Oncology

A panel of Food and Drug Administration advisers has voted to endorse an experimental stool test that uses DNA to detect colon cancer and precancerous growths.

Results of a phase II trial of the PARP inhibitor olaparib, presented at the meeting of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology, showed that maintenance therapy with olaparib significantly improved PFS in ovarian cancer patients.

Drug development is a risky business, with an estimated 90 percent of compounds that enter clinical trials ultimately failing to reach the market.

AstraZeneca's Phase III pipeline is growing ahead of plan, chief executive Pascal Soriot told a recent media briefing, and cancer drugs make up a major chunk of the pipeline.

The effectiveness of radiation treatments for patients with squamous cell cancer of the head and neck has been reviewed by an international team of researchers. They identified two biomarkers that were good at predicting a patient's resistance to radiation therapy. "While our findings are encouraging, and a step toward personalized medicine, we hope to do more of this research with a larger, randomized trial," the authors conclude.

Ceritinib, which received a 'breakthrough therapy' status from the FDA last year, was highly active in patients with advanced, ALK-rearranged NSCLC, including those who had had disease progression during crizotinib treatment, regardless of the presence of resistance mutations in ALK.

Enrollment of Phase 3 study in first-line advanced liver cancer is expected to begin by mid-2015. The companies also plan to initiate several additional Phase 1/2 trials for different cancers during 2014.

In the treatment of lung cancer, immunotherapy has come of age and is here to stay expert says at the 4th European Lung Cancer Conference.

Pfizer Inc's Xalkori delayed progression of lung cancer longer than chemotherapy in patients who had never previously been treated for the disease, according to results of a late-stage study released on March 25.

Biomedical engineers in Germany have developed a tool that uses magnetic beads to detect proteins, potential biomarker, in blood or urine samples in a one-step process.

Scientists from Weill Cornell Medical College and Houston Methodist have found that a gene previously unassociated with breast cancer plays a pivotal role in the growth and progression of the triple negative form of the disease, a particularly deadly strain that often has few treatment options.

The AURELIA trial comparing the efficacy of bevacizumab plus chemotherapy, versus chemotherapy alone, presented encouraging results in platinum-resistant ovarian cancer patients.

Myriad Genetics, Inc. today announced that Tesaro, Inc. will use Myriad's novel HRD (homologous recombination deficiency) test to identify tumor types that may respond to its investigational poly-ADP ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor, niraparib, currently in Phase 3 clinical development.

A retrospective study has shown that two targeted therapy drugs achieved similar outcomes among people with metastatic or recurrent non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) harboring an EGFR mutation.

The Food and Drug Administration is weighing the benefits and risks of two experimental colon cancer screening tests which use DNA from a patient's stool to detect dangerous tumors and growths.

Despite ACA stipulations, patients with cancer may face new barriers to care as they shop for healthcare plans on the state and federal insurance exchanges.

Cancer patients relieved that they can get insurance coverage because of the new health care law may be disappointed to learn that some the nation's best cancer hospitals are off-limits.

Dramatic progress has been made in reducing colon cancer incidence and death rates in the U.S., but concerns remain about striking racial and socio-economic disparities, according to new national statistics on colorectal cancer.

U.S. patients not only are spending too much on medical treatments, there are still too many ways dollar-driven health care causes harm, according to a top official with the American Cancer Society.

A more individualized view of what drives the onset of non-small cell lung cancer is raising treatment hopes as new therapies emerge and are under development, said Leora Horn, MD, MSc, of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, who presented an overview Friday at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network's 19th Annual Conference: Advancing the Standard of Cancer Care, held in Hollywood, Florida.

The title of the talk by Celestia S. Higano, MD, New Developments in the Treatment of Hormone Refractory Prostate Cancer, was notable in the use of a term that has been replaced over the past decade with castration resistant. It was a change that Dr Higano, of the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, admits she did not support at the time.

Advances in treating multiple myeloma have transformed the field over the past decade, giving clinicians more effective therapy options for newly diagnosed patients who are candidates for stem cell transplant and those who are not.