Niagara Falls, Ontario—A secondary analysis of a large study on intermittent versus continuous androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) has confirmed the importance of aiming for very low testosterone levels in men after they are diagnosed with prostate cancer, according to new data presented at the 2013 Canadian Urological Association annual meeting.

Chicago, IL—An examination of the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)-Medicare database from 1998 to 2008 revealed that a significant number of patients with cancer receive drugs that are neither indicated by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the specific condition nor endorsed by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) compendia—and 18% of the spending on cancer drugs is for off-label drug use.

A new study supported by the National Institutes of Health Pharmacogenomics Research Network represents a step forward toward personalized medicine in breast cancer prevention among women who are at high risk for the disease.

San Diego, CA—Getting technical information about companion diagnostic tests required to make formulary decisions about oncology drugs may not be easy, according to a small telephone survey conducted by Aashish Surti, PharmD can­didate, and Iris Tam, PharmD, Di­rector, Managed Care Med­i­­cal Com­mu­n­i­­cations, Genentech. They reported their survey results in a poster presented at the 2013 Academy of Man­aged Care Pharmacy (AMCP) meeting.

Lynch syndrome (LS) is an inherited syndrome of predisposition to cancer with an increased risk for colorectal cancer ranging from 30% to 80%. Prostate cancer has been described as a component tumor of LS, but the lifetime risk of prostate cancer in patients with LS has not been quantified because of inherent difficulties. In a new analysis, researchers have used genetic data to define the risk of prostate cancer in men with LS (Raymond VM, et al. J Clin Oncol. 2013;31:1713-1718).

New Orleans, LA—An analysis comparing the prescribing habits of urology practices shows that, despite treatment guideline recommendations to the contrary, gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists, which are only indicated for the palliative treatment of advanced prostate cancer, are routinely prescribed for patients with localized, low- or intermediate-grade prostate cancer, particularly by urologists who have no practice affiliation with a medical school.

New Orleans, LA—Researchers looking at whether guideline-directed adjuvant treatments for breast cancer were actually being administered in rural areas of the United States found that only 41% of the patients in this study received all of the suggested treatment modalities for breast cancer. Being single and advancing in age were negative predictors for receiving guideline-based care.

Chicago, IL—Data continue to build for the application of immunotherapy for patients with metastatic melanoma. At the 2013 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), several sessions were devoted to recent advances in melanoma, focusing on new ways to boost the activity of current therapies, introducing a new class of immunotherapy in development, and a new form of immunotherapy—an oncolytic vaccine.

Crizotinib (Xalkori), an inhibitor of the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene, has shown significant response rates in patients with advanced non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and the ALK rearrangement. One study in patients with ALK-positive advanced NSCLC showed a 60% objective response rate and a median PFS of 8.1 months with crizotinib; in a second study, the PFS was 9.7 months with crizotinib. A new study compared the response rates of crizotinib versus standard chemotherapy in patients with ALK-positive advanced NSCLC (Shaw AT, et al. N Engl J Med.

Chicago, IL—The use of costly diagnostic imaging of uncertain value is increasing rapidly for patients with localized non–small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)-Medicare database. Frequent surveillance imaging was found for white patients and for those with higher socioeconomic status, despite lack of evidence for its value and its high cost, said Jason D.

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