Personalized Medicine

Articles about personalized medicine on Value-Based Cancer Care. Learn how to utilize a patient's unique genetic makeup and environment to customize the patient's medical care and treatment.
Chicago, IL—Osimertinib (Tagrisso) extends progression-free survival (PFS) compared with standard chemotherapy in patients with EGFR T790M mutation–positive non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who have central nervous system (CNS) metastases, reported Marina C. Garassino, MD, Thoracic Oncology Unit, Medical Oncology Department, Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milan, Italy, at the 2017 ASCO annual meeting.
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Chicago, IL—The PARP inhibitor olaparib (Lynparza) significantly improved progression-free survival (PFS) compared with standard chemotherapy in women with HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer with a germline BRCA mutation. Disease progression was delayed by approximately 3 months with olaparib in the multinational, randomized, open-label, phase 3 OlympiAD clinical trial, reported Mark E. Robson, MD, Clinic Director, Clinical Genetics Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York City, at the 2017 ASCO annual meeting.
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Chicago, IL—Alectinib (Alecensa), a next-generation anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor, was called a new standard of care for patients with ALK mutation–positive non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), based on results of the phase 3 ALEX clinical trial, which were presented at the 2017 ASCO annual meeting.
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Chicago, IL—The results from 2 studies should advance the use of abiraterone acetate (Zytiga) to the frontline treatment of patients with hormone-sensitive advanced prostate cancer, effectively replacing chemotherapy, said several experts at the 2017 ASCO annual meeting.
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Chicago, IL—Immunotherapy holds promise as second-line or third-line treatment of patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma, a rare cancer with increasing incidence. Early findings from the ongoing, phase 2 MAPS-2 clinical trial showed that immunotherapy slowed the growth of malignant pleural mesothelioma after relapse, reported lead investigator Arnaud Scherpereel, MD, PhD, Head, Pulmonary and Thoracic Oncology Department, University Hospital of Lille, France, at the 2017 ASCO annual meeting. MAPS-2 is the largest clinical trial to date of immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma.
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Chicago, IL—The tumor types amenable to immunotherapy with the PD-1 inhibitor pembrolizumab (Keytruda) keep expanding and now include sarcoma, which has been difficult to treat.
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Chicago, IL—A new high-intensity genomic sequencing strategy (developed by Grail Inc) detects circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) at a high rate. The new approach is a major improvement on previous tests using ctDNA, which focus on a limited number of driver mutations to inform treatment strategies for metastatic disease or to monitor disease burden. The new test offers ultra-deep sequencing with a broad genomic coverage, but it is not ready for prime time to detect occult cancer. At present, the test is a research platform and is not commercially available.
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Chicago, IL—Oral cediranib, an investigational vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitor, in combination with a poly ADP-ribose polymerase (PARP) inhibitor or with chemotherapy, shows survival benefit in women with relapsed platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer, according to data from 2 studies presented at the 2017 ASCO annual meeting.
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Chicago, IL—The investigational, second-generation EGFR inhibitor dacomitinib reduced the risk for disease progression compared with gefitinib as first-line therapy for patients with advanced non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and EGFR mutation. Results from the phase 3 ARCHER 1050 clinical trial demonstrated a >40% reduction in the risk for disease progression and an average 6.5-month improvement in the duration of response with dacomitinib versus gefitinib.
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Chicago, IL—Larotrectinib (LOXO-101), an investigational agent that targets tropomyosin receptor kinase (TRK) fusions, has demonstrated excellent, consistent, and durable antitumor activity in a range of tumor types in adults and children, reported lead investigator David M. Hyman, MD, Chief, Early Drug Development Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York City, at the 2017 ASCO annual meeting. Larotrectinib was called “the first oral tumor-agnostic therapy,” because of its unprecedented high response rates in 17 tumor types that express TRK.
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