-L1 inhibitor durvalumab and the PARP inhibitor olaparib with standard paclitaxel chemotherapy for stage II/III HER2-negative breast cancer.
  • The trial showed that this combination therapy (DOP) significantly increased pathologic complete response (pCR) rates across all HER2-negative subtypes, with notable improvements for hormone receptor-positive cancers with specific gene expression profiles.
  • Although DOP demonstrated superior efficacy, it also led to a higher incidence of immune-related grade 3 adverse events compared to standard chemotherapy.
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Purpose: The Standardized Definitions for Efficacy End Points (STEEP) criteria, established in 2007, provide standardized definitions of adjuvant breast cancer clinical trial end points. Given the evolution of breast cancer clinical trials and improvements in outcomes, a panel of experts reviewed the STEEP criteria to determine whether modifications are needed.

Methods: We conducted systematic searches of ClinicalTrials.

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  • A phase 2 study investigated the effectiveness and safety of combining gemcitabine with pazopanib in treating advanced soft-tissue sarcoma (STS), as options for such patients are limited.
  • The trial involved 90 patients previously treated with anthracyclines, comparing two treatment regimens: gemcitabine plus pazopanib (G+P) vs gemcitabine plus docetaxel (G+T), with similar outcomes in terms of median progression-free survival (PFS) and response rates.
  • Both treatments resulted in high rates of grade ≥3 adverse events, although the specific types and frequencies varied, indicating that while both regimens were comparably tolerable, they
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For solid tumors, extravasation of cancer cells and their survival in circulation represents a critical stage of the metastatic process that lacks complete understanding. Gaining insight into interactions between circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and other peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) may provide valuable prognostic information. The purpose of this study was to use single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) of liquid biopsies from breast cancer patients to begin defining intravascular interactions.

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Importance: Pathologic complete response (pCR) is a known prognostic biomarker for long-term outcomes. The I-SPY2 trial evaluated if the strength of this clinical association persists in the context of a phase 2 neoadjuvant platform trial.

Objective: To evaluate the association of pCR with event-free survival (EFS) and pCR with distant recurrence-free survival (DRFS) in subpopulations of women with high-risk operable breast cancer treated with standard therapy or one of several novel agents.

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Several new systemic therapy options have become available for patients with metastatic breast cancer, which have led to improvements in survival. In addition to patient and clinical factors, the treatment selection primarily depends on the tumor biology (hormone-receptor status and HER2-status). The NCCN Guidelines specific to the workup and treatment of patients with recurrent/stage IV breast cancer are discussed in this article.

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