Articles

Ipilimumab—added in a phased regimen to paclitaxel and carboplatin chemotherapy—increased progressionfree survival (PFS) and immune-related PFS in a randomized, double-blind, international, phase 2 study of previously untreated adult patients with non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

In a single-arm, phase 2 study, inotuzumab ozogamicin, a CD22 monoclonal antibody conjugate, showed potential utility as a monotherapy that may improve the often poor prognosis for patients with refractory or relapsed acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL; Kantarjian H, et al. Lancet Oncol. 2012;13:403-411).

Current reimbursement policies for cancer chemotherapies do not ensure that the value and cost of therapies are commensurate with outcomes.

Assessments of the value of cancer therapies have been based on the assumption that stakeholders care most about average or median gain in survival or quality-adjusted survival.

Two of the largest diagnostic imaging centers in the country—Insight Imaging in California and Centers for Diagnostic Imaging (CDI) in Minneapolis—have announced that they are merging forces.

At the 2012 annual meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, researchers presented new results for the radioisotope therapy radium-223 chloride, suggesting that these results represent a new treatment protocol for patients with advanced prostate cancer that has spread to the bone.

A study funded by the National Cancer Institute, the National Institutes of Health, a Theodore N. Law Endowment for Scientific Achievement, and a Dodie P. Hawn Fellowship in Cancer Genetics Research surprisingly showed that the presence of normal p53, a tumor suppressor gene and not the mutated gene, was making chemotherapy with doxorubicin less effective in breast cancer; it is the mutated gene that actually enhances the benefit of the drug and not the reverse.

The FDA has reversed its long-standing policy regarding breast cancer trials that could greatly reduce the time and cost of new drug development for early-stage breast cancer.

The recent trend in drug development of shifting away from one-size-fits-all cancer medications to targeted therapies, which is the key to personalized medicine, points to the value of and monetary benefits of developing drugs that target the molecular levels of cancer cells.

The FDA has added new safety information to the label and medication guide for lenalidomide (Revlimid; Celgene), noting that lenalidomide maintenance treatment in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma is associated with an increased risk for developing new primary malignancies.