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Cancer Research News Posted 6/3/2012
The Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) is the premier meeting for cancer research news. The 48th Annual meeting being held in Chicago this week is no exception. CancerNews.com will be posting some of the more interesting news from this event.
Source: American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 6/2/2012
Studies Feature New Targeted Therapies for Patients with Hard-to-Treat Cancers
CHICAGO – New studies highlighting treatment advances in platinum resistant ovarian cancer patients; promising results in a targeted immune therapy; survival trends among child and young adult leukemia patients; and analysis of patient preference for treatment in a clinical trial were released today at a press briefing at the 48th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
“These studies feature new targeted therapies that are extremely promising for patients with several hard-to-treat cancers,” said news briefing moderator Carol Aghajanian, MD, Chief of the Gynecologic Medical Oncology Service and a member of ASCO’s Cancer Communications Committee. “Today’s research highlights a new era of treatment for patients that is based on the unique biology of each type of cancer.”
Key study findings include:
Adding Bevacizumab to Chemotherapy for Platinum-Resistant Ovarian Cancer Improves Progression-Free Survival: A phase III randomized trial showed adding bevacizumab (Avastin) to standard chemotherapy doubled progression-free survival (PFS). This was the first phase III study to test the addition of bevacizumab to treatment for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.
Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Leukemia Patients Have Higher Rates of Relapse, Lower Survival than Younger Patients: A major phase III study of ALL treatment found adolescent and young adult patients (ages 16 to 30) with high risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia (HR-ALL) had poorer outcomes than younger patients (ages 1 to 15), with lower rates of both event-free survival and overall survival.
With Equivalent Therapies, Which One to Use? Innovative Study Asks the Patient About Preference for Kidney Cancer Drug: A randomized, double-blind study of patients with metastatic kidney cancer found the quality of life differences patients experienced between two FDA-approved therapies were enough to demonstrate a strong preference for one treatment over the other.
Promising Activity for New PD-1 Targeted Immune Therapy: Results from an early-stage study show treatment with the investigational drug BMS-936558 caused tumor shrinkage in up to a quarter of patients with advanced melanoma, kidney and non-small cell lung (NSCLC) cancers.
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