Onco Actu du 17 juillet 2017

	2. Etiologie
Rogue chromosome may be behind new contagious cancer striking Tasmanian devils [Science] A second cancer has recently popped up in southeastern Tasmania—and it may reveal the Achilles’ heel that allows these cancers to develop, researchers reported here last week at the annual meeting of the Society for Molecular Biology & Evolution.
	2.6 Etiologie - Environnement
Does the World’s Top Weed Killer Cause Cancer? Trump’s EPA Will Decide [Bloomberg] Roundup has revolutionized farming. Now, human health and Bayer’s $66 billion deal for Monsanto depend on an honest appraisal of its safety.
	3.1 Tabac
Inside Philip Morris’ campaign to subvert the global anti-smoking treaty [Reuters] The world’s largest publicly traded tobacco company is deploying its vast resources against international efforts to reduce smoking. Internal documents uncovered by Reuters reveal details of the secret operation.
The Guardian view on big tobacco: stop the spread [The Guardian] Companies like British American Tobacco are using the same tactics they used in the global north to delay legislation in the global south.
Tobacco Gets More Screen Time in Blockbuster Movies, Study Shows [NY Times] “There is an enormous need to implement an industrywide standard by requiring that all movies rated for kids are smoke-free.”
Tobacco companies tighten hold on Washington under Trump [The Guardian] Top White House figures – including the vice-president and health secretary – have deep ties to an industry whose donations began pouring in on day one.
	3.8 Prévention - Alimentation
Coffee & sleep stories mostly miss the association ≠ causation emphasis [HealthNewsReview] An editorial accompanying the published results of the studies in the Annals stated that the protective qualities of coffee was “biologically plausible” but “the association of coffee intake with mortality, however, was modest and sensitive to confounding.” In other words, other things may account for the statistical association. Cause and effect was not established.
	4.7 Dép., diag. & prono. - Col de l'utérus
Accidental effect of fewer Pap screenings: more cases of undiagnosed chlamydia [STAT] The finding represents the challenge public health officials face in striking a balance between harms and benefits of disease screenings — some of which extend far beyond the condition actually being tested for.
	4.9 Dép., diag. & prono. - Sein
MammaPrint Test Addressed in ASCO Breast Cancer Guideline Update [ASCO] This focused update was initiated following the 2016 publication of findings from the MINDACT randomized phase III clinical trial. The study explored the use of the MammaPrint 70-gene test to guide treatment decisions in more than 6,500 women with early-stage breast cancer.
	5. Traitements
Chemotherapy before breast cancer surgery might fuel metastasis [STAT] The reason is that standard pre-op chemotherapies for breast cancer — paclitaxel, doxorubicin, and cyclophosphamide — affect the body’s on-ramps to the highways of metastasis, said biologist John Condeelis of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, senior author of the new study.
Does chemotherapy cause cancer to spread? [Science-Based Medicine] More importantly, if you’re a woman considering neoadjuvant chemotherapy to treat breast cancer, don’t let the spin on this study frighten you out of it.
Long-term, surgery for localized prostate cancer offers little extra benefit [Reuters] For every 100 men with low-risk disease who had a radical prostatectomy, no more than one was saved by surgery, a statistically insignificant difference, the researchers report in the New England Journal of Medicine.
A stem cell transplant helped beat back a young doctor’s cancer. Now, it’s assaulting his body [Science] Until some of those treatments prove themselves, Wartman and other patients with chronic GVHD face an endless series of drugs that are approved for other conditions or still stuck in experimental limbo.
Converging on cancer at the nanoscale [MIT News] “The center galvanizes the MIT cancer research community in efforts to use nanomedicine as a translational platform for cancer care,” says Tyler Jacks, director of the Koch Institute.
MTH1: From Hot Topic to Devalidation? [In the Pipeline] The whole story is a good illustration of how what looks like a perfectly reasonable idea, backed up with what seems to be higher-than-usual amount of solid data, can still turn out to be completely mistaken.
	5.10 Traitements - Essais
NCI-MATCH keeps enrolling—Targeted mutations are proving to be less common than estimated [The Cancer Letter] Altogether, over 1,100 treatment sites are involved in MATCH, having received the required NCI central IRB approval to do so. The trial has required multi-center involvement from the start because of its size and scope.
	5.12 Immunothérapies
Cord blood inspires an alternative to CAR-T for treating blood cancers [FierceBiotech] The M.D. Anderson approach did present one big challenge: NK cells don’t persist in the body for more than two or three weeks, limiting their potential utility as cancer treatments. So the researchers also equipped them with interleukin-15, a protein designed to help them stick around in the body for many months.
	5.12.2 Immunothérapies - CAR-T
Novartis CAR-T cell therapy CTL019 unanimously (10-0) recommended for approval by FDA advisory committee to treat pediatric, young adult r/r B-cell ALL [Novartis] Positive ODAC recommendation is latest milestone for CTL019 program that started through collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania.
CAR-Ts Clear One Roadblock But Face Many More [Bloomberg] Novartis wins over an FDA panel but the road to commercial viability is long.
Panel Backs CAR T-cell Therapy for Leukemia: What You Need to Know and What’s Next [ACS] But it is going to be very expensive and not easy for everyone to access. We must be sensitive and aware of that. There need to be supports in place so that everyone who needs this treatment is able to get it.
Unanimous Advice To FDA: Approve Landmark CAR-T Cancer Therapy [Xconomy] The committee members said it was hard to assess the long-term risk, but in patients with no other treatment options, the near-term benefits of CAR-T therapy more than tipped the scales.
Novartis CAR-T cancer therapy wins expert support for FDA approval [STAT] There are about 3,100 new cases of ALL each year, but roughly 70 percent can be pushed into remission by standard therapy. That could leave just a few hundred patients who might be eligible for Novartis’ therapy, casting doubt on whether the company can get an outsize return on what will be a substantial manufacturing investment.
'Living Drug' That Fights Cancer By Harnessing Immune System Clears Key Hurdle [NPR] In the main study that the company submitted as evidence in seeking FDA approval, doctors at 25 sites in 11 countries administered the treatment to 88 patients.
F.D.A. Panel Recommends Approval for Gene-Altering Leukemia Treatment [NY Times] If the F.D.A. accepts the recommendation, which is likely, the treatment will be the first gene therapy ever to reach the market.
Engineered cell therapy for cancer gets thumbs up from FDA advisers [Nature] Therapy shows promise in young patients with leukaemia, but safety risks abound.
FDA advisers back Novartis’ game-changing personalized CAR-T for cancer, approval in sight [EndPoints] Key to Novartis’ success was the high remission rate as well as 6-month and 12-month survival data for children and young adult patients who were running out of options.
FDA panel backs Novartis' pioneering new cancer gene therapy [Reuters] The treatments are given just once and are expected to cost up to $500,000. Loncar said approval of tisagenlecleucel would represent an inflection point for investors.
	5.12.3 Immunothérapies-combinaisons
Exelixis and Bristol-Myers Squibb Initiate Phase 3 Trial of Opdivo® in Combination with CABOMETYX™ or Opdivo and Yervoy® in Combination with CABOMETYX, Versus Sunitinib in Previously Untreated Advanced or Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma [BMS] First phase 3 trial in a global clinical development program to explore the combination of these agents.
	5.12.6 Immunothérapies - AMM
FDA Considers Label Changes for Keytruda, Opdivo and Yervoy [RAPS] The consideration for changing the labels of Yervoy, Opdivo and Keytruda comes as FDA says it has completed post-marketing reviews for sight-threatening complications such as retinal detachment and vision loss with the three treatments.
	5.2 Pharma
Chaos at AstraZeneca [in the Pipeline] The company’s big push recently has been in immuno-oncology, which is certainly a field with plenty of revenue potential (and a lot of unsettled clinical science).
Pascal Soriot is staying at AstraZeneca after all, confirming upcoming presentation – reports [EndPoints] Soriot is left in a difficult spot, still working on a turnaround as revenue slides into a trough and the pipeline proves far less effective than the CEO had promised.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration Accepts for Priority Review Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Application for Sprycel (dasatinib) in Children with Philadelphia Chromosome-Positive Chronic Phase Chronic Myeloid Leukemia [BMS] Submission includes powder for oral suspension formulation.
Fact-checking pharma: 5 cancer drug myths, busted [HealthNewsReview] There is no arguing that new cancer drugs have improved the outlook for some cancer patients very dramatically. But those actual advances, which apply to few, are being leveraged to mislead many more desperate patients who have no hope of being helped.
	5.3 Traitements - FDA, EMA, NICE...
Two Recent Scientific Advances Underscore an Encouraging Future for Precision Medicine at FDA [FDA Voice] Precision medicine holds great promise, but to continue developing targeted therapies, we will need scientific advances in the use and development of “biomarkers.”
	5.3.4 Traitements - AMM (FDA, EMA)
New Rituximab Formulation Approved for Some Lymphomas, Leukemia [NCI] “Subcutaneous rituximab cuts down on resource needs, so it could possibly cut down on travel times it takes patients to go to infusion centers because it could conceivably be done closer to home.”
	5.4 Traitements - Economie
A new treatment option for people with kidney cancer [NICE] People with advanced kidney cancer are set to benefit from a new treatment, after NICE has said cabozantinib should be available on the NHS.
Kidney cancer drug approved for NHS use in England [BBC News] Cabozantinib has the potential to switch off tumours in some patients and could give them many months of good-quality life, doctors said.
Drug industry to challenge Nice over new cost limits [BBC News] The drug industry is going to court to challenge the authority of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice).
	6.1 Observation
Cancer Research UK comments on the Government's response to the National Data Guardian Review [Cancer Research UK] We are pleased there is recognition that the Cancer Registry should have a system that allows population wide, high quality data collection.
Tall men at bigger risk of aggressive prostate cancer, study suggests [The Guardian] UK scientists find chance of high-grade prostate cancer rises by 21% with every 10cm increment in height.
Lung and colon cancer more likely to strike survivors of persecution [Reuters] Israeli researchers examined the medical records of more than 152,000 holocaust survivors over more than 45 years and compared those who qualified for compensation as a result of their persecution during the war to those whose compensation bids were rejected.
Cancer diagnosis 'more common than marriage' [BBC News] Macmillan Cancer Support said there were 31,467 cancers diagnosed in 2015 compared with 29,691 marriages and 23,695 first births.
	6.10.1 Politiques (USA)
ASCO Remains Opposed to Senate Healthcare Bill, Urges Protections for Access to High-Quality Care [ASCO] Despite the changes to the legislation, released by the Senate yesterday, the bill runs counter to ASCO’s core mission, which is to ensure that patients with cancer have meaningful access to high-quality care.
US lawmakers seek $1.1-billion boost for the NIH [Nature] Legislation introduced in the House of Representatives also rejects a White House plan to cut 'indirect cost' payments to research institutions.
	6.11 Patients
A new way to organize cancer support groups: A caregivers’ suggestion [Stanford Medicine] Cancer treatment continues to evolve towards treatment based on the genetic makeup of the tumor rather than on the organ of origin. Similarly, I believe cancer support groups should be based on emotional needs rather than diseased organ.
15 percent of men regret prostate cancer treatment choices years later, study finds [STAT] About twice as many men expressed regret after radical prostatectomy or radiation therapy as compared with active surveillance. The single biggest contributor to regret was treatment-associated sexual dysfunction, as reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
	6.6 Publications
MIT convenes ad hoc task force on open access to Institute’s research [MIT News] Group will explore opportunities to disseminate MIT knowledge as widely as possible.
Biology's Rolling Debate Over Publishing Research Early [Wired] It’s still too early to say whether bioRxiv will emerge as the one preprint server to rule them all, or if it will become just a part of a grander plan. But if it’s up to researchers like Daniel MacArthur, posting your work online won’t always be an act of rebellion. Someday, it’ll just be science as usual.
	6.7 DMP, Big Data & applis
Training Complete, ONS CancerLinQ Ambassadors Prepare to Help Practices Launch Big Data Platform to Support Value and Evidence-Based Health Care [ASCO] Ultimately, the CancerLinQ Ambassadors Pilot Program will provide oncology nurses with experience in engaging the care team with insights from big data analytics for use in clinical decision making and in working as quality improvement specialists as part of the CancerLinQ Practice Success Team.