May 19, 2016
December 2013, Vol 2, No 8
Happy Holidays From the PMO Editorial Board
Dear Colleague, As we close out another year, we would like to thank you, our Personalized Medicine in Oncology reading community, for your support, encouragement, and loyal readership. We have relied on your guidance throughout our 2-year tenure to put forth the best possible journal addressing personalized medicine in all [ Read More ]
Predicting Response to EGFR-Targeting mAbs in Colorectal Cancer – Is the KRAS Mutation Test Sufficient?
Dr Finnberg is an Assistant Professor at Penn State Hershey Cancer Institute. He received his PhD degree from Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, and has worked extensively to characterize the role of apoptosis in tissue toxicity to conventional and targeted cancer therapeutics. Dr Finnberg’s current research focuses on understanding tissue [ Read More ]
Colorectal CancerPersonalized Medicine and the Biopharmaceutical Industry: The Marrying of Science, Research, and Policy
An Interview With Dr William Chin of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America
Dr Chin is an internist and endocrinologist who spent much of his early career studying the molecular mechanisms of hormonal control of gene expression. After 25 years in academia, including positions as investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Chief, Division of Genetics [ Read More ]
Interview with the InnovatorsTAILORx: A Trial Design Toward Our Goal of Personalized Medicine
Dr Janakiram is a postdoctoral fellow in immunology and breast cancer at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He completed his oncology fellowship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center and his internal medicine residency at Case Western Reserve University. His research interests include investigating and role of [ Read More ]
Breast CancerCase Study: Lower-Risk Myelodysplastic Syndromes
At the 2013 conference of the Global Biomarkers Consortium, which took place October 4-6, 2013, in Boston, Massachusetts, Rami Komrokji, MD, from the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Tampa, Florida, discussed the use of personalizing therapy in the management of myelodysplastic syndromes. Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are a [ Read More ]
You Also Can’t Keep Your Doctor.
I had great cancer doctors and health insurance. My plan was cancelled. Now I worry how long I’ll live. Everyone now is clamoring about Affordable Care Act winners and losers. I am one of the losers. My grievance is not political; all my energies are directed to enjoying life and [ Read More ]
EditorialObamaCare 2016: Happy Yet? The website problems were finally solved. But the doctor shortage is a nightmare
Three years after the disastrous launch of the Affordable Care Act, most of the website troubles finally have been ironed out. People are now able to log on to the government’s ACA website and to most of the state health-insurance exchanges. The public has grudgingly come to accept higher insurance [ Read More ]
EditorialMPDL3280A in Advanced NSCLC
For the first time, a therapy – the antibody MPDLÂ3280A (Genentech) – for non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has achieved responses in both smokers and nonsmokers, including responses in tumors with squamous and adenocarcinoma histology. These results of a phase 1 study in patients with metastatic NSCLC were so encouraging [ Read More ]
Second-Generation ALK Inhibitor Regresses CNS Metastasis in NSCLC
A novel ALK/EGFR inhibitor – AP26113 (ARIAD Pharmaceuticals) – achieved good responses in crizotinib-resistant and crizotinib-naive patients with non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and achieved radiographic regression of central nervous system (CNS) metastases in these patients. These results from the first-in-human phase 1/2 dose-finding study of AP26113 were presented by [ Read More ]
T-DM1 Prolongs Survival in Advanced HER2-Positive Breast Cancer
The antibody-conjugate T-DM1 (Kadcyla, Genentech) prolonged progression-free survival (PFS) in advanced HER2-positive breast cancer in a heavily pretreated population, according to final results from the phase 3 TH3RESA trial. The study included cancer that progressed on 2 or more previous HER2-directed therapies (trastuzumab and lapatinib). TH3RESA extended the results of [ Read More ]
Genomics of Acute Myeloid Leukemia Explored
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “We are at the end of the beginning” of the era of clinical genomics in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), said Richard M. Stone, MD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute/Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA. Stone updated listeners on this topic at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) 8th [ Read More ]
Idelalisib and Ibrutinib Are Promising B-Cell Receptor Signaling Inhibitors in B-Cell Malignancies
Targeted therapy to the B-cell receptor (BCR) signaling is paying off in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and other B-cell lymphomas. Two novel agents – the PI3K inhibitor idelalisib and the Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor ibrutinib – show great promise for these malignancies. These drugs have been studied in phase [ Read More ]
Preserving Personalized Medicine – Holding Fast to Healthcare’s Governing Dynamics
What do we say at the end of this contentious year in healthcare, when government, the least of healthcare’s 3 siblings – clinical, business, and government – pushed its brethren aside and demanded to lead the parade? To be certain, the “dynamic tension” between our healthcare’s sectors historically has been [ Read More ]
The Last Word