Precision Medicine in Oncology®

New research is carving out a role for ipilimumab and a second CTLA-4-targeting drug, tremelimumab, as combination therapy with potential in a variety of solid tumors. In addition to combinations with other immune checkpoint inhibitors, the agents are being evaluated across a breadth of other strategies.

Despite advances, the majority of patients receiving targeted therapies do not experience radiographic responses, and nearly all patients who initially benefit develop resistance in less than two years.

Researchers at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center are personalizing treatment using tumor xenografts in mice to test and identify more precise treatments for bladder cancer patients.

The European Commission has granted a conditional marketing authorization to osimertinib for patients with locally advanced or metastatic EGFR T790M mutation-positive non–small cell lung cancer, regardless of prior treatment with EGFR TKI.

Ingrid A. Mayer, MD, co-leader and Clinical Director, Breast Cancer Research Program Chair, Data and Safety Monitoring Committee, Associate Professor of Medicine (Hematology/Oncology), medical oncologist, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, discusses the use of targeted therapies in estrogen-receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer.

Expression of the apoptosis regulator protein BIM could help predict response to PD-1 blockade in patients with melanoma.

PD-1 and PD-L1 inhibition offers the possibility for precision immuno-oncology through the application of biomarkers that predict the immune systems response. This principle has been demonstrated by two of the most recent FDA approvals for patients with lung cancer.

The identification of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 tumor suppressor genes and the recognition that inherited loss of function (deleterious) mutations in one of these important genes places women at high risk for the development of breast, ovarian, and other cancers are major advances in women’s health research.

With technological advancements in genome sequencing, researchers are now gaining a more detailed picture of the genetic drivers of cervical cancer and the important role that the human papillomavirus, responsible for the vast majority of cervical cancer cases, plays in molding the genetic profile of this disease.