Vol. 20/No. 13

Investigators see potential in adding targeted therapy to dual immunotherapy for intermediate- and poor-risk patients with renal cell carcinoma. In the phase III COSMIC-313 trial, investigators aim to evaluate cabozantinib, nivolumab, and ipilimumab in patients with untreated advanced RCC.

Although heritable mutations have been implicated in cancer risk, the role that these abberations play in the development of malignancies with acquired mutations is a question that will require studies of large data sets of patients.

Higher doses of anthracyclines are associated with increased risk of breast cancer in women who survived childhood cancer, regardless of whether they have mutations that predispose them to cancer.

Emerging findings from the most expansive studies of tumor genomes ever conducted are building a case for integrating all aspects of germline and somatic mutations into the analytical paradigm as a logical next step for precision oncology.

The development of targeted therapies, including bevacizumab (Avastin) and 3 PARP inhibitors, is changing treatment paradigms for women with epithelial ovarian cancer.

Although diagnostic techniques have improved over the past several decades, cancers of unknown primary origin are a lingering feature of clinical practice, frustrating attempts to develop new protocols through molecularly driven strategies.

Although many labs study cancer as an all-or-nothing process, putting all metastable hybrid stages in the same bin, our laboratory at the University of Kentucky is exploring carcinogenesis as a continuum, from initiation through progression to maintenance. This approach has prompted us to focus on the role of epigenetics in cancer development.

From 2016 to 2018, there was an 8% increase in the number of community oncology practices consolidated into hospital systems, and this trend has many independent practices struggling to avoid the same fate. Two winning strategies are emerging to help practices remain independent.

Today, with the routine performance of single gene or germline panel testing, as well as a critical focus on prospective follow-up of individuals with incompletely understood germline variants, clinicians are developing an increasingly robust appreciation for the influence of an individual’s genetic background on the likelihood of developing specific malignancies or a group of malignant conditions.