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September 2010 |
What's in the News?
On This Page:
FDA Approves New Drugs to Treat Skin, Blood, and Lung Cancers
Article from NCI
 In the last 2 weeks of August, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved three new cancer drugs: vemurafenib (Zelboraf), for patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma whose tumors harbor a specific genetic mutation in the BRAF gene; brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris), for some patients with Hodgkin lymphoma and anaplastic large cell lymphoma; and crizotinib (Xalkori), for patients with locally advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors have a gene fusion caused by a chromosomal translocation involving the ALK gene.
The three drugs were approved all well in advance of the time allotted for their review. By comparison, from the beginning of 2010 until the week of August 15, 2011, the agency had approved just six new cancer drugs.
Read Full Article Here
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Combining Chemotherapy with Bevacizumab Improves Outcomes for Ovarian Cancer Patients
Article from NCI
Results from two phase III randomized clinical trials suggest that, at least for some patients with ovarian cancer, adding the antiangiogenesis agent bevacizumab to chemotherapy increases the time to disease progression and may improve survival. Longer follow-up is needed to confirm the trends, but, if upheld, the results of these trials would support the first use of a biologic agent to treat ovarian cancer. Data from both trials were presented last week at the ASCO annual meeting in Chicago.
In the OCEANS study, 484 women whose cancers recurred more than 6 months after a single prior regimen of chemotherapy were randomly assigned to receive chemotherapy with carboplatin and gemcitabine plus bevacizumab or a placebo. After six cycles of chemotherapy, the patients continued to receive bevacizumab or the placebo until evidence of tumor progression was seen. Those who received bevacizumab had a 52 percent increase in the time it took their disease to progress compared with those who received placebo (12.4 months versus 8.4 months, respectively).
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Genome Study of Multiple Myeloma Opens New Avenues for Research
-April 5, 2011
 In the most comprehensive genetic analysis of multiple myeloma to date, researchers have sequenced the genes of 38 patients with this uncommon blood cancer. The study confirmed some of the mutations known to play a role in this disease and uncovered additional alterations in genes and pathways that can now be investigated further.
For 23 of the patients, Dr. Michael Chapman of the Broad Institute and his colleagues sequenced the entire genomes of tumor cells and matched normal cells. A comparison of the results revealed suspicious changes in parts of the genome where no one had thought to look before, the researchers reported in the March 24 Nature.
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Crossing Disciplines to Explore Questions about Cancer
-April 5, 2011
“A lot of the easy stuff [in cancer research] has been done,” Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn said over the weekend at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), currently under way in Orlando, FL. The “face of cancer research” is much more interdisciplinary today than in the past, and this is how new frontiers will be explored, she added.
Dr. Blackburn, who is president of AACR and a Nobel laureate for her pioneering research on telomeres, noted that life sciences, physical sciences, and engineering are converging: “Over and over, we are seeing what we thought were separate disciplines come together.”
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| February is National Cancer Prevention Month
If your New Year’s fervor to get healthy is already losing steam, February -- National Cancer Prevention Month – is a great time to give yourself a second chance.
American Institute for Cancer Research’s three Guidelines for Cancer Prevention can help you focus on what’s most important.
- Choose mostly plant foods, limit red meat and avoid processed meat.
- Be physically active every day in any way for 30 minutes or more.
- Aim to be a healthy weight throughout life.
Notice anything about them? Like, for example, how closely the advice for cutting cancer risk resembles advice for preventing other chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes – not to mention for getting in shape?
It’s true: these simple steps offer many different health benefits, and National Cancer Prevention Month is as good a time as any to start putting them into action.
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Continued Shortage of Chemotherpy Drugs Causing Concern
—Carmen Phillips
A serious shortage of commonly used chemotherapy drugs that began several years ago and worsened in 2010 is taking a toll on medical facilities and causing concerns among patients and doctors alike, according to representatives from government and professional groups. The continued shortfall is part of a more widespread shortage of drugs, including those frequently used in anesthesia and to treat dangerous infections, and has raised anxiety about patient care and clinical trials in which the drugs, many of them generic, are important components of treatment.
“We’ve heard a crescendo of complaints and concerns,” said Dr. Michael Link, a pediatric oncologist from the Stanford University School of Medicine and president-elect of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). It’s not possible to quantify the extent of the impact on patient care, Dr. Link noted, but, based on what’s known, “it’s the worst shortage we’ve experienced in three decades. In terms of scope, it’s huge.”
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Statistical Strength in Numbers: International Clinical Trials for Rare Cancers
By Karen Eddleman and Shannon P. Hatch
Altogether, rare cancers account for about one-third of all cancer cases. Researchers believe this proportion will likely grow as molecular characterization reveals that even common cancers have rare subtypes, strengthening the public health rationale for finding safe and effective therapies for these tumors. For some rare cancers, however, the only practical way to carry out a meaningful clinical trial is for investigators around the world to work together, because no single country has access to a sufficient number of patients with a given tumor type.
“International trials for rare cancers offer many advantages over separate trials done in different countries or regions,” explained Dr. Jack Welch of the Clinical Investigations Branch in NCI’s Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP). “By bringing patients together, international trials can accrue faster, and they offer lower collective administrative costs, shared infrastructure, centralized resources, and use of existing networks.”
On December 10, NCI and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) convened a meeting of international stakeholders to explore ways to collaborate across borders on clinical trials for rare cancers. Nearly 100 representatives from 75 institutions participated in the day-long meeting, which was supported by CTEP, NIH’s Office of Rare Diseases Research (ORDR), NCI’s Office of Advocacy Relations (OAR), and ASCO. In addition to representatives from NIH, the FDA, the HHS Office for Human Research Protections, and NCI’s Clinical Trials Cooperative Group Program, attendees included investigators from Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom, the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer, and representatives of patient advocacy organizations and the pharmaceutical industry.
Read More on National Cancer Institute's Website
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Doctors and patients alike say that when they communicate well, healing goes better, and it can even make the difference between life and death.
But a national survey of doctors and hospitalized patients finds that, in reality, effective communication often is sorely lacking.
Only 48% of patients said they were always involved in decisions about their treatment, and 29% of patients didn't know who was in charge of their case while they were in the hospital.
"That's terrible," says Beth Lown, medical director of the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare at Massachusetts General Hospital, which commissioned the survey by Marttila Strategies in Boston. These patients "are orphans" in the hospital, she says.
Eighty-one percent of patients and 71% of doctors agreed communication made a difference in "whether a patient lives or dies," according to the survey of 500 doctors and 800 patients.
"So there's a disconnect between what people say they want and what's happening," says Gregory Makoul, chairman of the American Academy on Communication in Healthcare.
Emphasis on better communication has increased in recent years as the medical community has become more aware of its effect on patient healing. Since 1995, U.S. medical students have been required to get training in communication skills. And in 2005, the United States Medical Licensing Exam began to include testing on interpersonal and communication skills.
Communication skills and high patient-satisfaction scores can give hospitals a competitive edge as well as reduce malpractice claims, says Debra Roter, a professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
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