Onco Actu du 18 octobre 2018

	2.6 Etiologie - Environnement
Bayer Gains After Judge Favors Cutting Award in Roundup Case [Bloomberg] Superior Court Judge Suzanne Ramos Bolanos said that even if she doesn’t vacate the punishment damages, she “would grant a new trial on grounds of insufficiency of the evidence to justify the award for punitive damages.”
The Guardian's Scare Piece On Glyphosate And Cancer Is Designed To Fuel A Tsunami of Lawsuits [Forbes] We have lost the ability to distinguish between substantial, known threats to our welfare (such as smoking, heavy alcohol intake, excessive sun exposure, and obesity) and much less certain and possibly trivial risks. In fact, due to a bizarre psychology, it is the latter category that gets by far the most attention.
	2.7 Etiologie - Obésité
Obesity Tied to Colon Cancer Risk in Younger Women [NY Times] The higher a woman’s body mass index, the greater her risk for early-onset colorectal cancer.
	3.1.1 Prévention - Tabac - e-cigs
FDA warns company illegally selling e-liquid products intended for vaping that contain unapproved drugs for erectile dysfunction, weight loss and falsely claim to be FDA-approved [FDA] Prescription drugs are carefully evaluated and labeled to reflect the risks of the medications and their potential interactions with other medicines, and vaping active drug ingredients is an ineffective route of delivery and can be dangerous.
	4. Dépistage, diagnostic et pronostic
Genetics allows personalised disease predictions for chronic blood cancers [Sanger Institute] Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, this work could lead to personalised medicine for patients with these blood cancers. It will help doctors identify those patients who are likely to have a very good future outlook, and which patients may benefit from specific treatments or clinical trials.
	4.12 Biopsies liquides
Plasma vs Tissue Next-Generation Sequencing in Non–Small Cell Lung Cancer—Either, Both, or Neither? [JAMA Oncology] In summary, mounting data now support a role for plasma NGS as a helpful tool to supplement or even obviate the need for often scarce and difficult-to-obtain tissue for NGS testing, but this should not circumvent the central question of whether NGS testing will improve clinical outcomes and thus whether it should be performed at all.
	4.2 Dép., diag. & prono. - Génome
Identity inference of genomic data using long-range familial searches [Science] Using genomic data of 1.28 million individuals tested with consumer genomics, we investigated the power of this technique. We project that about 60% of the searches for individuals of European-descent will result in a third cousin or closer match, which can allow their identification using demographic identifiers.
	4.7 Dép., diag. & prono. - Col de l'utérus
For HPV-Positive Women, Test Can Guide Cervical Cancer Screening Follow-Up [NCI] “This is a very important study,” said Mark Stoler, M.D., associate director of Surgical Pathology and Cytopathology at the University of Virginia School of Medicine. It’s the first study performed in the United States, Dr. Stoler continued, “that really provides the assurance that [dual stain] is a better triage test” than the Pap test.
	4.9 Dép., diag. & prono. - Sein
A widely used guideline said my risk of breast cancer was low. It was wrong [STAT] My doctor had no reason to believe I was at risk, and I had no reason to believe I should question her judgement. What I didn’t know, at the time, was that there are multiple and conflicting breast cancer screening guidelines for women between the ages of 40 to 49.
Deep Learning Can Help Distinguish Recalled-benign Mammograms from Malignant and Negative Mammograms [AACR] The researchers used a total of 14,860 images of 3,715 patients from two independent mammography datasets, Full-Field Digital Mammography Dataset (FFDM - 1,303 patients) and Digital Dataset of Screening Mammography (DDSM - 2,412 patients). They built CNN models and utilized enhanced model training approaches to investigate six classification scenarios that would help distinguish images of benign, malignant, and recalled-benign mammograms.
	5. Traitements
New ASTRO/ASCO/AUA Guideline for Early-Stage Prostate Cancer Supports Use of Shortened Courses of Radiation Therapy [ASCO] Recommendations reflect evidence showing similar early cancer control and side effect rates with hypofractionated treatment, compared to longer courses of conventional radiation.
	5.10 Traitements - Essais
Public seems to know value of clinical trials, but not how they work [Reuters] Anderson’s team surveyed more than 12,000 people, including about 2,200 who had participated in clinical research studies before, about their perceptions of clinical research, how they had received information about research studies and what barriers to joining a clinical trial they had experienced.
	5.12.1 Immunothérapies - partenariats
Bristol-Myers, Compugen ally to test checkpoint combinations [FierceBiotech] Bristol-Myers’ interest has manifested in a deal that allows it to keep tabs on Compugen without tying it to major financial commitments. The $12 million equity investment, which is priced at 33% above Compugen’s average stock price over the past 20 days, is the big financial component of the deal.
Bristol-Myers Squibb and Compugen Announce Clinical Collaboration to Evaluate Therapeutic Regimen in Advanced Solid Tumors [BMS] The collaboration is also designed to address potential future combinations, including trials sponsored by Bristol-Myers Squibb to investigate combined inhibition of checkpoint mechanisms, such as PVRIG and TIGIT.
Bristol-Myers embraces a possible checkpoint collaborator, snagging a batch of stock and lining up a potential deal [EndPoints] Compugen’s stock surged 10% on the news, with the right to pursue an early-stage study of a combination of Opdivo and COM701. The little biotech has posted preclinical evidence that suggests elevated levels of the ligand PVRL2 in PD-1 resistant cases may offer a key biomarker for their drug, the PVRIG-targeted COM701.
Bristol-Myers to invest in Compugen, collaborate in clinical trials [Reuters] The trials will evaluate the safety and tolerability of Compugen’s COM701, an investigational antibody, in combination with Bristol-Myers Squibb’s immune checkpoint inhibitor Opdivo.
	5.12.2 Immunothérapies - CAR-T, thérapies cellulaires
New immunotherapy offers potential cure for advanced pancreatic cancer [Queen Mary University of London] In the study, published in the journal Gut, the team used pancreatic cancer cells from patients with late-stage disease, and transplanted them into mice. They then took the patients’ immune cells and modified them to specifically identify and eliminate the cancer cells - creating ‘educated killer cells’, or CAR-T cells.
Resistance to CAR T Cell Therapy [ESMO] Two Brief Communication papers published on 1 October 2018 in the Nature Medicine underline that acquired resistance to CD19-targeted CAR T cell therapy can occur through mutations in the CD19 gene or after insertion of a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) into leukaemia cells, resulting in the adjacent receptor being masked by the CAR.
Cancer patients with rare deadly brain infection treated successfully with off-the-shelf adoptive T-cell therapy in clinical trial [MD Anderson Cancer Center] Results from the proof-of-principle study demonstrated BK, a virus similar to the JC virus which causes PML, as the basis for a potentially viable therapy. Both viruses are named for the initials of the patients in which they were first identified.
	5.12.8 Immunothérapies - Economie
Immune Design buries its PhIII work on cancer, and investors hit the panic button [EndPoints] More than a year after touting some early glimmers of success for a combination of their drug CMB305 and Tecentriq (atezolizumab), Immune Design is throwing in the towel after determining that their ongoing Phase II program is headed to failure.
Allogene’s IPO Raises $288M for Tests of “Off-the-Shelf” Cell Therapy [Xconomy] Allogene has licensed rights to UCART19, a cell therapy that is currently being tested in two in Phase 1 studies. Allogene bought the U.S. rights to the therapy from Pfizer, as well as the rights to 16 preclinical CAR-T therapies Pfizer also controlled. Those, as well as UCART19, originated with the French-American biotech Cellectis.
Arie Belldegrun and David Chang score record IPO, now they plan to win the race to a historic FDA OK [EndPoints] Now that the money blitz is done, opening up a 3-year runway to an appointment with the FDA, the company will continue a quest to develop the world’s first off-the-shelf CAR-T, a scientific challenge that could swipe aside the pioneering personalized drugs that are now on the market at Novartis and Gilead.
	5.6 ESMO
Breast cancer patients use Twitter as a non-medical forum to share their experiences [ESMO Press Release] Analysis of one week’s worth of tweets about breast cancer paints mixed picture of the network’s use by individuals and institutions.
	6. Lutte contre les cancers
UK Biobank data on 500,000 people paves way to precision medicine [Nature] Iceland was a pioneer, but the United Kingdom has gone much larger: by 2010, the UK Biobank had a prospective cohort of some 500,000 individuals, aged 40–69 at recruitment. Following this age group enables a focus on diseases of middle age and later.
	6.1 Observation
Increased Survival in Patients with Metastatic NSCLC Receiving Treatment in Academic Centers [IASLC] The data was selected from 1998 to 2012 after the introduction of novel NSCLC chemotherapy agents. The primary outcome was 2-year survival that was analyzed using a multivariable regression model controlling for age, year of diagnosis, gender, primary payer, histology, and facility type (academic centers verses community-based centers).
	6.10 Politiques
ABPI tells MPs Brexit deal on medicines regulation ‘urgently needed’ [PharmaTimes] Giving evidence to a commons select committee, Mike Thompson, chief executive of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, said firms are increasing stocks of medicine and duplicating testing in the EU, but warned that there are situations “completely out of our control, which can only be fixed by a UK/EU deal on the future of medicines”.
	6.3 Associations/Fondations
Progress against pancreatic cancer [MIT News] Jacks and his colleagues describe the Lustgarten investment as high-risk, high-reward — an innovation fund to move beyond incremental improvements at both the bench and the bedside.
	6.5 Médecines alternatives/complémentaires
Suzanne Somers “grew a new breast” with stem cells plus fat transfer? Not so fast… [Respectful Insolence] Certainly, you have to wonder why Dr. Aronowitz hasn’t published the results of his study as far as I can tell. I can’t help but wonder if he’s just doing the same thing that a lot of the stem cell clinics I’ve discussed are doing, selling stem cells as magical cells that can do anything.
	6.9 Controverses
Jury clears J&J of liability in New Jersey talc cancer case [Reuters] J&J has been fighting talc cancer lawsuits for several years, but the litigation shifted in recent months to include allegations of asbestos contamination. Plaintiffs now claim asbestos fibers in the products are causing both ovarian cancer and mesothelioma.