Precision Medicine in Oncology®

John C. Byrd, MD, director of the division of hematology at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses the role of Bruton's Tyrosine Kinase (BTK) in chronic lymphocytic leukemia.

William M. Grady, MD, from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, discusses results from a study that examined the association of intrinsic subtypes of colorectal cancer with prognosis, chemotherapy response, and other factors.

Suresh S. Ramalingam, MD, from Emory University's Winship Cancer Institute, explains that a number of new cytotoxic drugs are being developed in combination with targeted therapies, such as EGFR inhibitors.

A pair of studies could change the way patients are evaluated for mutations of BRCA1 and BRCA2, two cancer susceptibility genes closely associated with breast and ovarian cancers, as well as other tumor types.

Tianhong (Tina) Li, MD, PhD, from the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses results from the LUX-Lung 3 trial that examined afatinib as a first-line treatment for patients with EGFR-positive advanced lung adenocarcinoma.

Brian J. Druker, MD, one of the pioneering researchers who discovered imatinib, has maintained his focus on finding new and better treatments for CML and other leukemias.

The FDA has accepted a NDA for afatinib to treat patients with locally advanced or metastatic NSCLC who have tested positive for an EGFR mutation that has been identified through a companion diagnostic test.

Corey J. Langer, MD, from the University of Pennsylvania, Abramson Cancer Center, discusses the EGFR-targeted tyrosine kinase inhibitor erlotinib for patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

An ever-deeper understanding of the biology that drives NSCLC is sparking new treatment paradigms that include selecting targeted drugs based on patients' biomarkers.

Andrew D. Zelenetz, MD, PhD, from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, explains the impact that rituximab has made in the treatment of patients with non-Hodgkin and B-cell lymphomas.

Debu Tripathy, MD, from the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses a phase II trial that examined the CDK inhibitor PD 0332991 for women with advanced estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer.

Circulating tumor cells can be a predictive blood biomarker for recurrence and survival in patients with stage III melanoma and may help identify who will benefit from aggressive adjuvant therapy.

PS2 patients in focus at the 7th Annual New York Lung Cancer Symposium, hosted by Physicians' Education Resource, that took place in New York City.

Heinz-Josef Lenz, MD, has focused his research on a range of scientific and translational questions, including the regulation of gene expression in drug resistance and targeted therapies.

Genetic testing for cancer survivors may play a critical role in helping avoid a second primary cancer or it may help prevent family members from developing cancer.

Tumor-initiating cells are thought to be the source of metastasis. For these reasons, the Wnt pathway is viewed as a strong candidate for therapeutic intervention.

Treating estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer without sparking resistance is a complex endeavor that should involve simultaneously targeting the hormone-signaling and PI3 kinase molecular pathways

In the absence of a phase III randomized trial, what constitutes sufficient evidence to justify use of a treatment, particularly a nontraditional treatment or one that challenges common practice?

Scientists now know a lot more about the genetic landscape of head and neck cancer and hope that eventually this knowledge will lead the way to new therapies.

Cristi Radford, MS, CGC, from the Sarasota Memorial Hospital, discusses examining cancer gene panels using next generation sequencing for patients with ovarian cancer.

Jorge E. Cortes, MD, from the MD Anderson Cancer Center, describes results from a 12 month follow up of the phase II PACE study that examined ponatinib in patients with CML and Ph+ ALL.

Mark G. Kris, MD, from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, discusses the administration of dacomitinib for patient with EGFR-positive lung cancer.

An interview with Jenny C. Chang, MB BChir, MD, who broke new ground in cancer research when she identified and patented a 493-gene signature for breast cancer.

Predictive biomarkers are beginning to help physicians assign value to associated therapies in terms of likelihood of benefit and benefit-to-risk profiles for individual patients.

Justin M. Balko, PharmD, PhD, from the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, discusses research into clinically targetable genetic alterations in patients with triple-negative breast cancer.

Patients with triple-negative breast cancer who have residual disease after receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy have a series of genetic alterations that are clinically targetable and may warrant further study.

Combining the investigational PD 0332991 with letrozole as first-line therapy extended progression-free survival in women with advanced estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer.

Richard Finn, MD, from the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, describes results from a phase II study that examined PD 0332991 in combination with letrozole for women with metastatic ER-positive breast cancer.

Results of the phase III MISSION trial showed that third- or fourth-line treatment with sorafenib did not improve overall survival in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer.

The pace of discovery in breast cancer research has been brisk in the past year, leading not only to the approval of several new therapies but also to clinical trial results with the potential to change practice.