“Obesity is on its way to replacing tobacco as the number one preventable / modifiable cause of cancer,” says Clifford Hudis, MD, the 2013-2014 President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Indeed, obese post-menopausal women have up to twice the risk of developing breast cancer as do their normal weight counterparts. Continue reading
It is widely known that brain tumors, in particular glioblastomas and medulloblastomas, affect males more than females. Moreover, given the age of onset and analysis of incidence by age, sex hormones have been ruled-out as the cause. Continue reading
Last week, Amgen (Onyx) announced negative news from its FOCUS clinical trial of multiple myeloma drug Kyprolis. Let’s put this into perspective. Continue reading
Last week, pacritinib, an oral tyrosine kinase inhibitor drug-candidate with dual activity against JAK2 and FLT, has been granted Fast Track designation by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration Continue reading
IDO ( indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase) is a molecule that oxidizes tryptophan, which is needed by cytotoxic T-cells. When cancer cells and T-reg cells secrete IDO in the vicinity of cytotoxic T cells, antitumor activity is abrogated. Continue reading
The National Cancer Institute has a very informative, yet easy to understand overview presented as a Q&A – Targeted Cancer Therapies. Continue reading
The combination of Herceptin plus pan-HER (EGFR and Her 2 an 4) kinase inhibitor neratinib resulted in a 33% improvement in progression free survival versus Herceptin alone in breast cancer patients. Rituxan combined with idelalisib, PI3K inhibitor, resulted in a near doubling of progression-free survival at 24 weeks versus Rituxan, alone in patients with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, and small cell lymphoma. The news for neratinib tripled the valuation of Puma Biotechnology, while the FDA granted approval of Gilead’s drug Zydelig (idelalisib). Continue reading
Diagnostics that not only diagnose cancer, but also help select the appropriate therapy and monitor response are a mainstay in modern oncology, and their use is growing. Precision medicine, identifying genetic markers of disease and designing treatments to exploit these, is the essence of targeted cancer therapy. Continue reading
Genspera is a company developing novel prodrugs for the treatment of cancer. In a phase 2 study in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who have failed treatment with Nexavar (sorafenib), a tyrosine kinase inhibitor that blocks KIT, FLT-3 RET, raf, VEGFR1-3, and PDGF kinases, a doubling of time to progression was seen in patients taking G-202. Continue reading
The Ras onogene has been studied for 30 years, with over 40,000 scientific articles published on it. However, an inhibitor of the mutated form of Ras has not been able to be developed. So, researchers have developed downstream blockers of the Ras cascade – MEK inhibitors and Raf inhibitors, for example. But why can’t a molecule that blocks mutated Ras be identified? Continue reading