ECCO/ESMO

Preliminary data from a phase 3 study show that panitumumab (Vectibix) added to standard FOLFOX chemotherapy as a first-line treatment for metastatic colorectal cancer significantly improves PFS in patients with wild-type KRAS.

Updated data from IES (Intergroup Exemestane Study) showed that sequencing therapy with tamoxifen followed by exemestane (Aromasin) prolonged disease-free survival and overall survival in postmenopausal women with early stage breast cancer.

Dr David Melisi, National Cancer Institute, Naples, Italy, and colleagues presented data at ECCO 15-ESMO 34 today identifying the transforming growth factor (TGF) beta-activated kinase-1 enzyme, known as TAK-1, as a possible target in pancreatic cancer.

The Austrian Breast and Colorectal Cancer Study Group (ABCSG) presented new data from the ABCSG-24 trial, which has been investigating adjuvant treatment with capecitabine (Xeloda) plus a standard chemotherapy regimen of epirubicin and docetaxel (Taxotere) in women with early stage breast cancer.

Developing targeted pharmacotherapies to personalize cancer care has become the mantra in oncology, and now a team of scientists from The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Canada has taken the first step toward targeting radiotherapy dosages to individual patients by assessing the genetic characteristics of individuals with hypersensitivity to radiation therapy.

Sorafenib (Nexavar) significantly improved progression-free survival in patients with breast cancer, according to the results of the SOLTI-0701 study presented at the ECCO 15 – ESMO 34 Joint Congress by José Baselga, MD, ESMO president and a member of the ECCO executive committee, and head of oncology, Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, Barcelona, Spain.

Approximately three quarters of funding for cancer research goes to biology research and drug development in Europe, and this concerns Professor Richard Sullivan, King’s Health Partners Integrated Cancer Centre in London and chairman of the European Cancer Research Managers Forum.

Prof Cuzick told an attentive audience at the ECCO 15-ESMO 34 Joint Congress that he believes new HPV vaccines on the horizon, which are effective against 9 strains of HPV, coupled with a shift to molecular HPV screening, could allow countries to eradicate cervical cancer within their borders.

Heating soft-tissue sarcomas during chemotherapy was associated with a significant reduction in the risk of recurrence and death, according to data presented by Professor Rolf Issels, professor of medical oncology, Klinikum Grosshadern Medical Center, University of Munich in Germany.

Many clinicians continue to puzzle over the best way to treat patients with ovarian cancer who relapse 6 to 12 months after treatment with a platinum-based chemotherapy regimen. These women are typically categorized as “partially” platinum-sensitive.

Dramatic results in patients with advanced metastatic melanoma were reported for a compound that blocks the BRAF mutation in melanoma, which occurs in about 50% of melanomas and about 8% of other solid tumors.

In a poster presented at the ECCO 15 - ESMO 34 Joint Congress, Arantza Fariña, MD, and colleagues from the PAMM Laboratory for Pathology and Catharina Hospital Eindhoven, the Netherlands, noted that stage III colon carcinoma patients with the BRAF V600E mutation had a significantly worse prognosis.

In a poster presented at the ECCO 15 – ESMO 34 Joint Congress, KM Mallath and colleagues from the Department of Digestive Diseases and Clinical Nutrition, Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai, India, noted that cancer pain is an important independent risk factor for poor performance status in newly diagnosed patients and significantly associated with malnutrition.

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Dr Peter A Kaufman, discussed the promising activity demonstrated by motesanib in a small phase 1b trial of women with locally recurrent, unresectable, or metastatic breast cancer.

A meta-analysis of four phase II and III trials confirmed the benefit found for cetuximab added to platinum-based chemotherapy in the first-line treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The findings were reported at the ECCO 15 - ESMO 34 Joint Congress by Jean-Louis Pujol, MD, of Montpellier Academic Hospital, Montpellier, France.

In a poster presented at the ECCO 15 – ESMO 34 Joint Congress, Dr B. Homet and colleagues from the Department of Medical Oncology, Hospital “12 de Octubre,” Madrid, Spain, outlined the results of a study sought to assess patient opinions on both oral and intravenous (IV) cancer treatments.

Motesanib diphosphate (AMG-706) is a novel compound that has demonstrated activity in a number of solid tumors, including gastrointestinal stromal tumors, lung cancer, thyroid cancer, and breast cancer.

The addition of panitumumab (Vectibix) to FOLFIRI (an irinotecan-based combination chemotherapy) prolonged progression-free survival and overall survival compared with FOLFIRI alone as second-line therapy for metastatic colorectal cancer in patients with wild-type KRAS.

In a press conference at ECCO 15-ESMO 34, Professor John Burn, Institute of Human Genetics, Newcastle University, United Kingdom, discussed follow-up results to a trial he and his colleagues conducted that investigated the effectiveness of ordinary aspirin in preventing colon cancer.

In what is being touted as a practice-changing study, Mieke Van Hemelrijck, a cancer epidemiologist at King’s College, London, and associates found that men with locally advanced or metastatic prostate cancer who receive hormone therapy have a much greater risk of developing cardiac problems.

Although an FDA Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee recommended in August against approving Amgen’s denosumab (Prolia) as a treatment to reduce bone complications in patients with advanced breast cancer, updated data presented today at ECCO/ESMO might elicit a different opinion from an ODAC panel, if convened.

In patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC), the oral multikinase inhibitor regorafenib (BAY 73-4506) produced disease regression or stabilization in 81% of patients in a phase II study presented at the ECCO 15 - ESMO 34 Joint Congress.

According to the results of two studies presented at the ECCO 15 – ESMO 34 Joint Congress in Berlin, Germany, two new blood tests may eventually help clinicians screen for and diagnose gastrointestinal and colorectal cancers earlier.

Jetske Ruiterkamp, surgical resident, Jeroen Bosch Hospital, of The Netherlands and colleagues presented findings from a retrospective study that compared the rate of 5-year overall survival and reduction in the risk of death in women with stage IV breast cancer who underwent resection of their tumor compared with those who did not.

In men deemed at high risk for developing prostate cancer, the dual 5α-reductase inhibitor dutasteride reduced the risk of biopsy-detectable prostate cancer across multiple subgroups by 16% to 32%, according to a subgroup analysis of the REDUCE trial (Reduction by DUtasteride of prostate Cancer Events) presented at the ECCO 15 - ESMO 34 Joint Congress.

In a Scientific Symposium at ECCO/ESMO, researchers from the Netherlands Cancer Institute, Department of Molecular Carcinogenesis; Academic Medical Center, Department of Pathology; and MD Anderson Cancer Center, Department of Systems Biology, discussed the PI3K pathway as a factor in poor response or resistance to HER2-inhibitors such as trastuzumab (Herceptin).

Gefitinib, an oral tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI), is highly effective in patients with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who harbor mutations of the EGFR gene (mEGFR), as demonstrated by a pooled analysis of four phase III studies and a separate phase III study presented at the ECCO 15 – ESMO 34 Joint Congress.

The ECCO 15 - ESMO 34 Multidisciplinary Congress opened on Sunday, September 20, 2009, at the Internationales Congress Centrum (ICC) Berlin.