At the 2018 American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting earlier this month in Chicago, Dr. Matthew Hellmann presented the results of the immunotherapy drug combo of Nivolumb (Opdivo) and Ipilmumab (Yervoy). This drug combo improved progression of disease for a select group of patients with advanced lung cancer that had a number of genetic mutations. The study looked at patients’ tumor mutation burden, a measure of flaws to their cancer genes, and found that of the 679 patients, 299 had a high mutation burden. For those patients, survival without progression of disease was 43% at one year for those on the immunotherapy combo, compared to 13% for those on standard chemotherapy. The median time until progression of disease was 7 months for the immunotherapy combo, compared to 5.5 months for chemotherapy. Medicare recently agreed to cover the $3,000 profiling test for advanced cancer. “We have a tool that helps us determine who are the patients that are most likely to benefit from this combination,” Hellmann said.

In Science Magazine this week, MSK’s Dr. Peter Bach and Dr. Timothy Chan were featured in two articles discussing two very different but intrinsic aspects of cancer care.

As the director of the Immunogenomics and Precision Oncology Platform, Dr. Chan and his colleagues are bridging the genetics of tumors with the therapeutics of immunology, to better understand and create precise treatments based on the genetic mutations of a patient’s cancer. The result is the reinvigorated, integrated field of precision immuno-oncology. “It’s one of the most fast-paced, active areas in cancer research,” Chan says, “because it’s at the intersection of fields, where breakthroughs happen.”

Peter Bach has immersed himself in the field of health policy and economics to highlight and change the landscape of drug pricing for cancer treatment. As cancer treatments become more and more personalized, the price tag has skyrocketed. Cancer drugs today can cost on average $250,000 a year, with CAR-T cell treatment at a staggering $475,000. In 2015, Bach and his colleagues created the Drug Abacus. This interactive tool provides the public and policymakers a way to understand how much a drug should cost based on value.

After battling breast cancer, many women find themselves fighting once again, this time against the treatment side effect, lymphedema. Cancer patients who have multiple lymph nodes removed, as many breast cancer patients do, have a likelihood of approximately 20% of developing lymphedema. One promising treatment is lymph node transplants, a technology that has increased in success in recent years. Dr. Joseph Dayan, a reconstructive surgeon at MSK, has successfully transplanted lymph nodes from unaffected parts of patients bodies, providing substantial relief from the symptoms of lymphedema. It is not a cure however, but the earlier it is treated the better the outcome.