June 2014

An early study presented at the 2014 AACR Annual Meeting showed promise for a new targeted therapy for acute myeloid leukemia

The 2nd Annual Giants of Cancer Careâ„¢ Awards were presented at a ceremony held on May 30 in Chicago. The event recognized 16 oncology heroes whose groundbreaking contributions to the field have improved the lives of patients with cancer.

Dacomitinib holds promise for the treatment of metastatic or recurrent squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN).

Preliminary evidence supports the use of bromodomain inhibitors in hematologic malignancies, including acute leukemia (mainly acute myelogenous leukemia) and other hematological malignancies, including diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and multiple myeloma.

Every patient with a rare but aggressive form of ovarian cancer had tumors with the same type of mutations, suggesting a causative role for the 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.

It may be possible to predict which men with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer will not respond to enzalutamide by using a simple blood test to detect the presence of AR-V7 in circulating tumor cells.

The measurement of response to anticancer therapy has evolved over the years as a result of better therapies and progress in imaging.

An MRI-guided focused ultrasound approach using heat to alleviate the pain commonly associated with bone metastases has proven to be safe and effective in a multi-center phase III clinical trial, yielding a 64% response rate.