Amsterdam, The Netherlands—The novel ALK/EGFR inhibitor known as AP26113 achieved good responses in reducing brain metastases in patients with crizotinib (Xalkori)-resistant and crizotinib-naïve non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), as well as radiographic regression of central nervous system (CNS) metastases. These results of the first-in-human phase 1/2 dose-finding study of AP26113 were presented at the 2013 European Cancer Congress by David R. Camidge, MD, PhD, Director, Thoracic Oncology Clinical Program, University of Colorado Denver, Aurora.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands—The antibody-conjugate ado-trastuzumab emtansine (Kadcyla), also known as T-DM1, prolonged progression-free survival (PFS) in advanced HER2-positive breast cancer in a heavily pretreated population, according to the final results of the phase 3 clinical trial TH3RESA. The study included cancer that progressed with ≥2 previous HER2-directed therapies—trastuzumab (Herceptin) and lapatinib (Tykerb).

Amsterdam, The Netherlands—Although much progress has been made in cancer care over the past couple of dec­ades, a report presented at the 2013 European Cancer Congress emphasizes that on a global scale, the impact is far from equitable.
“Many parts of the world are already unable to cope with the current situation and are totally unprepared for the future growth of the cancer problem,” said Peter Boyle, PhD, DSc, President, International Prevention Research Institute, and Director, Strathclyde Institute for Global Public Health, Lyon, France.

A team of researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, led by Robert Wechsler-Reya, PhD, Professor at Sanford-Burnham’s National Cancer Institute (NCI)-Designated Cancer Center and Director of the Tumor Initiation and Maintenance Program, discovered that they can block the rapid growth of cancerous brain cells by using small-molecule inhibitors. “By targeting fast-growing TPCs [tumor-propagating cells] with cell-cycle inhibitors, we have developed a new route to assault medulloblastoma.

Researchers have identified new molecular markers—microribonucleic acids (RNAs)—that, combined with their target genes, are believed to be able to identify which breast cancer will metastasize to the brain. “Survival rates are low once breast cancer metastasized to the brain,” said Seema Sethi, MD, lead investigator of a study presented at the 2013 American Society for Clinical Pathology (ASCP) annual meeting, and a resident at Wayne State University and Detroit Medical Center. This discovery is a new step in the evolving field of personalized medicine.

The cost of cancer care has become a frequent topic of conversation in oncology conferences and publications, as well as among other stakeholders, including patients and payers. In a recent editorial published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, David G.

In a recent guest blog on the Harvard Business Review website, Toby Cosgrove, MD, President and CEO of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, suggested that value-based care represents a life-saving “breakthrough,” not unlike penicillin or decoding the human genome, by focusing on lowering costs and improving quality of care and outcomes as its main goals.

The US Food and Drug Adminis­tration (FDA) granted accelerated approval to pertuzumab (Perjeta; Gen­entech) as part of a treatment regimen for the neoadjuvant setting (ie, before surgery) for patients with HER2-positive early-stage breast cancer. This is the first time that the FDA approved a drug for the neoadjuvant treatment of patients with breast cancer.

On September 10, 2013, the Institute of Medicine (IOM), part of the National Academy of Sciences, published a 315-page report, titled “Delivering High-Quality Cancer Care: Charting a New Course for a System in Crisis”.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands—For the first time, a therapy for non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has achieved responses in smokers better than in nonsmokers. The antibody MPDL3280A also achieved good responses in squamous and adenoma histologic types of NSCLC.

These results of a phase 1 study in patients with metastatic NSCLC were so encouraging that experts suggested bypassing phase 2 studies and going on to phase 3 clinical trials directly.

Recruitment for this human monoclonal antibody is ongoing for phase 2 and 3 trials in NSCLC.

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