March 2016 News Recap

April 4, 2016

In case you missed it, check out our March recap featuring some of the latest in clinical trial news, a new indication for Afinitor, how genetics affect prognosis, and more.

Tweeting May Increase Cancer Clinical Trial Enrollment: A new study is suggesting that Twitter may be an important untapped resource to increase enrollment in cancer clinical trials. Investigators at the University of Pennsylvania suggest in a new research letter in JAMA Oncology that Twitter has the potential to promote much needed trial recruitment. Read more.

Metastasis-on-a-Chip Could Improve Personalized Cancer Care: Researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine are hoping to help advance the war against cancer with a new system called, “metastasis-on-a-chip.” In the journal Biotechnology and Bioengineering, the team published a study suggesting that this system may have advantages over animal and 2-D cell culture models employed in metastasis research and drug discovery. Read more.

Neutralizing Intratumoral pH May Improve Responses to Immunotherapy: Neutralizing intratumoral pH may help improve responses to immunotherapy and improve outcomes with current targeted therapies, according to a study published March 15, 2016, in the journal Cancer Research. Read more.

ASCO Launches Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry Trial: The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) on March 14, 2016, announced it has begun recruiting patients with advanced cancer for its first-ever clinical trial, the Targeted Agent and Profiling Utilization Registry (TAPUR) study. Read more.

FDA Approves Ibrutinib as First-Line CLL Treatment: The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved ibrutinib (Imbruvica) for initial treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), the first chemotherapy-free treatment option approved by the agency for first-line CLL patients. Read more.

Genomic Differences Might Explain Kidney Cancer Disparity in African Americans: Targeted therapies have offered striking improvements in survival rates among white patients who are diagnosed with clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) in recent years, but survival rates for African Americans have not budged, according to a recent study published in JAMA Oncology. Read more.

New Indication Approved for Nonfunctional GI and Lung Neuroendocrine Tumors: The US Food and Drug Administration has approved everolimus (Afinitor®) for use in the treatment of adult patients who have been diagnosed with locally-advanced or metastatic progressive, well-differentiated, nonfunctional neuroendocrine tumors primary to the gastrointestinal tract or lung. Read more.