Onco Actu du 4 février 2020

	1. BIOLOGIE
Free-Floating Mitochondria [In The Pipeline] Here’s a weird one for you – one of those papers that, if it holds up, will make us all wonder about just how much we really know about cell biology. It’s from the IRCM at Montpellier, along with another INSERM lab (Gustav Roussey) and a lab at the Jacques Monod Institute at the Univ. of Paris, and the authors report that they can detect naked mitochondria floating around in blood samples. They appear to be still competent to do cellular respiration, and why they’re out there is anyone’s guess.
If cancer were easy, every cell would do it [Santa Fe Institute] The authors point out that their model only addresses the scenario of an individual cancer trying to invade a healthy population. Once a cancer has overcome the odds of extinction and reached a certain critical size, other dynamics prevail.
Brain tumours manipulate neighbouring synapses [Nature] The growth of a brain tumour can be affected by the activity of its neighbouring neurons. The finding that such tumours send signals that boost connections between these neurons reveals a pathway that drives cancer growth.
	1.1 BIOLOGIE - GÉNOME
Lung Adenocarcinoma Genomic Features Differ in East Asians, Europeans [Genome Web] For their study, the researchers sequenced the exomes and transcriptomes of 213 Chinese lung adenocarcinoma patients from Singapore and combined that dataset with previously published whole-exome sequencing data on 92 Chinese patients from a BGI cohort.
	2.14 ETIOLOGIE - TALC
FDA to hold public meeting on testing for asbestos in talc [Reuters] The hearing on asbestos testing in talc, the FDA’s first since 1971, will focus on testing standards recommended by a panel of government experts.
	3.3 PRÉVENTION - VACCINS
Studies Support HPV Safety [JAMA] With more than 28 million doses administered since 2014, the CDC hasn’t identified any new or unexpected safety concerns with the human papillomavirus vaccine, according to a pair of CDC studies published in Pediatrics.
	4. DÉPISTAGE, DIAGNOSTIC ET PRONOSTIC
Assessing ‘Stickiness’ of Tumor Cells Could Improve Cancer Prognosis [UCSD] In the future, the team hopes that clinicians will use this microfluidic device to examine tumor biopsies to estimate the likelihood of metastasis and adjust treatment at earlier disease stages.
	4.12 BIOPSIES LIQUIDES
Study demonstrates liquid biopsy as effective predictor of stage III melanoma relapse and treatment [MD Anderson Cancer Center] “Our analysis demonstrated that CTC detection was significantly associated with a decrease in relapse-free survival at six months, and persisted at a 54-month longer-term follow-up,” said Lucci.
	5. TRAITEMENTS
Medics in Glasgow probe heart risk side effects of chemotherapy [BBC News] The study will look carefully at the heart with a series of detailed scans, including MRI, to develop a better understanding of how often these problems happen.
	5.12.2 IMMUNOTHÉRAPIES - CAR-T, THÉRAPIES CELLULAIRES
Calibr’s ‘switchable’ CAR-T platform for cancer moves forward with FDA clearance of Investigational New Drug application [Scripps] The novel cell therapy can begin clinical trials for patients with relapsed/refractory B-cell malignancies; the phase 1 trial will test a new, universal approach to CAR-T cell therapy.
Building a safer CAR-T therapy [Ludwig Cancer Research] The researchers are now developing a STOP-CAR-T system that can be controlled by an approved drug and tweaking the system in various ways to see if they can lower the amount of drug required to control the cells.
	5.12.5 IMMUNOTHÉRAPIES - PHARMA
Bristol's shot at eroding Keytruda's lung cancer lead looks dimmer as Opdivo-Yervoy use pulled in EU [Fierce Pharma] Still, Bristol has another trick up its sleeve. The New Jersey pharma recently said the Opdivo-Yervoy duo, when used on top of two cycles of chemo, also significantly extended patient’s lives in the CheckMate-9LA study.
Bristol-Myers withdraws Opdivo/Yervoy lung cancer EU application — but others are incoming [EndPoints] Last month, the FDA granted the company’s application for the Opdivo/Yervoy combo for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic or recurrent NSCLC with no EGFR or ALK genomic tumor aberrations priority review, on the basis of the same CheckMate-227 study.
	5.12.7 IMMUNOTHÉRAPIES - VACCINS
The search for cancer vaccines [Chemistry World] For immune checkpoint therapy to work the patient also needs good T-cell immunity. So now the hypothesis is that one of the mechanisms to induce good T-cell immunity is vaccination. That’s why people are now going back to the vaccines, trying to see if we can induce good immunity in patients not responding to current immunotherapies.
	5.2.6 PHARMA - BIOTECH
United Therapeutics Drug Flunks Small Cell Lung Cancer Clinical Trial [Xconomy] Dinutuximab is an antibody drug developed to bind to GD2, a molecule expressed on the surface of some cancer cells. The FDA approved the drug in 2015 as a treatment for high-risk neuroblastoma, a rare pediatric cancer that affects nerve cells still in development.
United Therapeutics' drug fails PhII/III cancer trial, marking their second straight stumble in post-Remodulin PAH [EndPoints] The latest trial tested a combination of dinutuximab and irinotecan – the generic name for the longtime Pfizer drug Camptosar — against irinotecan alone in 485  second-line SCLC patients.
	5.5 ASCO
Janssen to Highlight Depth of Solid Tumor Portfolio at ASCO GU [Johnson & Johnson] New data featured in multiple presentations across prostate and bladder cancer treatment portfolio and pipeline including ERLEADA® (apalutamide), niraparib and BALVERSATM (erdafitinib).
	6.10 POLITIQUES
Colombia’s first ever science minister faces calls to resign over fungi-based cancer treatment [Science] Critics say Mabel Gisela Torres Torres backed “pseudoscience”.
New Zealand Cancer Action Plan 2019–2029 [Ministry of Health] Cancer is the leading cause of death in New Zealand. Each year, around 23,000 people are diagnosed with cancer and 10,000 die from cancer. The New Zealand Cancer Action Plan 2019-2020 (the plan) provides a pathway to improve cancer outcomes for all New Zealanders.
Colombian science minister’s cancer claims spark controversy [Nature] The treatment was not given under the auspices of a clinical trial, nor was Torres’ methodology approved by a medical ethics committee. She has never submitted the results for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
	6.5 MÉDECINES ALTERNATIVES/COMPLÉMENTAIRES
The “Cancer Truther” movement [Respectful Insolence] I actually like the term “chemotherapy Truther” (or “chemo Truthers”). It’s a great term that captures the disinformation, conspiracy theories, and pseudoscience behind chemotherapy denial (another term I like to describe this phenomenon).
	6.7.3 DMP
Putting Precision Oncology into Practice [Rush University] Rush University Medical Center is the first health care organization to launch medical record company Epic’s module for genomic results, giving providers the tools they need to tailor patient care at the molecular level.