ASCO 2015 Highlights

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), the most common type of leukemia in adults, is a cancer that predominantly affects the B-cell lymphocytes.

Toronto, Ontario—BRAF protein expression is correlated with melanoma progression and poor patient survival, according to recent studies that were reviewed at the 2014 Canadian Dermatology Association annual conference.

Los Angeles, CA—Comparative effectiveness research (CER) can be beneficial to determining value in cancer therapies, but challenges remain in applying this approach in oncology.

Los Angeles, CA—Payers are scrambling to devise effective strategies to cope with rapidly changing access to quality cancer care as a result of escalating costs. At the Fourth Annual Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care, John Fox, MD, MHA, Associate Vice President of Medical Affairs at Priority Health, Grand Rapids, MI, tackled changing access and payer challenges in oncology.

Los Angeles, CA—Much remains to be done to usher in the era of personalized healthcare, including better methods of drug development, said presenters at the Fourth Annual Conference of the Association for Value-Based Cancer Care.

The FDA approved the first anti–programmed death receptor-1 (PD-1) therapy, pembrolizumab (Keytruda; Merck), for patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma and disease progression after treatment with other melanoma therapy, such as ipilimumab, or, for a patient with BRAF V600 mutation, after BRAF inhibitor therapy.