Precision Medicine in Oncology®

The treatment landscape for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is poised to undergo dramatic changes, as novel immunotherapies, second-generation targeted therapies, and new maintenance strategies continue to show promise in clinical trials.

Eli L. Diamond, MD, neurologist, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the results of an analysis that examined the detection of BRAF mutations in urine and plasma cell-free DNA in patients with Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis(LCH) and Erdheim-Chester Disease (ECD) who have a BRAFV600E mutation

Although oncology researchers seek to describe the significance of clinical trial outcomes with scientific rigor, the terminology used to communicate those findings in the peer-reviewed literature sometimes falls short in conveying the impact that a given therapy may have on patients in a real-world scenario.

Dorothy M. K. Keefe, MD, FRACP, past president, MASCC, director, SA Cancer Service, professor of cancer medicine, University of Adelaide, Australia, discusses the role of supportive care in personalized medicine.

Essentially all members of the medical community, including the most "generalist" family practice physicians, are being required to understand and incorporate into their daily practice an ever-increasing quantity of information related to the broad realm of molecular medicine

Susan Galbraith, MD, PhD, head, Oncology Innovative Medicine, AstraZeneca, discusses the development of AZD9291 for lung cancer.

Marc Peeters, MD, PhD, department of oncology, Antwerp University Hospital, Antwerpen, Belgium, discusses the frequency of S492R mutations found in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer patients who were treated with panitumumab or cetuximab monotherapy.

Haralambos Raftopoulos, MD, associate professor, Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine, discusses pulmonary toxicity with EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs).

The FDA's Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee voted 11-2 against the accelerated approval of the PARP inhibitor olaparib as a maintenance therapy for women with platinum-sensitive relapsed ovarian cancer with germline BRCA mutations.

Genetic testing limited to BRCA1/2 mutations would have missed 29% of mutations that carry hereditary risk of ovarian cancer, a study using next-generation sequencing showed.

One-quarter of patients with relapsed or refractory BRCA-mutant ovarian cancer attained major objective responses to treatment with the investigational PARP inhibitor veliparib.

Lecia V. Sequist, MD, medical oncologist, associate professor, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, discusses the efficacy of CO-1686 for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer.

When Franco Muggia, MD, was a freshly minted oncologist 50 years ago, his new colleagues warned him not to waste much time learning about a drug like fluorouracil.