Onco Actu du 29 novembre 2018

	1.4 Biologie - Technos
Chinese Researcher Reports First Gene-Edited Babies [Science-Based Medicine] I do think that targeted gene editing to treat disease will become generally accepted, and probably more quickly than most people realize. CRISPR is a powerful technology, and it is advancing quickly. Once we have a better handle on its safety, it will be hard to deny parents the option of fixing a horrible genetic disease in their children.
Ethics aside, does the CRISPR baby experiment make scientific sense? [Science] CRISPR can make unintended, “off-target” edits in the genome, which theoretically could lead to cancers and other health problems.
	3.1.1 Prévention - Tabac - e-cigs
Juul’s New Product: Less Nicotine, More Intense Vapor [NY Times] People knowledgeable about the development of the higher-vapor pod say the company hopes it will appeal to cigarette smokers who are accustomed to a bigger cloud. And by reducing the nicotine level, even while magnifying the effect of the nicotine, Juul presumably would be able to meet stricter nicotine limits in many countries.
	4.7 Dép., diag. & prono. - Col de l'utérus
At-home HPV tests could be powerful tool for hard-to-reach U.S. women [OSU] Pilot study found 80 percent of participants used the tests.
	4.9 Dép., diag. & prono. - Sein
New Study Supports Mammography Screening at 30 for Some Women [RSNA] A new, large-scale study of more than 5 million mammograms found that annual mammography screening beginning at age 30 may benefit women with at least one of three specific risk factors: dense breasts, a personal history of breast cancer or a family history of breast cancer.
	5. Traitements
Malignancy, MSI Status, and the Microbiome [Cancer Research Catalyst] “Our findings suggest that F. nucleatum may be having a differential role in tumor immunity according to MSI status in colorectal cancer,” Ogino said. “This bacterium may play a pro-inflammatory role in non-MSI-high colorectal cancers and an immunosuppressive role in MSI-high colorectal cancers,” he explained.
	5.1 Traitements - Pré-clinique
Altering cancer metabolism helps treatments attack tumours [Cancer Research UK] In this new study, a team of scientists exposed lung, ovarian and colon cancer cells, and mouse models, to conditions similar to those in the human body, and investigated how manipulating cell metabolism can make cancer more vulnerable to oncolytic viruses.
	5.10 Traitements - Essais
Statistical pitfalls of personalized medicine [Nature] It has been a long, hard struggle in medicine to convince researchers, regulators and patients that causality is hard to study and difficult to prove. We are in danger of forgetting at the level of the individual what we have learnt at the level of the population.
	5.12 Immunothérapies
Brain Cancer Immunotherapy SurVaxM Extends Survival, Even in Hard-to-Treat Patients [Roswell Park] SurVaxM is a synthetic compound that stimulates the immune system to target a cancer molecule called survivin, a molecule that is highly expressed in glioblastoma and many other cancers.
	5.12.1 Immunothérapies - partenariats
Hookipa tasks DarwinHealth with finding shared tumor antigens [FierceBiotech] Over the next two years, DarwinHealth will use bioinformatics and single-cell transcriptome analysis to identify shared tumor-specific antigens in cancerous and non-cancerous tissues from humans and mice. Hookipa will then perform validation experiments on DarwinHealth’s crypto-antigens.
	5.12.8 Immunothérapies - Economie
Merck raised prices five drugs including Keytruda in November [Reuters] Merck raised the price of cancer immunotherapy Keytruda, which is forecast to bring in more than $7 billion in sales this year, by around 1.5 percent. That follows a similar price increase for Keytruda earlier in the year, according to data from Rx Savings Solutions, which collects pricing data to help its customers save money on drugs. It also raised the price of its human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil, which protects against cancers related to the virus, by around 6 percent.
	5.2.1 Pharma - Partenariats
Biocartis partners with AstraZeneca on lung cancer diagnostics [Reuters] Following the agreement, a prospective lung cancer study with Biocartis’s Idylla EGFR Mutation Test will be conducted in Belgium, France, Germany and Italy.
	5.3.4 Traitements - AMM (FDA, EMA,...)
FDA stamps fast OK on Astellas’ pioneering FLT3 AML drug gilteritinib, expanding on a record year for new approvals [EndPoints] That’s good news for the 30% or so of the 19,000 newly diagnosed AML cases each year that will be linked to the genetic mutation.
XOSPATA® (gilteritinib) Approved by U.S. FDA for Adult Patients with Relapsed/Refractory Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) with a FLT3 Mutation [Astellas] The FDA’s approval of XOSPATA was based on an interim analysis of the following endpoints in the ADMIRAL clinical trial: the rate of complete remission (CR)/complete remission with partial hematologic recovery (CRh); the duration of CR/CRh (DOR); and the rate of conversion from transfusion dependence to transfusion independence.
Astellas Pharma gets U.S. nod for blood cancer treatment [Reuters] The drug, taken once a day in tablet form, will have a wholesale acquisition cost of $22,500 for a month’s supply, Astellas said.
FDA approves first biosimilar to Roche cancer drug Rituxan [Reuters] Truxima, already approved in Europe, will be sold in the United States and Canada in partnership with Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries.
FDA approves first biosimilar for treatment of adult patients with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma [FDA] The agency has now approved 15 biosimilars and is advancing new policies to improve the efficiency of biosimilar development and review.
FDA approves treatment for adult patients who have relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with a certain genetic mutation [FDA] The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Xospata (gilteritinib) tablets for the treatment of adult patients who have relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with a FLT3 mutation as detected by an FDA-approved test. The FDA also approved an expanded indication for a companion diagnostic, to include use with Xospata.
	5.4 Traitements - Economie
Bayer’s Stivarga wins NICE backing for advanced liver cancer [PharmaTimes] Stivarga (regorafenib) is to be offered to advanced liver cancer patients in England and Wales whose liver is well-functioning but unable to be surgically removed and who have already taken the life extending medicine sorafenib.
Compromising Patient Protections to Lower Drug Costs Could Harm People with Cancer [ASCO] ASCO has significant concerns about the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) proposed rule to reduce the number of prescription drugs that must be made available to Medicare beneficiaries with chronic, potentially life-threatening illnesses including cancer.
	5.8 ASH
ASH Webinar: Pre-Meeting Peek at Key Presentations from ASH 2018 [OBR] Reporters got a sneak preview of what to expect at an official ASH pre-meeting webinar on November 20, 2018. Below are highlights from the webinar on hematologic cancers organized around key themes.
	6.1 Observation
Cancer diagnosis tied to increased suicide risk [Reuters] “We found suicide risk to be highest in the first six months after diagnosis,” said senior study author Dr. Alexandra Pitman of University College London. “We also identified four tumors that stood out in terms of greatest risk.”
	6.11 Patients
Nancy Cappello, Breast Cancer Activist, Is Dead at 66 [NY Times] When Nancy M. Cappello learned that she had breast cancer, and that mammography could not find it, she turned her misfortune into a tireless campaign that led 36 states to require fuller disclosure to women about their mammogram results and the limitations of the test.
	6.6 Publications
Transparent peer review trial: the results [Genome Biology] Therefore, we feel that transparent review will be the right choice for the journal. Our results suggest some authors might be reluctant to submit under those circumstances, but we nevertheless feel that the benefits of transparent review outweigh a possible small drop in submissions.
	6.7.1 IA/bioinformatique
Big Tech Expands Footprint in Health [Wall Street Journal] Amazon’s move into analyzing patient records is the latest by a technology company to tap the health-care market.
Introducing medical language processing with Amazon Comprehend Medical [AWS] We are excited to announce Amazon Comprehend Medical, a new HIPAA-eligible machine learning service that allows developers to process unstructured medical text and identify information such as patient diagnosis, treatments, dosages, symptoms and signs, and more.
	6.8 Communication
Reliance on 'YouTube Medicine' May Be Dangerous for Those Concerned About Prostate Cancer [NYU Langone] Led by researchers at NYU School of Medicine and NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, the study of the 150 most-viewed YouTube videos on the disease found that 77 percent had factual errors or biased content in either the video or its comments section.
Popular prostate cancer videos on YouTube 'inaccurate and biased' [NHS Choices] The study found that the most popular videos were those from commercial companies and from patients. But these sorts of videos were on average a lower quality than videos from healthcare providers and professional or government groups.
Online Cancer Information Is Often Unreliable [NY Times] The study, in European Urology, also found that the greater the number of views, “likes” and “thumbs up” ratings a video received, the poorer the quality of the information provided tended to be.