May 1st 2024
The combination of pembrolizumab, trastuzumab, and chemotherapy showed significant improvement in overall survival vs placebo in patients with HER2-positive advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma.
Community Practice Connections™: Real-World Applications of Novel Therapies Across TNBC and Addressing Disparities in Care
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6th Annual Precision Medicine Symposium: An Illustrated Tumor Board
October 18-19, 2024
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Advances in TNBC: Communicating with Your Patients About Clinical Trial Awareness and Treatment Concerns to Improve Clinical Outcomes
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Community Practice Connections™: 5th Annual Precision Medicine Symposium – An Illustrated Tumor Board
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41st Annual CFS®: Innovative Cancer Therapy for Tomorrow
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Sequencing Therapy in Patients With Resectable Pancreatic Cancer Under Investigation
April 9th 2020In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Vincent Picozzi, MD, discussed the findings that were presented at the 2020 GI Cancers Symposium for patients with pancreatic cancer and how the results could impact the treatment of this patient population. He also highlighted observations from other pancreatic cancer clinical trials and the evolution of the GI cancer landscape as a whole.
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FDA Grants Pembrolizumab Priority Review for TMB-High Tumors
April 7th 2020The FDA has accepted and granted a priority review to a supplemental Biologics License Application for pembrolizumab for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients with unresectable or metastatic solid tumors with tissue tumor mutational burden-high who have progressed following prior treatment and who have no satisfactory alternative treatment options.
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Pembrolizumab Meets PFS Milestone for Patients with MSI-H/dMMR mCRC
April 6th 2020Pembrolizumab demonstrated an improvement in progression-free survival in the first-line treatment of patients with microsatellite instability-high or mismatch repair deficient unresectable or metastatic colorectal cancer, meeting one of the primary end points of the phase III KEYNOTE-177 trial.
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Pembrolizumab Leads to Promising Outcomes in Advanced ASCC
April 6th 2020Pembrolizumab demonstrated positive activity in patients with previously treated advanced anal squamous cell carcinoma, regardless of PD-L1 expression, according to the results of the KEYNOTE-158 trial presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.
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New Homologous Recombination Deficiency Findings in Pancreatic Cancer Alter Treatment Focus
April 3rd 2020PARP inhibitors following platinum-based chemotherapy as well as immunotherapy combinations have shown early signs of efficacy in metastatic pancreatic cancer with homologous recombination deficiency, according to data presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, held January 23 to 25 in San Francisco, California.
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In the neoadjuvant setting, physicians treating resectable pancreatic cancer have more treatment options than ever before. Recently, however, the routine use of radiotherapy has been called into question, leading to a debate at the 5th Annual School of Gastrointestinal Oncology, hosted by Physicians’ Education Resource, LLC.
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Multidisciplinary Treatment Strategies for Well-Differentiation Neuroendocrine Tumors
April 1st 2020In an interview with <em>Targeted Oncology</em> at the 5th Annual School of Gastrointestinal Oncology, Jonathan Strosberg, MD explained the importance of having multidisciplinary teams when treating patients with neuroendocrine tumors.
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Chemotherapy Toxicity Correlates With Nutritional Factors in Solid Tumors
March 30th 2020An association was found between a lower risk of grade 3 or higher chemotherapy toxicity with higher body mass indexes and normal albumin, a protein made in the liver, levels in older adult patients with solid tumors, according to an analysis of a prospective, multicenter study.
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COVID-19 Presents an Opportunity for Precision Medicine to Play Expanded Role in Care
March 30th 2020A sudden surge in the cases of COVID-19 due to pandemic, along with efforts to contain it, has led to multiple challenges that no country has experienced in the last several decades. The global pandemic from COVID-19 poses a unique set of challenges not only for patients with cancer who need their treatment, but also for caregivers, oncologists, and the overall care team.
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Cetuximab Plus Chemotherapy Worsens Survival in Resectable Colorectal Liver Metastases
March 24th 2020Despite demonstrating improvement in overall survival as treatment of patients with advanced inoperable metastatic colorectal cancer, cetuximab plus chemotherapy led to significantly worse survival for patients with operable colorectal liver metastases in the perioperative setting, according to findings from randomized phase III clinical trial.
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South Carolina Oncology Practice Continues Cautious Operation Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic
March 23rd 2020In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Kashyap Patel, MD, discussed the COVID-19 pandemic and the implementation of new precautions in his practice as the number of COVID-19 infected persons rises in the state.<br />
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Benefit of PARP Inhibitors May Extend to Certain Tumors With IDH Mutations
March 21st 2020Patients harboring IDH1/2 muta­tions may receive benefit by the use of PARP inhibitors, with investigators initi­ating clinical trials in patients across multiple different tumor types to determine the efficacy of this strategy.
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Pembrolizumab Monotherapy Elicits Responses in Patients With Advanced Rare Cancers
March 20th 2020Treatment with pembrolizumab demonstrated antitumor activity along with tolerable toxicity in patients with 4 different rare and hard-to-treat malignancies, according to results from a phase II study led by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center researchers and published in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer.
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Bevacizumab Biosimilar Under Review by FDA
March 9th 2020The FDA has accepted a Biologics License Application for MYL-1402O, a proposed biosimilar to bevacizumab, according to a press release from co-developers Biocon and Mylan. The BLA is seeking approval for the biosimilar as a treatment for multiple types of cancer and the FDA has set an action date goal of December 27, 2020, for a decision on the BLA.
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A Look Back at FDA News from February 2020
March 4th 2020In February 2020, the FDA gave indications to multiple therapies meant for treatment of solid tumor and hematologic malignancies. FDA action included 10 Priority Reviews, 2 Breakthrough Therapy designations, and 2 Fast Track designations.
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FDA Grants Priority Review to Ripretinib for Treatment of Advanced GIST
February 13th 2020The FDA has granted Priority Review to the New Drug Application for ripretinib as treatment of patients with advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumors. This potential FDA approval has a Prescription Drug User Fee Act target action date of August 13, 2020, according to a press release from Deciphera Pharmaceuticals, Inc.<br />
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FDA Extends Decision Date on Avapritinib in Fourth-Line GIST by 3 Months
February 7th 2020The FDA has extended the Prescription Drug User Fee Act date by 3 months for the new drug application of avapritinib from February 14, 2020, to May 14, 2020, the manufacturer, Blueprint Medicines Corporation, announced in a news release. The NDA was seeking accelerated approval for the kinase inhibitor for the treatment of adults with fourth-line gastrointestinal stromal tumors.
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Doctors Debate: Should the Screening Age for Colonoscopy Be Reduced in Average-Risk Patients?
February 5th 2020The incidence of colorectal cancer is rising among people who are below 50 years of age, the colonoscopy screening age as recommended by the United States Preventive Service Task Force of the National Cancer Institute. To date, there is no research that can explain the rise which has led physicians to deliberation on whether the recommended screening age for colonoscopies should be lowered or left as is. During a debate at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium, Uri Ladabaum, MD, and David S. Weinberg, MD, MSc, presented their stances on the topic.
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Trastuzumab Plus Pertuzumab Added to Standard Therapy Found to Be Feasible in Esophageal Cancer
February 2nd 2020A new phase II study of trastuzumab and pertuzumab added to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy followed by surgery in patients with esophageal adenocarcinoma has found the combined regimen to be feasible and worthy of further study.
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Trastuzumab Deruxtecan Shows Preliminary Activity in HER2-Positive Gastric/GEJ Cancer
January 29th 2020The HER2-targeted antibody-drug conjugate trastuzumab deruxtecan demonstrated promising activity and manageable safety profile in patients with HER2-positive gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancer, meeting the primary end point of the study, according to a press release.
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Regorafenib Plus TAS-102 Demonstrates Clinically Meaningful Disease Control in mCRC
January 27th 2020The combination of regorafenib plus an oral fluoropyrimidine, TAS-102, as third-line treatment in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, achieved a clinically meaningful disease control rate in the phase I dose-escalation trial REMETY, according to data presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.
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Microsatellite Instability Serves as a Predictive Biomarker of Response to Pembrolizumab
January 26th 2020Joseph Chao, MD, discusses the importance of assessing the microsatellite instability (MSI) status in patients with advanced gastric/gastroesophageal junction cancer based on findings from a comparative analysis of KEYNOTE-059, KEYNOTE-061, and KEYNOTE-062.
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Adding Dietary Supplements to Treatment Impacts Outcomes in Unresectable Pancreatic Cancer
January 25th 2020In an interview with Targeted Oncology, Vincent Chung, MD, discussed the findings from the pilot trial evaluating the addition of dietary supplements to combination chemotherapy in patients with unresectable pancreatic cancer. He also highlighted the importance of these findings and the next steps necessary to evaluate the role of supplements in pancreatic cancer further.
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Durable Responses Achieved With Triplet Combination in Gastric Cancer
January 25th 2020Promising antitumor activity with durable responses were demonstrated with the combination of nivolumab and ramucirumab plus paclitaxel in a phase II study of patients with advanced gastric cancer, which wsa presented at the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium. Among patients treated with the combination, the objective response rate was 37.2%, and all responders had a partial response.
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Pembrolizumab Improves OS in Patients With High PD-L1 Gastric Cancers
January 24th 2020Overall survival was meaningfully improved with treatment of pembrolizumab in first and later lines for patients with advanced gastric/gastroesophageal junction cancer with a high number of PD-L1–expressing cells in the tumor, lymphocytes, and macrophages compared with chemotherapy.
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Confirmed Responses in Patients With NTRK+ GI Cancers Are Reported
January 24th 2020A subset of patients with GI cancers harboring <em>NTRK</em> gene fusions had positive responses to selective TRK inhibition with larotrectinib, confirming efficacy of the agent in this group. The results of the confirmatory trial were recently reported the 2020 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.
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Adjuvant Durvalumab Strategy in Locally Advanced Esophageal GEJ Adenocarcinoma
January 24th 2020Hirva Mamdani, MD, explains the rationale for conducting a safety and efficacy study of durvalumab in patients following multimodality therapy for locally advanced esophageal and gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma.
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Devimistat Combination Evaluated in Early Clinical Trial for Patients With Billiary Tract Cancer
January 24th 2020A phase Ib/II clinical trial of the experimental anti-mitochondrial drug devimistat in combination with cisplatin and gemcitabine has been initiated in patients with biliary tract cancer, according to a press release from Rafael Pharmaceuticals, Inc. The company will collaborate with Michigan Medicine to proceed with the randomized multicenter clinical trial.
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