Onco Actu du 13 décembre 2018

	1. Biologie
Biology’s Surprising ‘Message in a Bottle’ [Harvard Public Health] Lu cites the p53 gene—“the most widely studied gene in medicine,” as he puts it, because it can shut down uncontrolled cell proliferation. Many tumors typically lack or have compromised p53, so they can grow unfettered. Lu and his colleagues are pursuing a strategy of adding p53 into vesicles to deliver it back into tumor cells and shut down their growth.
Targeting metastasis to halt cancer’s spread [PNAS] Studies reveal the mechanisms behind tumor metastasis and how to stymie it. But primary tumors still get the lion’s share of researchers’ attention.
	2.7 Etiologie - Obésité
Excess Body Weight Responsible for Nearly 4% of Cancers Worldwide [ACS] Prevalence has increased rapidly in most countries across all population groups.
	4. Dépistage, diagnostic et pronostic
Can these researchers catch cancer much earlier than ever before? [Boston Globe] From revolutionizing the mammogram to spotting a single tumor cell in the blood, here’s how researchers are changing how and when we diagnose disease.
	4.10 Dép., diag. & prono. - Poumon
Largest ever UK lung cancer screening study seeks to detect lung cancer early amongst at-risk Londoners and supports development of a new blood test for early detection of cancer [NHS] Half of the participants will be people at high risk of lung and other cancers due to a significant smoking history (Group A), and the other half will be people who are not at high risk for cancer based on smoking history (Group B). All participants will provide a blood sample, which GRAIL will analyse to evaluate whether lung or other cancers can be detected early through genomic signals in the blood.
Launch of largest ever UK lung cancer screening study [PharmaTimes] It will recruit around 50,000 men and women aged 50-77 from north and east London, half of whom will be at high risk of lung and other cancers due to a significant smoking history, and the other half who are not at high risk for cancer based on smoking history.
	4.9 Dép., diag. & prono. - Sein
Digital Mammography Increases Breast Cancer Detection [RSNA] The shift from film to digital mammography increased the detection of breast cancer by 14 percent overall in the United Kingdom without increasing the recall rate, according to a study appearing in Radiology.
	5. Traitements
Should Sentinel Node Biopsy Be Performed in Patients Over 70 Years Old? [Clinical Oncology News] This debate is based on a debate that was originally held at the 2018 annual meeting of the American Society of Breast Surgeons. As in previous debates, we have invited two experts who have radically different opinions in the field to make their case.
Oesophago-gastric cancer [NICE] Today we've published our quality standard on oesophago-gastric cancer. It outlines four key statements for adult patients.
	5.10 Traitements - Essais
Changes in Oncology Trials Design After Initiation of Patient Accrual [ESMO] The authors concluded that among trials supportive for FDA approval of anticancer drugs, modifications in study design after patient accrual has begun are common, often unreported, and associated with breakthrough therapy designation, accelerated approval, and single-arm trials.
	5.12 Immunothérapies
Freeze on fetal tissue procurement may impede work at NIH cancer lab, agency says [STAT] The spokeswoman, Renate Myles, declined to identify the lab for “security reasons,” but said that the group is working on cancer immunotherapy.
	5.12.1 Immunothérapies - partenariats
AVEO Oncology Announces Immuno-Oncology Clinical Collaboration With AstraZeneca [Aveo] Phase 1/2 Study will Evaluate Combination of IMFINZI® (durvalumab) and FOTIVDA® (tivozanib) in First-Line HCC.
	5.12.3 Immunothérapies-combinaisons
Combining three treatment strategies may significantly improve melanoma treatment [mass. General Hospital] Combining MEK inhibition, checkpoint blockade and tumor-killing virus produces markedly better responses in animal cancer models.
	5.12.5 Immunothérapies - Pharma
Roche to develop companion diagnostic test to help identify patients eligible for anti-PD-1 therapy based on biomarker expression, not location, of solid tumors [Roche] The companion diagnostic currently under development is an IHC test for use on the Roche BenchMark ULTRA instrument, which, as the most widely installed IHC/ISH (in situ hybridization) staining platform globally, will provide broad testing access to patients.
Merck taps Roche for Keytruda companion diagnostic [BiopharmaDive] Merck & Co. is working with Roche to develop a companion diagnostic capable of identifying patients with solid tumors positive for mismatch repair deficiency, which Merck's anti-PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor Keytruda is approved to treat.
	5.12.7 Immunothérapies - vaccins
A Harvard Professor Made $400 Million in Moderna’s Biotech IPO [Bloomberg] Timothy Springer, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, is the fourth-largest shareholder of Moderna, which hopes to make personalized cancer vaccines.
	5.2 Pharma
AstraZeneca kicks off second blood cancer launch, this time for orphan drug Lumoxiti [FiercePharma] Lumoxiti (moxetumomab pasudotox-tdfk) bears a green light only in patients who have undergone at least two prior therapies, and they make up just 200 to 400 of the 1,500-patient hairy cell leukemia population in the U.S.
	5.3 Traitements - FDA, EMA, NICE...
Statement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., on the agency’s efforts to improve drug quality through vigilant oversight of data integrity and good manufacturing practice [FDA] The revised recommendations are aimed at helping manufacturers address identified data integrity lapses, implement best practices to address gaps that can create risks to data integrity, and ensure consistent awareness and commitment to ensuring data integrity. The principles are relevant to manufacturing employees and management.
	6.1 Observation
Long-term study shows most prostate cancer patients don’t need aggressive treatment [STAT] D’Amico also highlighted what he called “a pretty striking statistic”: that just eight men needed to undergo treatment to save one life, according to the study. For comparison, 233 women in their 60s would need to get a mammogram to prevent one of those woman from dying of breast cancer, according to a 2012 study.
Radical surgery for some prostate cancers adds three years to life [Reuters] The results, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, don’t apply to prostate cancer detected during screening, such as with blood tests to measure prostate specific antigen (PSA).
Surgery May Benefit Some With Early Prostate Cancer: Study [HealthDay] "The last thing I'd want to see is headlines saying, 'Surgery is better than no surgery,'" Lichtenfeld said. "That's not what this study tells us."
	6.3 Associations/Fondations
With a gift from the late Paul Allen, his philanthropy launches ambitious plan to probe human immunology [STAT] In its initial stage, the division will focus on studying two cancers (multiple myeloma and melanoma) and three autoimmune disorders (rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, and Crohn’s disease).
$125 million gift from Microsoft co-founder launches new institute to probe immune system [Science] The newly launched Allen Institute for Immunology, planned before the philanthropist died in October from complications of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, will attempt to better define what’s normal for the immune system and why it falters in cancer and autoimmune diseases.
	6.6 Publications
Yes, it is getting harder to publish in prestigious journals if you haven’t already [Science] In Nature, for example, the share of papers authored by chaperoned senior authors grew from 16% to 22% between 1990 and 2012, while new senior authors dropped from 39% to 31%.
	6.7.1 IA/bioinformatique
Pharma’s AI Future [Bio-IT World] Henstock, the AI and Machine Learning lead at Pfizer, argues that pharma isn’t new to AI. The industry has been doing bioinformatics, business intelligence, cheminformatics, text analytics, and QSAR—quantitative structure–activity relationship—models for years. Now is the time for pharma to embrace AI and start realizing some of the benefits other industries are enjoying.