Importantly, without any prior knowledge from the analysis of tumor tissue, 76 % of «actionable» mutations (genetic changes that can be matched to
an approved targeted therapy or one being tested in clinical trials) detected in tissue were also detected in blood.
However, on page 1391 in this issue, Yun et al. (5) show that high doses of vitamin C selectively kill colorectal cancer cells carrying activating mutations in the oncogenes KRAS or BRAF, which are often refractory to
approved targeted therapies.
Professor Jean - Charles Soria, Chairman of the Drug Development Department at Gustave Roussy Cancer campus, France, will tell the Symposium: «Currently, there are
no approved targeted therapies for mutant EGFR lung cancer patients who develop the T790M mutation, which means their disease inevitably will get worse.
TNBC is the only type of breast cancer for which there are no currently
approved targeted therapies.
Not exact matches
No
targeted therapy has been
approved for noninflammatory and inflammatory triple - negative breast cancer tumors, and the standard of
therapy for these tumors is a combination of conventional cytotoxic chemotherapeutic agents.
«Rare genetic cause of peritoneal mesothelioma points to
targeted therapy: Genetic rearrangement in the ALK gene found in young women with mesothelioma may be targetable with FDA -
approved drugs.»
«Inhibiting mTOR signaling using everolimus, a
targeted therapy, known as a rapalog, for patients with lung and gastroenteropancreatic NETs, has been
approved by the FDA.
The researchers were able to reverse these epigenetic changes with the use of an FDA -
approved drug, forcing the cancer cells out of hiding and potentially making them better
targets for the same immune
therapy that in the past may have failed.
A drug
approved in Europe to treat osteoporosis has now been shown to stop the growth of breast cancer cells, even in cancers that have become resistant to current
targeted therapies, according to a Duke Cancer Institute study.
«By helping us understand that lower levels of RNF125 confer resistance to BRAF inhibitors, we have a new strategy to stratify patients for currently
approved therapy versus participation for human clinical trials to investigate whether
targeting JAK1 will be more effective in patients whose tumors exhibit reduced RNF125,» said Keith T. Flaherty, M.D., associate professor, Harvard Medical School, and director of Developmental Therapeutics, Cancer Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, and co-author of the study.
Luxturna is the first gene
therapy approved in the U.S. that
targets a disease caused by mutations in a specific gene.
Genomic alterations were reviewed by the Institute's molecular tumor board and recommendations for patient treatment options were made regarding genomically
targeted therapies either already
approved or used investigationally — including clinical trials.
The
targeted antibody bevacizumab (Avastin ®) is already
approved for ovarian cancer patients, and a number of immune - based
therapies are being investigated in early - phase clinical trials for patients with ovarian cancer.
Currently, immunotherapy is
approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat kidney cancer patients only after they've tried more traditional
therapies, such as
targeted therapies killing the cancer's blood supply.
Hopefully, there will be another regimen
approved which is a
targeted therapy, only for melanoma patients who have a BRAF mutation.
However, for the majority
targeted therapies in development — and their combinations with current standard
therapies — there are still no
approved diagnostic tools to determine which patients are most likely to benefit from or be resistant to these novel agents or drug combinations.
Several
targeted therapies have been
approved by the FDA for use in advanced kidney cancers, including the anti-VEGF antibody bevacizumab (Avastin ®), the cytokine aldesleukin (Proleukein ®), and the anti-PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor nivolumab.
It has been generally surmised that intralesional
therapies will be combined with the successful systemic immunotherapies — the checkpoint inhibitors or
targeted therapies already
approved or in development.
With the currently
approved FDA cancer therapeutics drugs, we are only
targeting the tip of the iceberg (85
targeted therapies for 105 gene products (1)-RRB- and with over 22,000 genes in our genome many genes are being neglected!
Although recently
approved therapies can increase progression - free survival by a few months, «we think this novel screening system has the potential to uncover new, more effective medications that could be
targeted more specifically at a patient's cancer,» Lengyel said.
In this regard, Roberts indicates that «In 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
approved the first race - specific drug, a heart failure
therapy that was
targeted to black patients for marketing reasons.»