April 2014

In an interview with Targeted Therapies, Wierda discussed new treatments for CLL, including issues in translating these regimens into clinical practice.

Amid advances in targeted therapies for patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), researchers also have been making strides in the realm of chemoimmunotherapy regimens for the disease.

Despite initial clinical benefit of erlotinib and geftinib, overall efficacy of these agents is limited by emergence of drug-resistance mutations, including the gatekeeper T790M mutation.

Advanced gastric cancer and gastroesophageal junction cancers are highly aggressive cancers with poor prognosis and limited treatment options. The VEGF pathway has been one of the key signaling pathways under investigation for these cancers.

A new generation of agents that target androgen synthesis and AR signaling have provided proof of concept and robust data to support the hypothesis that the androgen pathway remains an important factor throughout the treatment of CRPC.

Targeted Oncology spoke about progress in the treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer with breast cancer expert, Sunil Verma, MD, MSEd, FRCPC.

Increasing efficacy with cancer vaccines, oncolytic viruses, and checkpoint inhibitors in clinical trials led to immunotherapy, as a whole, being deemed Breakthrough of the Year by Science magazine in 2013.

The RAS-RAF-MEK-extracellular signal–regulated kinase 1 and 2 (ERK1/2) pathway is the most mutated pathway in human cancer. Thus, components of this pathway have been seen as promising targets for cancer therapy.