May 19, 2016
May 2016, Vol. 5, No. 4
Serving All on the Oncology Care Team
Dear Colleague,Over the past decade, we’ve experienced tremendous changes in the way we care for and treat patients with cancer. From research targets to available treatments; from management strategies to the very makeup of the multidisciplinary team. The publishers of Personalized Medicine in Oncology (PMO) recognize that to provide the [ Read More ]
Letter to Our ReadersOncology Nurse Navigators: A Growing Trend in Oncology Practices Proving to Play a Critical Role in Patient Care
An Interview with Lillie D. Shockney, RN, BS, MAS, of Johns Hopkins University
The terms “nurse navigator,” “patient navigator,” and “lay navigator” are slowly becoming part of the vernacular in oncology circles. In turn, nurse navigation is evolving into its own distinct field within oncology nursing. The goal of a nurse navigator is to successfully navigate patients through the maze of their oncology [ Read More ]
Melanoma: A New Frontier in Personalized Medicine
The standard of care for patients with advanced-stage melanoma has shifted from empiric treatment with chemotherapy that has low response rates to targeted therapy with response rates that are substantially higher, and immunotherapy, which has shown the most durable disease control. Chemotherapy is not intrinsically able to differentiate between tumor [ Read More ]
MelanomaPatient and Provider Readiness for Personalized Medicine
Personalized medicine has turned a corner, generating attention and excitement in both the general public and the healthcare community. In January 2015, President Barack Obama unveiled a Precision Medicine Initiative in a new effort to revolutionize how we treat disease and improve health, providing funding to support research, development, and [ Read More ]
Perspectives on Personalized Medicine“Newer” Ovarian Cancer Genes and Option of Risk-Reducing Salpingo-Oophorectomy
The ability to analyze multiple genes at the same time has led to the estimate that 20% to 25% of women with ovarian cancer have an inherited mutation in a cancer-predisposing gene.1 Although this association has been noted for a while, until recently there were not enough data available to [ Read More ]
Genetic CounselingAn Update on CancerLinQ—ASCO’s “Big-Data” Cancer Database
CancerLinQ is a powerful database containing vast amounts of usable, searchable, real-world cancer information, created by oncologists, for oncologists, to improve the quality of patient care. A national initiative inspired and informed by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), CancerLinQ was designed to contribute to high-quality, personalized cancer care [ Read More ]
2016 ASCO Quality Care SymposiumImmunotherapy Takes Center Stage in NCCN Advanced Melanoma Guideline
The revised guideline (Version 2.2016) for the management of advanced melanoma, released by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), shows increasing appreciation for the use of immune checkpoint inhibitors and targeted agents, as more data establish these drug classes as having superior efficacy to traditional chemotherapy. “We’ve seen the approval [ Read More ]
National Comprehensive Cancer NetworkNew MM Guideline Expands Patients Eligible for Treatment
The population of patients with multiple myeloma (MM) who are eligible for therapy has been expanded to asymptomatic patients with certain features under the most recent National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guideline (Version 3.2016). Also, among 7 new drug approvals in 2015 with indications for the treatment of MM, new [ Read More ]
National Comprehensive Cancer NetworkPanel Examines Effects of Healthcare Policy in an Election Year
The chances for further policy in healthcare during an election year are minimal, said panelists during a roundtable discussion at the National Comprehensive Cancer Network 21st Annual Conference. The exception may be the Medicare Part B demonstration project for provider reimbursement for infused and injected drugs. Moderators of the panel [ Read More ]
National Comprehensive Cancer NetworkTest for EGFR Mutation in All Patients with NSCLC
Matching Treatment to Molecular Alteration Yields Best Outcomes
Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are the mainstay of treatment for patients with EGFR mutation–positive non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to the most recent guideline on management of NSCLC issued by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN). Version 4.2016 of the guideline recommends EGFR testing as part of broader molecular [ Read More ]
National Comprehensive Cancer NetworkGenomic Instability Score Predicts Survival in Ovarian Cancer
A higher score on a composite index of homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) correlated with improved progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) in ovarian cancer treated with platinum-containing chemotherapy, results of a tissue-based validation study showed. An HRD score that met or exceeded the predefined threshold reduced the hazard ratio [ Read More ]
Society of Gynecologic OncologyMutation Testing Encouraged for All Ovarian Cancer Patients
All women with ovarian cancer should have the option of genetic testing, regardless of tumor histology, investigators in a retrospective, tissue-based analysis of a randomized trial concluded. Tumors with defects in homologous recombination (HR)-BRCA1/2 or otherwise-had as much as a 9-month advantage in progression-free survival (PFS) and as much as [ Read More ]
Society of Gynecologic OncologyImmunotherapy: Separating Facts from Fiction
Response is a poor outcome measure of immunotherapy, according to Tanguy Seiwert, MD, who addressed this and other concerning issues in immunotherapy at the 2016 Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer Symposium. “The impact of immunotherapy, at least for PD-1 [programmed death-1] checkpoint blockade, is primarily on survival,” he said. “Response [ Read More ]
Multidisciplinary Head and Neck Cancer SymposiumBiden’s “Moonshot”
Vice President Joe Biden closed the 2016 American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting in New Orleans by telling the audience what he had learned since his son, Beau, had been diagnosed with glioblastoma some 5 years ago. To cure cancer, he said, or in his words, “to make a [ Read More ]
The Last Word