The Executive Scientific Committee of the 17th ECCO – 38th ESMO – 32nd ESTRO European Cancer Congress 2013 has awarded Efstathios Zikos and Divine Ediebah of the EORTC Quality of Life Department Fellowship Grants to attend the European Cancer Congress 2013 which will be held in Amsterdam from 27 September to 1 October 2013.
Despite the fact that the incidence of cancer is many fold higher in persons over 65 years of age, we still have an inadequate understanding on how best to treat these older cancer patients. Furthermore, even though elderly patients are occasionally included in clinical trials, those elderly patients who are eventually included are mostly ‘healthy’ (fit) elderly patients. Thus, the broader elderly patient population is not well represented in clinical trials.
CHICAGO and BRUSSELS, June 3, 2013 – TESARO, Inc. (NASDAQ: TSRO), an oncology-focused biopharmaceutical company, Breast International Group (BIG), a non-profit organization for academic breast cancer research groups from around the world, and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC), an international, independent, multidisciplinary non-profit research organization, today announced a partnership for the Phase 3 clinical development of niraparib, an orally active, potent poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor.
Final analysis of the EORTC 10981-22023 AMAROS (After Mapping of the Axilla: Radiotherapy Or Surgery?) trial has shown that both axillary lymph node dissection and axillary radiotherapy provide excellent regional control for breast cancer patients with a positive sentinel node biopsy. The AMAROS trial also found that axillary radiotherapy reduces the risk of short term and long-term lymphoedema as compared to axillary lymph node dissection.
Interim results of an EORTC intergroup trial have confirmed that adjuvant imatinib impacts short-term freedom from relapse in patients with localized, surgically resected, high/ intermediate-risk GIST. In the high-risk subgroup, a non-statistically significant trend in favor of the adjuvant arm was observed in terms of Imatinib failure-free survival.
Results of the randomized phase II EORTC trial 16032-18031 reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology showed that in MAGE-A3 immunotherapy, clinical activity was higher and a more robust cellular and humoral response was observed in patients treated with MAGE‑A3 plus AS15 adjuvant than for MAGE-A3 plus AS02B adjuvant.
A further report on the results of EORTC trial 26951 indicates that CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP) status and O 6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) promoter methylation as assessed by MGMT-STP27 are the most informative for identifying grade III glioma patients who might benefit from the addition of procarbazine, CCNU and vincristine (PCV) chemotherapy to radiation therapy.
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second most frequent cause of cancer-related mortality in both Europe and the United States. Treatment for patients with resectable hepatic metastases from colorectal cancer consists of surgery combined with chemotherapy, but recurrence is observed in two thirds of these patients. In order to improve the outcome for these patients, EORTC trial 40091 – BOS 2 will test the efficacy of adding bevacizumab or panitumumab to the standard treatment, peri-operative FOLFOX 4 chemotherapy.
In a large, international, randomized trial, initial radiotherapy was compared to temozolomide chemotherapy. A statistically significant difference between the two treatment strategies was not observed for progression-free survival, although radiotherapy was numerically favored. However, molecular tumor characterization may allow the treatment approach to be personalized and one or the other treatment modality to be selected.
In an article appearing in ecancermedicalscience, the EORTC’s Emad Shash, Anastassia Negrouk, Sandrine Marreaud, Vassilis Golfinopoulos, Denis Lacombe and Francoise Meunier outline organizational and regulatory constraints for international clinical trials for rare
