Onco Actu du 26 juin 2018

	1. Biologie
Researchers discover new type of lung cancer [Cold Spring Harbor Lab] Using this “CRISPR screen,” the team found that a transcription factor called POU2F3 is expressed exclusively in the minority of SCLC tumors with low levels of neuroendocrine markers. It turns out that this variant form of SCLC tumors are derived from a separate class of rare cells called tuft cells.
	2.6 Etiologie - Environnement
Flight attendants may have higher cancer rates [Reuters] Researchers asked 5,366 flight attendants and 2,729 other adults with similar socioeconomic backgrounds whether they had ever been diagnosed with cancer. Compared to the other adults, flight attendants were 51 percent more likely to develop breast cancer. They also had more than double the risk of melanoma and more than quadruple the odds of being diagnosed with other forms of skin cancer.
	3. Prévention
3Q: Nancy Hopkins on the impact and potential of cancer prevention [MIT News] Mechanism-based cancer prevention is poised to further decrease the numbers of U.S. cancer deaths, says MIT professor emerita.
	3.2 Prévention - Obésité
Cancer Research UK responds to the Governments new Childhood Obesity Plan [Cancer Research UK] Once implemented following the consultation, the proposed restrictions on junk food advertising will make an enormous impact on childhood obesity rates.
	4.12 Biopsies liquides
Bio-Techne to Acquire Liquid Biopsy Firm Exosome Diagnostics for $250M [Xconomy] Exosome Diagnostics has commercialized tests for cancers of the prostate and lung. The company says its intellectual property extends to cancers of the bladder, kidney, breast, and brain, among others.
	4.5 Dép., diag. & prono. - Colorectal
Celebrity colonoscopy parties – great fun ‘every other year’? [HealthNewsReview] Laughing about the stars’ “every other year” colonoscopies is no laughing matter. There isn’t an evidence-based recommendation on the planet that supports every other year colonoscopies in otherwise healthy people.
	5. Traitements
Is chemo obsolete? Not by a long shot, cancer experts say [NBC News] New cancer treatments usually only help a fraction of cancer patients.
	5.10 Traitements - Essais
In rare slip, Pfizer steamroller Ibrance fails to show it helps patients live longer [FiercePharma] More than two years ago, Pfizer’s Ibrance won an FDA nod to treat some breast cancer patients whose disease had progressed after endocrine therapy. But new study results suggest the drug may not actually help patients live longer.
Oops. Pfizer’s CDK 4/6 blockbuster Ibrance flunks the OS mark for breast cancer [EndPoints] The pharma giant worked at downplaying the critical OS failure, noting that there was a trend in its favor — virtually meaningless — and that the study wasn’t actually powered to determine overall survival.
Pfizer's breast cancer drug combo falls short of survival goal [Reuters] Ibrance is Pfizer’s blockbuster treatment and is already approved as a combination with endocrine therapy for use in breast cancer patients. The treatment brought in sales of $933 million in the first quarter of 2018.
Pfizer Announces Overall Survival Results from Phase 3 PALOMA-3 Trial of IBRANCE® (Palbociclib) in HR+, HER2- Metastatic Breast Cancer [Business Wire] The results demonstrated a positive trend in the hazard ratio favoring the IBRANCE combination, although this trend did not reach statistical significance. Overall survival is a secondary endpoint of the PALOMA-3 trial and, as such, the trial design was not optimized to detect a statistically significant difference in OS.
	5.12.2 Immunothérapies - CAR-T, thérapies cellulaires
AbbVie and Calibr announce collaboration for next generation T-cell therapies [The Scripps Research Institute] Collaboration will focus on switchable CAR-T therapies aimed primarily at solid tumors.
After Rova-T bust, AbbVie plans new solid tumor assault, licensing next-gen CAR-T tech from Calibr [EndPoints] The pharma giant is buying an exclusive four-year license to tech developed at the California Institute for Biomedical Research — better known as Calibr — to interrogate some of its own cancer targets, including solid tumors. Calibr is bringing to the table a platform based on a “switchable” CAR-T cell.
	5.12.3 Immunothérapies-combinaisons
Lethal Prostate Cancer Treatment May Benefit from Combination Immunotherapy [Johns Hopkins] The study targeted AR-V7+ prostate cancer with a combination of two checkpoint blockers, ipilimumab and nivolumab, in 15 patients with this aggressive variant, first discovered at Johns Hopkins in 2014.
	5.12.4 Immunothérapies - Essais
With latest data, has Roche's Tecentriq found a blockbuster lung cancer niche? [FiercePharma] So far, drug companies—and their investors—have been more focused on front-line non-small cell lung cancer, which represents a much bigger opportunity: SCLC accounts for just 15% of all lung cancer cases, according to Roche, and 70% of SCLC diagnoses are extensive-stage.
IMpower133 Study Met Co-primary Endpoints at First Interim Analysis [ESMO] IMpower133 is the first phase III study with an immunotherapy-based combination to show improvement in PFS and OS in the initial treatment of ES-SCLC.
With Roche Data, Cancer Combos Post First Win Vs. Small Cell Lung Cancer [Xconomy] There are no approved immunotherapies yet for SCLC, a fast moving lung cancer that accounts for about 10 to 15 percent of cases, according to the ACS. Carboplatin/etoposide chemotherapy has remained the standard of care for years, and other immunotherapy regimens, like a Bristol combination of ipilimumab (Yervoy) and chemo, have previously failed. Things could soon change, however.
	5.12.5 Immunothérapies - Pharma
FDA Accepts Supplemental Biologics License Application for Merck’s KEYTRUDA® (pembrolizumab) as Adjuvant Therapy in Advanced Melanoma [Merck] Application Based on Recurrence-Free Survival Data from Pivotal Phase 3 EORTC1325/KEYNOTE-054 Trial.
	5.2 Pharma
IMBRUVICA® (ibrutinib) Supplemental New Drug Application Accepted for Review by U.S. FDA with Potential to Broaden Treatment Use as a Combination Treatment Option with Rituximab in Waldenström's Macroglobulinemia (WM), A Rare Form of Blood Cancer [AbbVie] The filing is based on data from the Phase 3 iNNOVATE study, which suggest that IMBRUVICA plus rituximab may improve outcomes across all lines of Waldenström's macroglobulinemia (WM) treatment, including patients with prior lines of therapy and various genetic factors, versus rituximab alone.
Merrimack Announces Top-Line Results from Randomized Phase 2 Trial of MM-141 in Front-Line Metastatic Pancreatic Cancer [Merrimack] CARRIE study did not meet primary or secondary endpoints. Company ceases development of MM-141.
Pancreatic cancer study failure cripples a Merrimack drug, forcing a coup de grâce and pipeline retreat [EndPoints] MM-141 (istiratumab), has failed a Phase II pancreatic cancer study after investigators paired it with nab-paclitaxel and gemcitabine against the standard combo alone.
Sudden death forces Sophiris to halt followup therapy in prostate cancer study [EndPoints] Sophiris’ statement says only that investigators studying topsalysin halted any further second doses when one of the most recent patients to get a second dose died on the same day. Execs noted the change-up after touting some of the responses they’ve been tracking among a few dozen patients in the trial.
	5.3 Traitements - FDA, EMA, NICE...
FDA to release list of surrogate endpoints in oncology [EndPoints] “In the coming weeks, for the first time, CDER will publish on the web, a list of the surrogate endpoints that were the primary basis of approval or licensure of a drug or biological for both accelerated and traditional approvals.”
	6.1 Observation
NHS among worst in Western world at preventing avoidable deaths, study finds [The Telegraph] The report, entitled “How Good is the NHS?” and published by the Nuffield Trust, the Health Foundation, the Institute for Fiscal Studies and The King’s Fund, looks at three aspects of what constitutes a good healthcare system in the UK compared to 18 similar developed countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the USA.
Some adult survivors of childhood cancer unconcerned about health [Reuters] In a survey of 15,620 adult survivors of childhood cancer and 3,991 of their siblings, 31 percent of the cancer survivors and 34 percent of their siblings said they weren’t worried about their health. And 40 percent of the survivors weren’t concerned about developing cancer again, similar to the proportion of their siblings who didn’t worry about future malignancies.
NHS 'worse than average in treating eight common causes of death' [The Guardian] The NHS leads the world at ensuring equal access to treatment but underperforms compared with other developed countries’ healthcare systems in preventing common causes of death, a major analysis has found.
	6.10.1 Politiques (USA)
FDA should be split up—and stop covering food, says White House [FierceBiotech] There’s still a long way to go before the plans could be enacted, as Congress would have to agree to the changes, but there does seem to be support for some degree of government reform.
	6.11 Patients
Cancer patients face 'absurd' travel insurance costs [BBC News] Cancer patients are struggling to find affordable travel insurance, even long after treatment is finished, a report from the City watchdog has revealed.
	6.5 Médecines alternatives
Clínica 0-19: False hope in Monterrey for brain cancer patients [Science-Based Medicine] Unfortunately, their treatment is an unproven combination of 11 chemotherapy drugs injected into an artery feeding the brainstem, plus an unknown and unproven “immunotherapy.” Of course it all costs $300,000 or more for a complete course of treatment, and the good doctors are “too busy to do clinical trials” or even publish their survival and recurrence statistics, despite having used this protocol for 20 years.