News

Pexidartinib (formerly PLX3397) has been granted a breakthrough therapy designation by the FDA based on findings from a phase I study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Treatment of certain head and neck cancers may soon be fundamentally transformed through the use of molecular diagnostics to dissect essential oncogenic driver pathways, and ultimately to identify targeted therapies that specifically inhibit them.

The FDA has granted breakthrough therapy designation to Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) as a potential therapy for patients with microsatellite instability-high metastatic colorectal cancer.

George Demetri, MD, talks about the benefits of utilizing trabectedin in patients with soft tissue sarcoma.

Researchers are investigating apaziquone for use as an intravesical treatment for patients with nonmuscle-invasive bladder cancer.

Ipilimumab (Yervoy) in melanoma has been approved to include adjuvant treatment of patients with stage III melanoma who are at high risk of recurrence following complete resection by the FDA.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified processed meat as carcinogenic to humans and red meat as probably carcinogenic to humans.

A new chemotherapy regimen demonstrated significant clinical activity in patients with HER2-positive, early-stage breast cancer, according to long-term follow-up data.

Approval for first-in-class oncolytic immunotherapy talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC; Imlygic) has come down from the FDA based on the results from the phase III OPTiM study.

Researchers have begun examining the latest round of studies for a minimally invasive breast cancer therapy freezing the cancer cells as a means of killing the tumor.

A new paper spotlights a potential biomarker and therapeutic target for bladder cancer. The authors say that although BC is recognized as a common and deadly malignancy, a lack of understanding of the molecular pathways involved has hindered development of effective treatments compared with progress made with other malignancies.

Advanced soft tissue sarcoma patients will now be able to receive trabectedin (Yondelis), which has been approved by the FDA after promising results from a phase III trial.

The FDA has approved MM-398 in combination with 5-fluorouracil and leucovorin as a treatment for patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer.

The anti-CD22 antibody-drug conjugate inotuzumab ozogamicin has been granted breakthrough therapy designation by the FDA as a potential treatment for relapsed or refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients.

John C. Byrd, MD, on Hematologic Malignancies in Chicago about novel agents in treating chronic lymphocytic leukemia, specifically about the emergence of new targeted therapies, including ibrutinib (Imbruvica) and idelalisib (Zydelig) and what clinicians should know about them.

Peter J. Sciavolino, PhD, dives into the oncological roles of NTRK and TRK-targeted therapies

The FDA has announced clearance for a minimally invasive high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) prostate tissue ablation device called Sonablate 450, making HIFU available in the United States for the first time.

Researchers note that chronic Hedgehog (Hh) pathway stimulation has been shown in prostate, lung, and ovarian cancers, and that zinc levels decrease early in prostate cancer continuing to castration-resistant disease. Researchers are exploring whether or not zinc may suppress the autocatalysis in the Hh precursor and inhibit production of biologically active Hh ligand.

Three months ahead of schedule, nivolumab (Opdivo) has obtained FDA approval for patients with nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer who progressed on or following platinum-based chemotherapy.

Researchers discovered that the use of anamorelin among patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer considerably helped more patients stabilize or gain lean body mass, a factor that consequently enables patients with cachexia to survive longer.

The CDK4/6 inhibitor abemaciclib (LY2835219) has been granted FDA breakthrough therapy designation as monotherapy for heavily pretreated patients with refractory hormone-receptor-positive advanced breast cancer.

The USPSTF recently posted a draft recommendation statement and draft evidence review on screening for colorectal cancer prompting responses from organizations and industry.

When John P. Leonard, MD, spoke at the American Society of Hematology inaugural meeting on Hematologic Malignancies about mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), he balanced his enthusiasm about the emerging benefits that tumor profiling brings to this disease with an acknowledgement that many important questions about mantle cell lymphoma remain unanswered.

Clinical Trial Profile: The Juniper trial is studying abemaciclib as a possible new treatment for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer harboring the KRAS mutation.

Optune (NovoTTF-100A) in combination with adjuvant temozolomide has received FDA approval as a treatment for patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme following surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy.

A more than 25-month improvement in overall survival was seen with lyso-thermosensitive liposomal doxorubicin (LTLD; ThermoDox) combined with optimized (?45 minutes dwell time) radiofrequency ablation in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.

Telesta Therapeutics has been granted an FDA advisory hearing to discuss the biologics license application of its MCNA immunotherapy as treatment for high-risk nonmuscle invasive bladder cancer following first-line bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG).

The immunotherapy, pembrolizumab (Keytruda), has been FDA approved for treatment in patients with pretreated advanced non-small cell lung cancer across all histologies with tumors expressing PD-L1.

Frontline combination treatment with erlotinib and bevacizumab demonstrated high efficacy in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer who harbored an EGFR T790M mutation.

Tasquinimod demonstrated promise in phase II trials but failed to improve overall survival in a phase III trial in treatment-naive metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer; some experts believe this failure highlights the need for more intelligent clinical trial designs in prostate cancer.