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SAN FRANCISCOThe ability of cancer cells to evolve clonally into molecularly distinct strands needs to be considered when selecting targeted therapies to treat renal cancer, according to Dr Tom Powles MBBS, MRCP, MD speaking at the ASCO GU Cancers Symposium here. Dr Tomasz Beer, MD FACP from Oregon Health & Science University in Portland acknowledged that heterogeneity was also a barrier to prostate cancer treatment but he felt it would be overcome in this and other genitourinary cancers by using combination targeted therapies just as HIV-AIDS was being beaten by multi-drug approaches. CONTACT: Dr. Tom Powles MBBS, MRCP, MD Barts…

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NEW ORLEANSHigh remission rates with extended survival are being achieved in patients who had failed all other therapies including allogeneic stem cell transplantation for their acute lymphoblastic leukemia and otherwise had very short life expectancies. Stephan A Grupp, MD, PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and his colleague Michael Kalos PhD discussed their findings from a study presented here of T-cells engineered with a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) targeting CD19 (CTL019) which they found to have significant in vivo proliferation, produce complete responses and had long-term persistence without graft versus host disease in children and adults with relapsed, refractory disease.…

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LONDON Researchers have shown that endometrial cancer and hopefully ovarian cancer too could potentially be detected much earlier than at present or even prevented altogether by looking for silencing by DNA methylation of the HAND2 gene: an epigenetic process which is not inherited but imposed by the environment to cause cancer. In a study reported in PLoS Medicine (http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001551) using animal models and tissue samples from patients at University College London Hospital data are presented which promise an era of more individualised therapy thanks to a more complete understanding of the full picture of gene control over cancer which includes…

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SAN FRANCISCONew research has shown the alpha-emitting drug radium 233 to be a benign therapy with no major toxicities while effectively targeting bone metastatic disease and increasing overall survival in patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer whether or not they had received docetaxel therapy. At the ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium Professor Sten Nilsson MD, PhD, a medical oncologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm presented results from the phase III ALSYMPCA study looking at 1.5 year follow up of patients treated with radium compared to those receiving placebo. He discussed his results with AudioMedica.com and assesses the clinical role of this…

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SAN FRANCISCO The orally administered androgen receptor blocker enzalutamide significantly extended both overall survival and radiographically determined progression-free survival in men whose metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer was asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic and had not been treated with chemotherapy in the phase III PREVAIL study. Dr Tomasz Beer MD, FACP, from Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, USA, presented his groups findings to the 2014 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium from 1717 patients randomised to treatment with enzalutamide or placebo. Overall survival was extended by over two months to a median of 32.4 months while progression free survival went up from…

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NEW ORLEANSA new oral tyrosine kinase inhibitor drug idelalisib has proved effective and to have low toxicity in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL). Richard Furman MD from Weill Cornell Medical College in New York announced findings at the American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting of a phase III, double blind, placebo-controlled study randomising patients to have idelalisib or placebo added to their rituximab treatment. He discussed the clinical implications with AudioMedica.com of the extension of both progression-free and overall survival among patients receiving the new agent in comparison with placebo. Jennifer Brown MD PhD, Director of the Chronic Lymphocytic…

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The rare, fatal lympho-proliferative condition: Multicentric Castleman’s Disease MCD could soon be treatable following findings announced at the American Society of Hematology annual meeting in New Orleans. Dr. Raymond S Wong MD, PhD who is a hematology consultant at the Prince of Wales Hospital and The Chinese University of Hong Kong presented data from a multi-national randomized placebo controlled phase 2 study with 79 patients showing remissions in patients treated with the anti-interleukin-6 monoclonal antibody siltuximab. Dr. Wong and Dr. Joseph Mikhael MD, Consultant Hematologist at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale Arizona (speaking on behalf of the American Society or…

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WASHINGTON DCA new type of immunotherapy has brought responses in children with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in relapse who had no other options to prevent the progress of this fatal phase of the disease. At the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting Dr Daniel W. Lee from the Pediatric Oncology Branch of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, presented findings from his groups study using chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, which involves removing T cells from the child, stimulating and genetically engineering them before re-infusing them in a primed state to fight the cancer. He discusses his findings and…

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CAMBRIDGE, UKA new blood test promises quicker assessment of treatment efficacy in patients with metastatic breast cancer. Dr Dana Tsui and colleagues from the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, University of Cambridge, report in the New England Journal of Medicine that circulating tumour DNA is a more powerful marker of breast cancer progression than using blood tests for cancer cells or antigens, and raises the possibility of screening the effectiveness of drugs in days rather than months needed to wait for a change in radiological appearance.

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ORLANDO, FLORIDAA decision to delay surgery or radiotherapy for early prostate cancer is in the best interests of most patients according to research presented to the 2013 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium by Dr Andrew Loblaw from the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. His groups research has found that the rate of migration of Gleason grade representing disease progression was gradual: accounting for no more than a third of patients developing a form of the disease requiring treatment within ten years. The remaining patients can be spared the side effects of treatment.

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ORLANDO, FLORIDAPatients with low-risk prostate cancer are more likely to die with their disease than of it, according to Dr Ayal Aizer from the Brigham and Womens Hospital, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard University in Boston MA a merit-award winner at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) and the Society of Urologic Oncology (SUO) 2013 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium. Treatment with surgery or radiotherapy, he noted, adds toxicity with the potential to do harm without bringing any additional mortality benefit, for the majority of these patients.

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In this presentation from “Lymphoma and Myeloma 2015: An International Congress on Hematologic Malignancies”, Dr. Angela Dispenzieri discusses who should be classified as having smoldering myeloma and when is the correct time to treat it.A continuing education program is offered as a supplement to this webcast at the following location:http://elc.imedex.com/ELC/Activity-Search.aspx?search=LM2015EP© 2015 Imedex, LLC.

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