In 2017, newly approved therapies brought hope to the treatment of cancers. These included the CD19 CAR-T therapies for patients with B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) that is refractory or relapsed, and additional indications for checkpoint inhibitors to treat solid tumors. It is worth noting that, for the first time in the FDA history, a treatment (anti-PD-1 antibody Keytruda) was approved to treat patients with unresectable or metastatic solid tumors as long as the tumor is positive for a biomarker referred to as microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) or mismatch repair deficient (dMMR). Progresses were also made in targeted therapies. For example, the FLT3 mutant inhibitor, in combination with chemotherapy, was approved as the first new treatment for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) in more than 25 years. The review focuses on the new therapies, either approved or showing great promise in clinical trials, which may change the paradigm of cancer therapies.
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