Real-World Incidence of Pneumonitis in Patients Receiving Durvalumab.

Introduction/background: Durvalumab is a programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) inhibitor indicated for stage III, unresectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) consolidation therapy following concurrent platinum-based chemoradiation based on results of the PACIFIC trial. Safety data of durvalumab demonstrates an increased risk of immune-related adverse effects (irAEs), most notably pneumonitis. Pneumonitis is a serious and potentially fatal complication of immunotherapy.

Treatment patterns in patients with advanced breast cancer who were exposed to an anthracycline, a taxane, and capecitabine: a descriptive report.

Objective: The aim of this work was to analyze chemotherapy treatment patterns in patients with advanced breast cancer who had been previously exposed to an anthracycline, a taxane, and capecitabine.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study used medical and pharmacy administrative claims with health-plan enrollment data and medical-record review from a large, US-based health insurer database, the HealthCore Integrated Research Database. Women were included if they were aged > or =18 years at the initial breast cancer diagnosis between January 1999 and July 2005 and had received all 3 drug classes of interest, as well as an initial diagnosis of American Joint Committee on Cancer stage I to III breast cancer with metastatic recurrence or an initial diagnosis of stage IV disease.

Epidermal growth factor receptor inhibition strategies in pancreatic cancer: past, present and the future.

Pancreatic carcinoma is an unusually lethal disease and to date treatment with standard chemotherapy has yielded disappointing results. The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is known to be over-expressed in pancreatic cancer and there is data to suggest that this molecular characteristic may be a poor prognostic factor as it may denote a more aggressive form of the disease. Current therapeutic modalities to target the EGFR include monoclonal antibodies directed against the extracellular domain of the receptor as well as tyrosine kinase inhibitors that disable the activating portion of the receptor.

Panitumumab the first fully human monoclonal antibody: from the bench to the clinic.

Panitumumab (formerly known as ABX-EGF) is the first fully human monoclonal antibody to epidermal growth factor receptor to enter clinical trials for the treatment of solid tumors. Like cetuximab (Erbitux; BMS), it is directed against the extracellular ligand-binding domain of the receptor and results in blockade of the essential downstream signaling pathways that are known to govern apoptosis, proliferation and differentiation of both normal and neoplastic cell types in a wide array of tissues. It has a very high affinity for epidermal growth factor receptor and has been generally well tolerated and associated with very few infusion reactions.

Role of panitumumab in the management of metastatic colorectal cancer.

Panitumumab (formerly known as ABX-EGF) is the first fully human monoclonal antibody directed against the epidermal growth factor receptor in clinical use. It has proven to be very well tolerated alone and in combination with other cytotoxic chemotherapeutic agents. Panitumumab has demonstrated efficacy as monotherapy and with standard chemotherapeutic agents in a wide variety of cancer types, including non-small-cell lung cancer, renal, and colorectal cancer (CRC).