Onco Actu du 8 février 2016

	2.5 Etiologie - Gènes
Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer [Now@NEJM] Data are presented to assist in deciding what operation should be performed and when it should occur. A new Review Article summarizes.
	3.1 Tabac
Do e-cigarettes make it harder to stop smoking? [BBC News] "I am concerned at the huge damage this publication may have - many more smokers may continue smoking and die if they take from this piece of work that all evidence suggests e-cigarettes do not help you quit smoking; that is not the case."
	3.8 Prévention - Alimentation
Public back ban on children’s junk food advertising [Cancer Research UK] “We want the Government to ban junk food adverts on TV before the 9pm watershed, put a tax on sugary drinks and enforce targets for reducing the amount of fat and sugar in food. Reducing obesity rates could save the NHS billions of pounds. And, ultimately, we owe it to future generations to reduce preventable disease caused by being overweight and obese.”
	4. Dépistage, diagnostic et pronostic
Single-lesion biopsy may be insufficient to identify resistance mutations for targeted therapy selection [Massachusetts General Hospital] “We found that the molecular mechanism of resistance that emerges in one metastatic lesion while on a given therapy can be totally different from the mechanism driving resistance in a neighboring lesion in the same patient.”
	4.10 Dép., diag. & prono. - FDA, EMA, NICE,...
FDA Issues Draft Guidance Regarding Interoperable Medical Devices [FDA Law Blog] The draft guidance addresses design and premarket issues related to the interoperability of devices, which it defines as the “ability of two or more products, technologies or systems to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged.”
	4.12 Biopsies liquides
NIH researchers identify striking genomic signature shared by five types of cancer [National Institutes of Health [NIH)] In this new study, they developed a series of steps that uncovered telltale methylation marks in colon, lung, breast, stomach and endometrial cancers. They showed that all the tumor types and subtypes consistently produced the same methylation mark around ZNF154.
Blood test to spot five deadly cancers could prevent thousands of deaths [The Telegraph] The team are currently looking at how early a tumour could be picked up in the blood. “The earliest stage of tumor detection is currently under investigation,” added Dr Elnitski. “Detection upon formation may not be the ultimate goal as the body has natural defenses to fight tumors in their earliest stages.”
	5. Traitements
Umbilical blood cells kill cancer quicker than adult cells [New Scientist] “We thought the baby cells were much tamer,” says team member Paul Veys of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London. “The assumption has been that they won’t fight but it’s the complete reverse,” he says.
	5.2.3 Pharma - économie
OncoGenex slashes 27% of its payroll as its pipeline promise fades [FierceBiotech] The treatment, custirsen, is in the midst of two Phase III trials in prostate and lung cancers.
Drug Industry Launches Ad Campaign Aimed at Lawmakers [Wall Street Journal] The sector’s largest trade group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, says it intends to spend several million dollars this year, and 10% more than in 2015, on digital, radio and print ads that emphasize the industry’s role in developing new drugs and advancing medical science.
	6. Lutte contre les cancers
Dana-Farber to study ways to reduce overtreatment of DCIS [Dana-Farber Cancer Institute] Patients participating in the trial will be randomly assigned to either a standard care group, who will choose between currently recommended treatment options including surgery and radiation, or a surveillance group that will be monitored closely, with surgery or radiation only upon progression of disease.
	6.1 Observation
Persistent Neuropathy Increases Fall Risk among Cancer Survivors [National Cancer Institute] The problems with physical functioning were associated with a substantial increase in the women’s risk for injurious falls.
	6.10 Politiques
UK Health Secretary sets out £4.2 billion ‘digital NHS’ vision [Pharmafile] While full details of the funding are yet to be decided by the Department of Health and NHS England, it is believed some £1.8 billion has been earmarked for the creation of the paperless healthcare service, an additional £1 billion to invest in digital security and data consent, and £750 million to upgrade out-of-hospital care and medicines, and to digitise social and urgent/emergency care services.
	6.4 Médico-éco
Five Things You Should Know About the Oncology Care Model [The OBR Blog] The goal of this payment model is to promote care delivery at the lowest cost, in the most medically-appropriate setting.
	6.6 Publications
Three Not-So-Reproducible Papers [In the Pipeline] While I’m glad to see these, and also very glad to see the F1000 site that gives these a home, these don’t seem to have as big an impact as one could have expected.
Amgen continues their cherry picking on “reproducibility” agenda [Drugmonkey] Nature announces breathlessly that Biotech giant publishes failures to confirm high-profile science. Awesome. Right? Well, they published three of them, anyway. Three. Out of fifty-three alleged attempts. Are you freaking kidding me Nature?
	6.7 DMP, Big Data & applis
The challenge of saving lives with 'big data' [BBC News] Every day, more data about our lives is being generated than ever before. When it comes to saving lives, the bigger the data the better - but what to do with it all?
Opinion: Give Up Your Data to Cure Disease [NY Times] Medical research is making progress every day, but the next step depends less on scientists and doctors than it does on the public. Each of us has the potential to be part of tomorrow’s cures.
	6.8 Communication
Can we cure our insatiable need for medical miracles? [HealthNewsReview] But what if these preliminary results and testimonials turn out to be wrong? Couldn’t the hype cause harm in that case? Let’s recall that hematopoietic stem cell transplantation doesn’t have such a benign history – it was advocated in the early 1990’s for treatment of metastatic breast cancer.
	6.9 Controverses
‘I am a medical specialist with advanced cancer’: the difficult discussion we need to have on assisting dying [Croakey] Many thanks to Dr Ian McPhee for permission to cross-post his article on death and dying, written from his very powerful perspective as an anaesthetist and clinical senior lecturer at Sydney Medical School who, 18 months ago, was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive T-cell lymphoma.