August 2013

In the mid-1970s, more than half of the patients diagnosed with cancer in the United States failed to survive five years. Today, that picture has changed dramatically.

An updated analysis of the results of a phase III clinical trial showed that radium-223 dichloride (Xofigo) significantly improved overall survival and delayed time to the first skeletal-related event in patients with metastatic prostate cancer.

The federal sequester trims Medicare payments for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy in doctors' offices in an effort to save the government money. Instead, it will end up costing more in the long run, according to the president of ASCO.

Puma Biotechnology is a Los Angeles-based development stage biopharmaceutical company that has spent the last couple of years focused on the development of its lead drug candidate, neratinib (PB272).

Until recently, the cornerstone of therapy for metastatic melanoma had been chemotherapy with dacarbazine (DTIC) and immunotherapy with high-dose interleukin-2 (HD IL-2) or interferon-α (IFN-α).

A multisite, randomized, double-blind trial evaluating the fatigue-ameliorating properties of American ginseng in cancer patients and recent survivors has found the herb to be helpful in reducing some aspects of CRF, with the benefit strongest among patients currently in treatment.

Sunnyvale, California-based Pharmacyclics has yet to lay claim to any FDA-approved therapeutics since it was formally incorporated in 1991, but that may very well change in the near future as a first-in-class drug for certain B-cell malignancies is proving quite effective in clinical trials.

The first and largest national clinical study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of an IGF-1R antibody and an mTOR inhibitor in combination therapy for a range of sarcomas has achieved its primary endpoint of improvement in progression-free survival at 12 weeks in patients with bone and soft-tissue sarcomas.

Only Time Will Tell the Far-Reaching Societal Implications of the Supreme Court's BRCA 1/2 Ruling

Over the past several years, several new approaches to treatment have prolonged and improved quality of life for patients with metastases.