An analysis of the Value Framework of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) shows that the Net Health Benefit score of cancer drugs continues to evolve over time after their FDA approval, based on data presented at the ASCO 2020 virtual annual meeting. This analysis showed a substantial change in more than 25% of cancer drugs in their Net Health Benefit 3 years after their initial approval.

There has been an increased focus on the study of tumor alterations that may predict treatment benefit or serve as possible actionable targets in cancer. During the virtual American Urological Association 2020 Annual Meeting, Kyrollis Attalla, MD, Urology Oncology Fellow, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Ridgewood, NY, discussed findings of a recent study that looked at the landscape of actionable genomic alterations and the corresponding evidence to support these alterations as predictive of response to targeted therapy in patients with renal-cell carcinoma (RCC).

Updated results of the phase 3 CASPIAN clinical trial continue to show that durvalumab (Imfinzi) added to standard chemotherapy improves overall survival (OS) for patients with treatment-naïve extensive-stage small-cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC), according to a presentation at the ASCO 2020 virtual annual meeting.

In an analysis of the phase 3 PRIMA study, niraparib monotherapy as first-line maintenance after platinum-based chemotherapy improved progression-free survival in women with newly diagnosed advanced ovarian cancer regardless of BRCA mutation status or homologous recombination status (deficient or proficient).

ASCO guidelines cite significant improvement in progression-free survival when PARP inhibitors are used as maintenance therapy or in the setting of recurrent disease in women with advanced ovarian cancer who have responded to platinum-based chemotherapy in the first line.