On 11 April 2019, the FDA approved single-agent pembrolizumab (Keytruda®, Merck) for the first-line treatment of stage III/IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with a PD-L1 Tumor Proportion Score (TPS) ≥1% who are not amenable to surgical resection or definitive chemoradiation and who have no known EGFR or ALK genomic aberrations.
On 26 November 2018, the FDA granted accelerated approval to the first-in-class tropomyosin receptor-kinase (TRK) inhibitor larotrectinib (Vitrakvi®, Loxo Oncology/Bayer) for the treatment of adult and paediatric patients with solid tumours that are metastatic or not amenable to surgery, harbour the neurotrophic receptor tyrosine kinase (NTRK) gene fusion in the absence of known acquired resistance mutations, and whose cancer progressed following treatment or for whom are no satisfactory other treatment options available.
The FDA granted regular approval to dabrafenib (Tafinlar®, Novartis) and trametinib (Mekinist®, Novartis) in combination for the adjuvant treatment of patients with melanoma with BRAF V600E or V600K mutations, as detected by an FDA-approved test, and involvement of lymph node(s), following complete resection.
Recent studies have shown new possible applications for Ki67. Huh et al. showed that low Ki67 levels in healthy breast tissue correlated with a lesser lifetime chance of breast cancer. Another study by Arnedos and colleagues concluded that palbociclib was able to invoke a significant Ki67-level drop. After a decade of Ki67-controversies, these results put the marker back in the spotlight.
