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    In Metastatic Breast Cancer Treatment, Not All CDK Inhibitors Are Equal

    Emma Shtivelman, PhD

    Doctors prescribe drugs known as CDK inhibitors to treat some women with estrogen-receptor-positive (ER+) metastatic breast cancer. Research into these drugs is ongoing, and new, promising CDK inhibitor options are on the horizon. Here, I address the current outlook for CDK inhibitors in ER+ breast cancer. First, some background: ER+ breast cancers comprise about 70% of all breast cancers. The name reflects the fact… Read more »

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    War of the Checkpoint Inhibitors: Anti-PD-1 Drugs Move into First-Line Treatment in NSCLC

    Emma Shtivelman, PhD

    Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved two anti-PD-1 checkpoint inhibitors, a type of immunotherapy, for treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients whose cancer has progressed after first-line treatment with chemotherapy. Now, the manufacturers of both drugs, pembrolizumab (made by Merck) and nivolumab (made by Bristol-Myers Squibb; BMS) are intent on expanding the indications for use of their… Read more »

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    Melanoma: New Drugs and New Challenges (Part 2 of 2)

    Emma Shtivelman, PhD

    As always, the more new treatments become available in melanoma, the more new challenges arise. With eight new drugs approved for melanoma in the last five years, oncologists may sometimes face the difficult choice of what drugs to choose for a patient’s first-line treatment. Immune checkpoint drugs sometimes cause serious side effects, but progress is being made on how to treat these and also how to treat patients with pre-existing autoimmune conditions. New approaches are needed in efforts to prevent recurrence of melanomas diagnosed at earlier stages of disease progression.

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    Melanoma: New Drugs and New Challenges (Part 1 of 2)

    Emma Shtivelman, PhD

    New targeted and immunotherapy drugs have changed the diagnosis of metastatic melanoma from a death sentence into a disease that can potentially be managed and even cured. Nevertheless, these new drugs do not work in all patients, or they may stop working after a transient response. This post (part one of two) will describe ongoing efforts to find drug combinations with higher efficacy than single drugs and decipher the mechanisms underlying drug resistance.

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    New Research on Triple Negative Breast Cancer Emerges at ASCO 2016

    Emma Shtivelman, PhD

    The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting of 2016 is behind us, but oncologists, patients, and journalists are still analyzing the most interesting presentations made there. Below, we describe some of the more prominent results in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), both promising and disappointing.

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    New Treatments for Gastrointestinal Neuroendocrine Tumors

    Emma Shtivelman, PhD

    Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) of the digestive system (GI-NETs) can arise in different parts of the digestive tract…Two new treatments for GI-NETs recently received much attention at the 2016 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium held in San Francisco in January. Researchers at the symposium presented clinical trial results that demonstrated the benefits of these new drugs.

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    Putting Immune Checkpoint Blockade to the Test in Breast Cancer

    Emma Shtivelman, PhD

    About 10 months ago, we asked: is there a future for immunotherapy in breast cancer? Now, we can answer this question with a qualified “yes.” The data show why.

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    The Growing Arsenal of Immunotherapy Drugs for Melanoma

    Emma Shtivelman, PhD

    Large numbers of immune cells (T cells in particular) are frequently found within or adjacent to melanoma tumors, indicating that the tumors attract the attention—if not the action—of the immune system. True to its reputation as one of the most ‘immunogenic’ cancers, melanoma now has more U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved immunotherapy (immune system-targeting) drugs than any other cancer type.

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    New Promising Drugs for Small Cell Lung Cancer

    Emma Shtivelman, PhD

    Any type of advanced lung cancer is bad news, but a diagnosis of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is a particularly grim one to receive. About 30 years have passed since any new treatments for SCLC were developed, and patients’ responses to standard chemotherapy with etoposide and cisplatin are short-lived. Hopefully, this will change soon.

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    Finally: An Active Prostate Cancer Drug That Doesn’t Target Androgen

    Emma Shtivelman, PhD

    Most of the recent developments in prostate cancer treatment have addressed the timing and duration of androgen deprivation, who should receive radiation treatments, and the timing of the few available chemotherapy options. But this month’s big news is a welcome change: metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancers (mCRPCs) that harbor mutations in BRCA2 or one of a few other genes have a remarkable response to olaparib (Lynparza), a drug that inhibits the enzyme PARP1.