Checkpoint therapy with PD-(L)1 and CTLA4-directed monoclonal antibodies has shown to be extremely effective for many patients with a variety of tumors. PD-1 testing, alone, however, are lacking in selecting patients for therapy – up to 17% of patients who do not meet criteria for PD-1 positivity respond to treatment, and many patients with PD-1 tumors do not respond well to checkpoint therapy. Continue reading
Category Archives: Precision Medicine
ALK-positive lung cancer – antibodies to fusion protein
Approximately 7% of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) possess a transgene that results from an inversion of chromosome 2 that juxtaposes the 5’ end of the echinoderm microtubule-associated protein-like 4 (EML4) gene with the 3′ end of the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene, resulting in the novel fusion oncogene EML4-ALK . Continue reading
Tagrisso is superior to platinum-based chemotherapy for patients with relapsed lung cancer following front-line anti EGFR therapy
Tagrisso (osimertinib) is a kinase inhibitor indicated for patients with metastatic epidermal growth factor T790M mutation-positive lung cancer. It was approved under accelerated approval provisions in November 2015 on the basis of phase 2 trials demonstrating a combined overall objective response rate of 59%. Continue reading

Intra-tumor heterogeneity leads to sampling bias and biomarker failure – Conor McAuliffe, Contributor
A growing understanding of genetic variation both between histologically similar tumors from different patients and within individual tumors themselves is shedding light on the difficulties in treating cancer and developing biomarkers to diagnose it. It has long been known that a single tumor displays differences in morphology, nuclear shape, proliferation, and proportions of constituent cell types. However, these differences may be only be the “tip of the iceberg” as vast genetic and epigenetic variations that underlie them have been discovered between and within tumors. Continue reading

Precision Medicine MATCH Trial Difficulties with Biopsy Specimens
The National Cancer Institute launched the MATCH trial in August 2015 as part of the Precision Medicine Initiative announced by President Obama. Continue reading