October 2012, Vol 3, No 7

Houston, TX—Despite much talk about biomarkers and a field that is exploding, only a few biomarkers can be reliably and routinely used to improve patient care at this time, according to Peter G. Ellis, MD, Deputy Director of Clinical Services, Associate Chief Medical Officer, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Cancer Centers.

Vienna, Austria—The updated analyses of 2 major studies of drugs that were recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) confirm the benefits of trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) in patients with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer and of regorafenib (Stivarga) in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).

Vienna, Austria—In the first head-to-head phase 3 clinical trial, the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitor crizotinib (Xalkori) proved more effective than standard chemotherapy with pemetrexed (Alimta) or docetaxel (Taxotere) as a second-line treatment for patients with non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and the ALK genetic abnormality.