Oncology & Biotech News

Patients with locally advanced head and neck cancer gained no survival benefit with the addition of cetuximab to chemoradiation.

Patients with anthracycline-treated sarcomas had a 3-fold improvement in PFS with antiangiogenic agent pazopanib versus placebo.

An exploratory analysis of the phase III EMBRACE trial of eribulin mesylate in metastatic breast cancer found the survival benefit and toxicity profile to be independent of age.

Patients with metastatic soft-tissue sarcoma had statistically significant improvement in PFS when treated with mTOR inhibitor ridaforolimus.

Patients with operable gastric cancer had significant improvement in DFS with adjuvant capecitabine plus Xelox following definitive surgery.

PFS improved significantly in patients with EGFR-mutated advanced NSCLC treated first line with erlotinib versus platinum-based chemotherapy.

The use of denosumab to prevent SREs in men with mCRPC has questionable cost-effectiveness as compared with zoledronic acid.

Add-on therapy with an inhibitor of the MET signaling pathway significantly improved PFS and OS in patients with MET-positive NSCLC confirmed by immunohistochemistry.

Women with recurrent platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer had a 50% improvement in PFS when bevacizumab was added to chemotherapy and continued as maintenance therapy.

In patients with metastatic melanoma, the BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib led to high objective response rates and durable treatment responses.

Population stratification refers to differences in allele frequencies between cases and controls, resulting from systematic differences in ancestry, as opposed to associations between genes and disease.

Results of a phase II trial showed that former smokers had significant regression of endobronchial dysplasia when treated with iloprost.

Investigators in a large cohort study reported that heavy alcohol consumption, particularly beer, significantly increases the risk of gastric cancer.

Patients with basal cell carcinoma had an eightfold decrease in lesion area when treated with GDC-0449

A search for potential chemopreventive agents for prostate cancer uncovered an unlikely candidate in digoxin, one of the oldest drugs for cardiovascular disorders

Long-term use of talc-based powder significantly increased the risk of invasive ovarian cancer in a large case-control study

Investigators in a cooperative group trial reported that modifications in a chemoradiation regimen for locally advanced vulvar cancer boosted both clinical and pathologic complete response rates

The results of a small clinical trial showed that low-level expression of a microRNA correlated with improved progression-free survival

Results of a phase II cooperative-group trial showed that the targeted agent cetuximab demonstrated minimal activity in patients with advanced, platinum-resistant cervical cancer