Data presented today at the 2013 Annual Meeting for the American Urological Association by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine researchers demonstrated that Decipher™ (GenomeDx Biosciences), a transformative genomic test that provides a readout of the risk of metastatic disease and disease progression for individual men with prostate cancer, predicted the onset of rapid metastatic disease (RMD) in patients following…

The programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1), the primary ligands of the programmed death 1 (PD-1) protein, a T-cell coinhibitory receptor and immunoinhibitory receptor of the CD28 family, plays a pivotal role in the ability of tumor cells to evade the host's immune system. PD-L1 is selectively expressed on many tumors and on cells…

A new a double-blind, randomized Phase 2b clinical trial of CV9104 (CureVac GmbH) for the treatment of patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer will enroll up to 200 patients in eight European countries.The purpose of this study is to determine whether the new RNActive-derived prostate cancer vaccine prolongs survival in patients with asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic metastatic prostate cancer that is castrate…

Neuroblastoma is a malignancy of the developing sympathetic nervous system that often presents with widespread metastatic disease, resulting in survival rates of less than 50%. While most neuroblastomas strike in a young child's chest or abdomen in the adrenal gland or next to the spinal cord, or in the chest, the disease can spread to the bones (face, skull, pelvis, shoulders, arms, and legs), bone marrow, liver, lymph nodes, skin, and around the eyes (orbits). Neuroblastoma is most…

Initial positive top line data from the first endpoint in a double-blinded randomized Phase III clinical study examining Reolysin® (Reovirus Serotype 3 Dearing; Oncolytics), a proprietary formulation of the human reovirus, in combination with carboplatin and paclitaxel in second-line patients with platinum-refractory, taxane-naïve head and neck cancers (REO 018;…

A glass plate with a nanoscale roughness could be a simple way for scientists to capture and study the circulating tumor cells (CTC) that carry cancer around the body through the bloodstream (illustration). Engineering and medical researchers at the …

Abiraterone acetate (Zytiga®; Janssen Research & Development, LLC) is an androgen biosynthesis inhibitor that inhibits CYP17 and improves overall survival (OS) in post-docetaxel metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC).

The primary objective of COU-AA-302, a Phase III, randomized, placebo-controlled study, was to compare clinical benefit of abiraterone acetate + prednisone (P) vs placebo (PL) + P in…

Patients who received one year of bevacizumab (Avastin®, Genentech/Roche), an angiogenesis inhibitor that slows the growth of new blood vessels in addition to chemotherapy for the postsurgical treatment of triple-negative breast cancer, had no statistically significant improvement in invasive disease-free survival compared with patients treated with…

Colorectal cancer is one of the most common cancers in the world, with over 1.2 million new cases diagnosed each year. The disease remains one of the biggest cancer killers in the world responsible for over 600,000 deaths globally each year [1].

Recent studies show that continued use of bevacizumab (Avastin®; Roche/Genentech) -based therapy beyond first progression in metastatic colorectal cancer patients leads to…

Melanoma is the most serious form of skin cancer. If it is recognized and treated early, it is almost always curable, but if it is not, the cancer can advance and spread to other parts of the body, where it becomes hard to treat, disfiguring, debilitating and often life-threatening.

While it is not the most common of the skin cancers, it causes the most deaths. The American Cancer Society estimates that at present, about 123,000 new cases of melanoma in the U.S. are diagnosed…

For the first time, researchers have conducted a large trial in which they tested the entire genome of individual breast cancers to help personalize treatment. They released their findings at the ESMO 2012 Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology in Vienna (September 28 - October 2, 2012). 

In recent years, a number of drugs have been developed that target specific genetic alterations in cancer. To choose which of these drugs are suitable for individual patients,…

Earlier this week the first patient has been dosed in a Phase Ib/IIa study of CRLX101 (formerly called IT-101, Cerulean Pharma Inc.), dual inhibitor of topoisomerase 1 and hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha, in combination with bevacizumab (Avastin®, Genentech/Roche) in metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) patients. Cerulean also announced the completion of enrollment of its randomized Phase II study in advanced non-small…

Results from the phase III CLEOPATRA study showed that women with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer (mBC) lived significantly longer (overall survival) when treated with the combination of pertuzumab (Perjeta™, Genentech/Roche), trastuzumab (Herceptin®, Genentech/Roche) and docetaxel chemotherapy, compared to trastuzumab and docetaxel chemotherapy alone. in the Phase III . These data will be submitted for presentation at an upcoming medical meeting.…

The UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), an independent organisation responsible for providing national (UK) guidance and standards on the promotion of good health and the prevention and treatment of ill health, has confirmed its decision not to approve cabazitaxel (Jevtana®;Black Triangle Drug; Sanofi) for use by the NHS. The decision followw an appeal from Sanofi and could effectively prevent…

The Canadian regulatory body, pan-Canadian Oncology Drug Review or pCODR has made an initial recommendation that includes positive clinical evaluations for the treatment of metastatic melanoma, ipilimumab (Yervoy™, Bristol-Myers Squibb)and vemurafenib (Zelboraf®, Genentech). The drugs are…

The European Commission has approved vemurafenib (Zelboraf^TM, Roche) as a monotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with BRAF V600 mutationpositive unresectable or metastatic melanoma. This form of melanoma is the most aggressive form of skin cancer. Vemurafenib is designed to target and inhibit mutated forms of the BRAF protein found in about half of all cases of melanoma.



When melanoma is…

The China State Food & Drug Administration (SFDA) has approved the CellSearch® circulating tumor cell (CTC) test (Veridex) as an in vitro diagnostic for women with metastatic breast cancer. This makes CellSearch® the first and only approved CTC test for cancer patients in China, which is…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has invited Amgen to participate in a meeting of the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) on Feb. 8, 2012 to discuss the supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) for denosumab (XGEVA®) to treat men with castration-resistant…

Scientists at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia (Canada) have identified a key mechanism of metastasis that could lead to blocking tumor growth if their findings are confirmed.



In a recent issue of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (…