American Society of Clinical Oncology: Standard Therapy plus Oxaliplatin for the Treatment of Colorectal Cancer

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Clinical cancerSpeaker: Norman Wolmark, MD, Chairman and Professor, Department of Human Oncology, Drexel University College of Medicine and Allegheny Cancer Center, and Chairman of the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project.

The addition of oxaliplatin (Eloxatin®, Sanofi-Aventis) to standard fluorouracil (5-FU) (Efudex®, Roche)/leucovorin (LV) (Wellcovorin®, Immunex) therapy (FULV) significantly improved three-year disease-free survival in patients with early-stage colorectal cancer, markedly reducing the risk of disease recurrence by 21%.

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American Society of Clinical Oncology: Oblimersen Sodium for Advanced Malignant Melanoma

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Speaker: John Kirkwood, Professor of Medicine and Director, the Melanoma Program, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Long-term follow-up results for a minimum of 24 months demonstrated that adding oblimersen sodium (Genasense®, Genta), also called Bcl-2 antisense, to dacarbazine (DTIC-Dome®, Bayer)—the only chemotherapy agent approved for the treatment of advanced melanoma—achieved a significant increase in “durable” responses (lasting longer than six months) and a near-significant trend toward increased survival, when compared with dacarbazine alone in patients with this cancer.

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American Society of Clinical Oncology: Zolendronic Acid and Bone Mass in Women with Breast Cancer

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Speaker: Adam Brufsky, MD, PhD, Co-Director, Magee Women’s Hospital/University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, Comprehensive Breast Cancer Center, and Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

“Up-front” zolendronic acid (Zometa®, Novartis), an intravenous (IV) bisphosphonate, when given with adjuvant letrozole (Generic Femara, Novartis) therapy, was able to inhibit bone loss in postmenopausal women with early breast cancer. At 12 months, bone mineral density (BMD) was significantly increased in patients receiving this regimen, compared with patients who received the aromatase inhibitor letrozole canadian and delayed zolendronic acid.

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American Society of Clinical Oncology

Posted by James

Clinical OncologyAnastrozole in Localized Breast Cancer

Speaker: David Cella, PhD, Director of Center on Outcomes, Research and Education (CORE), Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, and Professor, Northwestern University Medical School, Evanston, Illinois.

A five-year quality-of-life (QOL) follow-up study of adjuvant endocrine therapy for postmenopausal women with early breast cancer in the Arimidex or Tamoxifen Alone or in Combination (ATAC) trial demonstrated the superiority of anastrozole (Arimidex drug, AstraZeneca) over tamoxifen (Generic Nolvadex, AstraZeneca) without a detrimental impact on overall QOL. Findings were reported in the ATAC Completed Treatment Analysis (CTA).

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42nd Annual Meeting: High-Risk Cytogenetic Abnormalities Respond to Alemtuzumab in Patients with B-Cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

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Cytogenetic Abnormalities RespondHigh-Risk Cytogenetic Abnormalities Respond to Alemtuzumab in Patients with B-Cell Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia

Presenter: Anna Dmoszynska, MD, Professor, Department of Hematology, Medical University of Lublin, Lublin, Poland

A cytogenetic profile of the patients participating in a large-scale clinical trial comparing alemtuzumab (Campath, Berlex/ Genzyme) with chlorambucil (Leukeran, GlaxoSmithKline) in previously untreated patients with progressive B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) demonstrated statistically superior overall response rates and complete response rates to alemtuzumab in patients with certain poor prognostic cyto-genetic abnormalities compared with patients treated with chlorambucil. This drug looks promising as a novel, more effective therapeutic option for patients with poor-risk B-CLL.

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42nd Annual Meeting: Sunitinib Superior to Interferon-a in Metastatic Kidney Cancer

Posted by James

Speaker: Robert J. Motzer, MD, Attending Physician, Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York

Sunitinib maleate (Sutent, Pfizer), an oral tyrosine kinase inhibitor that targets a number of kinase enzymes (including vascular endothelial growth factor receptor [VEGFR]), demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in progression­free survival and objective response rate when compared with interferon-a (Roferon, Roche) as first-line therapy in patients with metastatic renal cell cancer (MRCC).

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42nd Annual Meeting: Cetuximab plus FOLFOX 6 Beneficial as First-Line Therapy in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer

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Speaker: Shaker Dakhil, MD, President, The Cancer Center of Kansas, Wichita, Kansas

Preliminary results from a phase 2 study suggest that the combination of cetuximab (Erbitux, Bristol-Myers Squibb/ ImClone), an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) targeting monoclonal antibody, with FOLFOX 6 (Oxaliplatin [Eloxatin, Sanofi-Aventis]), when added to simplified bimonthly leucovorin (Leucovorin, Roxane) and a 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) regimen, was safe and effective as a first-line therapy in EGRF-positive patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

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    So Many Advances in Medicine, So Many Yet to Come