Personalized Medicine

Articles about personalized medicine on Value-Based Cancer Care. Learn how to utilize a patient's unique genetic makeup and environment to customize the patient's medical care and treatment.
San Antonio, TX—The use of an investigational electronic scalp-cooling device in patients with breast cancer who had received alopecia-inducing chemotherapy resulted in reduced or no hair loss in 50% of the patients, according to results of a randomized clinical trial reported at the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. By contrast, no patient in the control group had hair preservation.
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San Antonio, TX—Neoadjuvant therapy with the investigative CDK4/CDK6 inhibitor abemaciclib, alone or in combination with anastrozole (Arimidex), showed promising activity in postmenopausal hormone receptor (HR)-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer enrolled in the phase 2 NeoMONARCH study. Correlative tissue studies demonstrated that abemaciclib inhibited cell-cycle proliferation and activated the immune system, supporting its anticancer activity. Abemaciclib received a breakthrough therapy designation in 2015 as monotherapy for the treatment of patients with refractory HR-positive advanced breast cancer in heavily pretreated patients.
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San Antonio, TX—The addition of the mTOR inhibitor everolimus (Afinitor) to the antiestrogen chemotherapy fulvestrant (Faslodex) led to a 2-fold increase in progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with advanced hormone receptor (HR)-positive breast cancer compared with fulvestrant alone, according to results of a randomized clinical trial presented at the 2016 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
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Washington, DC—Patient involvement in clinical trials will impact the Cancer Moonshot’s goal of achieving 10 years of progress in 5 years’ time, said Kim Thiboldeaux, Chief Executive Officer, Cancer Support Community, Washington, DC, at the Sixth Annual Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care.
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Washington, DC—Cancer is now recognized as a disease of the genome. The use of genomic assays and measurement of protein expression are permitting the use of personalized cancer therapy in the clinical setting on a scale not seen previously. In many cases, the use of these assays will also enhance the cost-effectiveness of cancer therapy, although the overall cost of cancer care may not decline as a result, said Gerald Messerschmidt, MD, FACP, Chief Medical Officer, Precision for Medicine, at the Sixth Annual Conference of the Association for Value­Based Cancer Care.
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Washington, DC—The Cancer Moonshot 2020 program is exploring a new paradigm in cancer care by bringing clinical trials focused on immunotherapy to community and academic practices. This privately funded initiative seeks to conduct phase 2 clinical trials within the next 36 months in 20,000 patients with >20 tumor types at all stages of cancer, said Gary Palmer, MD, JD, MPH, Chief Medical Officer, President, GPS Operations, NantHealth, Culver City, CA, at the Sixth Annual Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care.
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Washington, DC—Precision medicine is the optimal approach to the future of cancer care, but unless a new pricing model for innovative treatments is implemented, the cost of care will be the greatest barrier to effective treatment, said Maurie Markman, MD, President, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, and Clinical Professor of Medicine, Drexel University, Philadelphia, at the Sixth Annual Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care.
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Washington, DC—The oncology pipeline is bustling and shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon, said Anita Dopkosky, RPh, MS, Director, National Accounts, Walgreens, Pittsburgh, PA, at the Sixth Annual Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care. She provided an overview of key drugs in the oncology pipeline.
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San Francisco, CA—As a result of recent advances in therapy, indications for stem-cell transplant are expanding, along with the number of patients eligible for the procedure. However, the intense and cure-oriented nature of transplants can lead to various forms of distress in patients who undergo this treatment, said Christina K. Ullrich, MD, MPH, Pediatric Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, at the 2016 Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium.
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San Francisco, CA—In addition to being costly for public and private payers, hospital readmissions can lead to increased risk for complications, hospital-acquired infections, and psychological distress in patients with advanced cancer. Although preventing readmissions would improve patient outcomes and decrease healthcare costs, the underlying causes of rehospitalization are not completely understood, suggested Robin L. Whitney, RN, PhD, Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing, University of California, Davis, and colleagues in a poster presentation at the 2016 Palliative Care in Oncology Symposium.
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