Real-world treatment patterns and adverse events in metastatic renal cell carcinoma from a large US claims database.

Background: Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), tyrosine kinase (TK) and mechanistic target of rapamycin kinase (mTOR) inhibitors are common first-line (1 L) treatments for metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC). Despite treatment availability, the 5-year survival rate in patients diagnosed at the metastatic stage is only ≈ 10%. To gain contemporary insights into RCC treatment trends that may inform clinical, scientific and payer considerations, treatment patterns and adverse events (AEs) associated with 1 L therapy were examined in a retrospective, longitudinal, population-based, observational study of patients with mRCC.

Fludarabine modulates immune response and extends in vivo survival of adoptively transferred CD8 T cells in patients with metastatic melanoma.

Background: Adoptive T cell therapy involving the use of ex vivo generated antigen-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes provides a promising approach to immunotherapy. It has become increasingly apparent that anti-tumor efficacy using adoptively transferred T cells is linked to their duration of in vivo persistence and can only be achieved when combined with some form of pre-infusion patient conditioning regimen. An optimal conditioning regimen that provides a positive benefit without serious toxicities has yet to be defined.

Treatment of metastatic melanoma with autologous CD4+ T cells against NY-ESO-1.

We developed an in vitro method for isolating and expanding autologous CD4+ T-cell clones with specificity for the melanoma-associated antigen NY-ESO-1. We infused these cells into a patient with refractory metastatic melanoma who had not undergone any previous conditioning or cytokine treatment. We show that the transferred CD4+ T cells mediated a durable clinical remission and led to endogenous responses against melanoma antigens other than NY-ESO-1.

Ablative allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation in adults 60 years of age and older.

Purpose: To evaluate outcomes of ablative allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) in older patients with hematologic malignancies.

Patients And Methods: We treated 52 patients from 1979 to 2002 with a median age of 62.8 years (range, 60.