Selective MCL-1 inhibitor ABBV-467 is efficacious in tumor models but is associated with cardiac troponin increases in patients.

Background: MCL-1 is a prosurvival B-cell lymphoma 2 family protein that plays a critical role in tumor maintenance and survival and can act as a resistance factor to multiple anticancer therapies. Herein, we describe the generation and characterization of the highly potent and selective MCL-1 inhibitor ABBV-467 and present findings from a first-in-human trial that included patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (NCT04178902).

Methods: Binding of ABBV-467 to human MCL-1 was assessed in multiple cell lines.

Venetoclax or placebo in combination with bortezomib and dexamethasone in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma (BELLINI): a randomised, double-blind, multicentre, phase 3 trial.

Background: Venetoclax is a highly selective, potent, oral BCL-2 inhibitor, which induces apoptosis in multiple myeloma cells. Venetoclax plus bortezomib and dexamethasone has shown encouraging clinical efficacy with acceptable safety and tolerability in a phase 1 trial. The aim of this study was to evaluate venetoclax plus bortezomib and dexamethasone in patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma.

Clinical Response of a Patient to Anti-PD-1 Immunotherapy and the Immune Landscape of Testicular Germ Cell Tumors.

Anti-Programed Death 1 (PD-1) is standard immunotherapy for multiple cancers, and the expression of one of its ligands, PD-L1, has been described in germ cell tumors (GCT). Neither the clinical activity of anti-PD-1 nor the incidence of an immunoresponsive tumor microenvironment has been described for GCTs. A patient initially diagnosed with melanoma via fine needle aspiration was treated with one dose of antibody to PD-1.

Pazopanib in renal cell carcinoma.

Pazopanib is an oral, multitargeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor that has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treatment of patients with advanced renal cell cancer on the basis of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase III trial, which showed that once a day dosing of 800 mg of pazopanib resulted in progression free survival of 9.

GVAX: an allogeneic, whole-cell, GM-CSF-secreting cellular immunotherapy for the treatment of prostate cancer.

Antitumor vaccines, also known as active immunotherapies, have become an intense focus of research over the last decade as a means to ideally provide new targeted, and less toxic, therapies to patients with a variety of malignancies. Prostate cancer is among the diseases where a large amount of promising data has been accumulating regarding several distinct active immunotherapies. Here the authors review one of the therapies, known as GVAX, which is among the furthest along in clinical evaluation.

Advance directive use among patients undergoing high-risk operations.

Background: The Patient Self-Determination Act requires that patients entering hospitals be asked if they have an advance directive. This has led to increased awareness of advance directives, yet surgeons have paid little attention to their use among patients undergoing even major surgery. We sought to evaluate the use of advance directives in patients undergoing pancreaticoduodenectomy and esophagectomy.