Clinical

There are multiple factors that can affect how patients respond to treatment or how their health is maintained. One that is gaining more attention is how social interactions can benefit a person’s health.

Social interaction during chemotherapy treatments can positively influence a cancer patient’s health through improving patient outcomes and patient survival rates.

A poster session at the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting presented the trial details of IRONCLAD, a randomized phase 3 study of ibrutinib versus no consolidation following autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation for activated-B-cell subtype relapsed diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

In a late-breaking abstract at the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, researchers presented an interim analysis of a randomized phase 2 trial of second- or third-line nivolumab, with or without ipilimumab, in patients with second- or third-line malignant pleural mesothelioma.

The International Duration Evaluation of Adjuvant chemotherapy (IDEA) collaboration found evidence to support the noninferiority of 3 versus 6 months oxaliplatin-based adjuvant therapy for capecitabine plus oxaliplatin for patients with stage III colon cancer.

The FDA recently approved Vosevi-a fixed-dose combination tablet containing FDA-approved sofosbuvir and velpatasvir, and a new drug, voxilaprevi-to treat adults with the hepatitis C virus who do not have cirrhosis (liver disease).

The majority of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) do not receive positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy despite its effectiveness in reducing hospitalizations, according to research.

Report notes that 74% of drugs that are currently in development are potentially first-in-class medicines, and 822 drugs in development are for rare diseases.

According to findings from a 63-center international study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, complete lymph node excision may not be essential for improved outcomes in melanoma.

An interim analysis of two phase 2 trials, reported in a poster session at the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting, has found that trabectedin and lurinectedin demonstrated remarkable activity as single agents in BRCA2-associated metastatic breast cancer.

A late-breaking abstract at the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting reported a significant effect on overall and failure-free survival from the addition of abiraterone at the start of androgen deprivation therapy in men with high-risk prostate cancer.

A late-breaking abstract at the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting showed that alectinib demonstrates efficacy and favorable tolerability compared with crizotinib in the primary results of the global phase 3 ALEX study in patients with treatment-naïve advanced anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-positive non—small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

ARCHER 1050, the first phase 3 head-to-head study of epithelial growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibition, has produced results that demonstrate statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement with dacomitinib compared with gefitinib (Iressa) as first-line therapy for non—small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with EGFR-activating mutations.

An early stage international clinical trial is actively enrolling patients with relapsed, advanced or metastatic non—small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) to evaluate response to a combination of atezolizumab and daratumumab, according to a study at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology that detailed the trial design.

Managing heavily pretreated, often less fit, patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma is a challenge in routine practice, as illustrated by the fact progression-free survival remains short, although daratumumab-based combination therapies are proven effective, according to results presented during a poster session at the 2017 American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting.

A phase 1 study, presented at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, found that using daratumumab, an antibody that binds and inhibits the CD38 receptor, can improve patient response to treatment.

Updated trial results at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology showed the combinations of daratumumab with either lenalidomide and dexamethasone or bortezomib and dexamethasone prolonged progression-free survival for patients with relapsed refractory multiple myeloma.

Legislators and Congress need to be pressured to achieve more price transparency in order to manage the high costs on insulin says Alan Carter, PharmD, principal investigator and senior advisor at MRIGlobal, and adjunct faculty at University of Missouri­—Kansas City School of Pharmacy.

New research suggests that a high fat diet could reduce the bacteria of the gut and, therefore, fight against the harmful inflammation that Crohn’s disease patients experience.

Ideally, researchers determining the clinical and economic effects of a new treatment would have both short-term and long-term data, explained Steve Pearson, MD, MSc, president of the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review. If not all of this data is available, however, they may have to use surrogate outcomes or perform indirect comparisons.

The comittee voted 17-0 in favor of the Amgen/Allergan bevacizumab biosimilar candidate, ABP 215, and 16-0 in favor of Mylan’s trastuzumab biosimilar candidate, MYL-1401O.

A new vaccine may be able to reduce low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and, therefore, protect people against the risk of cardiovascular disease.

According to Eda Cengiz, MD, MHS, FAAP, associate professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine, diabetes management technology is just beginning and can have a positive impact on the daily lives of diabetes patients.

CTL019 was unanimously approved by FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) for the treatment of children and young adults with relapsed or refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

An analysis of whole-genome sequencing (WGS) in healthy adults in the primary care setting found that 1 in 5 had a previously unrecognized variant associated with a rare disease, according to a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Payers acknowledge obesity as a public health issue and are working to establish offerings that align with USPSTF recommendations in order to treat and prevent obesity, says Jenny Bogard, MPH, director of healthcare strategies at the Alliance for a Healthier Generation.

Novartis’ chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapy for treating pediatric leukemia is on the cusp of being the first FDA-approved gene therapy, which will lead to new developments and utilizations of CAR-T therapy for treating other advanced blood cancers.