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With proton beam therapy centers proliferating in the United States, particularly for use in treating prostate cancer (see April 2008 ONI, page 1), the debate is heating up over the need for randomized clinical trials comparing proton beam therapy with conventional x-ray (photon) therapy in prostate and other cancers.

The recently opened Institute of Cancer “Octavio Frias de Oliveira,” in Brazil’s capital of São Paulo, is a state institution that will care for cancer patients from São Paulo as well as neighboring states, according to information provided by ONI Editorial Advisory Board member Paulo Hoff, MD, of The Medical School of the University of São Paulo.

ATLANTA-In a phase I/II randomized trial, a novel leukemia vaccine, PR1 peptide, produced immune responses that correlated with a longer event-free survival.

V. Craig Jordan, OBE, PhD, DSc, widely known as “The Father of Tamoxifen,” collects the artifacts of war: guns and swords and medals (see photographs).

ATLANTA-Treatment with imatinib (Gleevec) plus high-dose chemotherapy significantly improved 2-year event-free survival in children with Ph+ acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

AROUND TOWNDouglas W. Blayney, MD, professor of internal medicine, University of Michigan School of Medicine, and medical director of the school’s Comprehensive Cancer Center, is the new ASCO president-elect. In addition, four news members were elected to the ASCO Board of Directors beginning in June 2008: Bruce E. Johnson, MD, and Sandra Swain, MD (undesignated specialty); Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD (surgical oncologist); and Robert Langdon, Jr., MD (community oncologist). Mary-Claire King, PhD, who serves as the American Cancer Society Research Professor of Medicine and Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, will receive ASCO’s Science of Oncology Award for her work on the genomic localization of the BRCA1 gene.Patricia A. Ganz, MD, professor of health services and medicine, UCLA, and director of the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control Research at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, will receive the American Cancer Society Award at the ASCO annual meeting. She will present a lecture on improving outcomes for cancer survivors.Nancy E. Davidson, MD, professor of oncology and breast cancer research chair in oncology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, was honored with the 11th Annual AACR-Women in Cancer Research-Charlotte Friend Memorial Lectureship at the recent AACR annual meeting, for her accomplishments in translational cancer science, including pivotal discoveries regarding the epigenetic regulation of estrogen receptors.John Mendelsohn, MD, president of The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, was awarded AACR’s Dorothy P. Landon Prize for his pioneering translational research on targeting signal transduction mediated by tyrosine kinases that led to the development of C225 (cetuximab).The Stanford University School of Medicine has received a $43.58 million grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, toward funding a new building that will house stem cell research on campus, to be called Stanford Institutes of Medicine 1 (SIM1). Irving Weissman, MD, director of Stanford University’s Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine Institute, said that “SIM1 will bring together a group of scientists interested in all aspects of stem cell biology and cancer stem cell research.”

Many women with a faulty breast cancer gene could be at greater risk of the disease due to extra risk-amplifying genes, according to research published recently in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Integrative oncology, the synthesis of gold-standard care and evidence-based complementary modalities, deals not only with the patient’s tumor, but also with her physical and emotional needs and with the relevant cultural, scientific, and policy issues. This synthesis was one of Marty Abeloff’s main professional goals.

To better engage our readership on the economic, policy, and practice issues affecting the oncology community, we have updated our editorial and changed our name, bringing more value-added content to the pages of Cancer Care Practice & Policy (CCP&P).

SAN DIEGO-A novel compound, KXO1 (KX2-391) that targets Src family kinases (SFK) inhibited the growth of many cancer cell types in culture and inhibited the growth of human colon cancer cells in animal models, Irwin H. Gelman, PhD, reported at AACR 2008 (abstract 4983).

A new study using x-ray crystallography has shown that the investigational agent matuzumab binds to EGFR at a different site than cetuximab (Erbitux).

Researchers at Dana-Farber have found that normal myoepithelial cells, which form part of the lining of the milk ducts, suppress fibroblasts that promote tumor growth and invasion, but when certain genes in the myoepithelial layer become under- or overactive, the layer breaks down and disappears, enabling tumor cells to spread.

GENEVA-A free online database brings together data on all of the known somatic mutations in EGFR, coupled with data on the response of NSCLCs treated with tyrosine kinase inhibitors, Samuel Murray, PhD, of Metropolitan Hospital, Athens, Greece, reported at the 1st European Lung Cancer Conference (abstract 750).

Young people who live in towns where regulations ban smoking in restaurants may be less likely to become established smokers, Michael Siegel, MD, MPH, of Boston University School of Public Health, and colleagues reported (Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 162:477-483, 2008).

LUGANO, Switzerland-The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and the European Cancer Organisation (ECCO) (Brussels) have united forces to host a co-branded biennial multidisciplinary partnership meeting to provide “the best and most updated scientific data for everyone working in cancer,” the two organizations announced in a press release.

ORLANDO­-“Unresectable” colorectal cancer liver metastases may actually be resectable with a two-stage hepatectomy approach, Rene Adam, MD, PhD, of the Hospital Paul Brousse, Villejuif, France, said at the 2008 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium (abstract 283).

ORLANDO-In a subset of patients with colorectal liver metastases, a pathologic complete response can be achieved with preoperative chemotherapy, rendering “uncommonly high” disease-free and overall survival rates, French investigators reported at the 2008 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium (abstract 333).

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts-Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has initiated a multicenter phase IIa clinical trial of Azedra (Ultratrace iobenguane I-131 or Ultratrace MIBG) for the treatment of children with high-risk neuroblastoma.

IRVINE, California-NuRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has dosed the first patient in a single-center phase I clinical trial of its first-in-class rexinoid receptor (RXR) agonist NRX4204.

A new meta-analysis showing an increased mortality risk with ESAs, combined with new laboratory data on the mechanisms of ESA toxicity, may cause clinicians, and FDA, to re-think their use.

This update, of patients with 11 months or greater follow-up, showed a complete hematologic response in 77% of patients receiving nilotinib, with a major cytogenetic response in 57.

With this issue, regular readers of Oncology News International will notice a new look to the publication. We’ve introduced a new design that we believe is cleaner, more functional, and more appealing to the eye than what we’ve used in the past.

ORLANDO-In newly diagnosed, early chronic phase, Ph+ chronic myelogenous leukemia, nilotinib (Tasigna) quickly induced complete cytogenetic responses and was well tolerated, Jorge Cortes, MD, of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, said at ASH 2007 (abstract 29).

In a landmark trial, DFMO plus sulindac reduced the risk of advanced adenomas by 92% in high-risk patients, with low toxicity.

In high-grade malignant glioma patients, functional diffusion maps showed tumor response to radiation therapy at 3 weeks after treatment initiation, compared with 10 weeks for traditional volumetric assessment of radiological response.

Putting fertility issues on the back burner should no longer be an option for oncologists who treat young adult cancer patients, especially as newer fertility preservation options become available, a number of reproductive medicine specialists told ONI.

The media played up the finding that colonoscopy may be missing so-called flat polyps, but a number of CT colonography experts interviewed by ONI see no need for panic.

A recent study in elderly breast cancer patients that linked earlier-stage disease, and possibly improved survival, with regular screening mammography is “fatally flawed” and “naïve,” according to some cancer screening experts.

SAN DIEGO-Presentations at AACR 2008 highlighted two new agents under development by Amgen with potential for use in treating colorectal cancer.