Oncology

By passing this law, EU lawmakers loosen the grip of pharmaceutical companies on how and when physicians prescribe a particular drug.

DNA repair is a prime mechanism for preventing DNA damage, mutation, and cancers. Adopting a functional approach, we examined the association with lung cancer risk of an integrated DNA repair score, measured by a panel of three enzymatic DNA repair activities in peripheral blood mononuclear cells.

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) has launched a strategic initiative to define value in cancer care.

Researchers discovered that microscopic "bubbles" are safe and effective storage lockers for harmful isotopes that emit ionizing radiation for treating tumors. The findings can benefit patient health and advance radiation therapy used to treat cancer and other diseases.

In February, Pfizer announced encouraging results for palbociclib with statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in progression-free survival (PFS) for women with a certain type of advance breast cancer in a mid-stage, or phase III, study.

GlaxoSmithKline has been forced to halt a Phase III trial assessing its MAGE-A3 cancer immunotherapeutic in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

A DNA methylation marker test performed on urine samples obtained from patients with non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) has the ability to predict tumor recurrence with both high sensitivity and specificity.

Recent research has raised the possibility that low-dose aspirin could add extra years to the lives of colon cancer patients. Now, a new study suggests that only certain patients may gain a survival benefit by taking aspirin after diagnosis.

Eli Lilly was successful in a crucial legal battle on Monday when a U.S. District Judge in Indianapolis upheld the validity of its U.S. patent for the drugmaker' s blockbuster lung-cancer drug, Alimta.

Saladax Biomedical's MY5-FU blood test will help personalize and optimize 5-fluorouracil dosing in cancer patients.

Patients with resected non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are at risk for recurrence of disease, but currently there are no tools to predict which patients are at highest risk. The authors set out to create a risk model incorporating both clinical data and biomarkers.

Rates of new cancer cases in the United States have fallen slightly in recent years, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A new oral angiogenesis inhibitor for the treatment of lung cancer could be edging closer to the market: Approval application for nintedanib (Boehringer Ingelheim) has been filed in Europe and is being prepared for the United States.

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN) will host Designing Clinical Trials in the Era of Multiple Biomarkers and Targeted Therapies on April 25, 2014 in Bethesda, Maryland, as part of the NCCN Oncology Policy Program.

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.