Articles
I am very excited to announce our Third Annual Conquering the Cancer Care Continuum newsletter series. These publications will continue to address highly relevant topics in oncology management. The first issue focuses on current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) and includes articles written by a clinical oncology pharmacist, an oncology nurse practitioner, and a regulatory lawyer.
As a nurse practitioner and a researcher whose focus is on supportive care in cancer, many of my patients and their caregivers look to me for answers to their questions regarding over-the-counter (OTC) supplements and prescription drugs used to treat various disorders. Oftentimes, patients seek my opinion concerning appropriate OTC and prescription drugs for treating such conditions as peripheral neuropathy.
R is a 43-year-old man with a primary hepatocellular carcinoma. He was diagnosed 6 months ago with metastatic disease and today has been told that there are no remaining conventional treatment options available for the management of his cancer. To look at this patient is to see a young man who seems to be otherwise healthy, a man who continues to work full time, to travel, and to be an active husband and father.
Confusion over the rules governing drug compounding has been an issue for many years. However, concerns about the safety and quality of compounded sterile products (CSPs), spurred by an outbreak of fungal meningitis infections that occurred in October 2012, have led to a fundamental change in the regulatory framework.
The use of generic docetaxel instead of branded docetaxel appears to be associated with a significantly higher event rate of neutropenia, as well as increased healthcare costs, during the 6 months following drug initiation, according to a US Oncology Research study that compared resource utilization and costs.
Vaginal dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) may improve sexual function, without negative systemic effects, in women with breast and gynecologic cancer with vaginal and sexual-related complaints.
Almost 50% of patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) had objective responses to third-line treatment with the angiogenesis inhibitor pazopanib, according to the results from a small clinical trial reported at the 2014 American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting.
By Phoebe Starr
Preliminary results suggest that an investigational antibody-drug conjugate called DEDN6526A has activity against melanoma, including cutaneous, mucosal, and ocular melanoma, which is considered difficult to treat. The new drug comes on the heels of trastuzumab emtansine, the first antibody-drug conjugate approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of breast cancer. The conjugate links an antibody to a toxic chemotherapy that remains inactive until the antibody recognizes a protein on the surface of cancer cells and releases its toxic “payload” into the cancer cells.
By Phoebe Starr
Combination therapy with a BRAF inhibitor and an MEK inhibitor improves outcomes in advanced BRAF-positive melanoma, according to two phase 3 studies presented at the 2014 Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO). These studies support the hypothesis that inhibition of both BRAF and MEK will improve survival in melanoma by overcoming the mechanism of acquired resistance to vemurafenib, which is thought to be reactivation of cell growth through MEK.
The PARP inhibitor veliparib demonstrated activity in relapsed/refractory BRCA-mutated ovarian cancer, according to results from a phase 2 trial conducted by the Gynecologic Oncology Group.