What's New in GU?

Hormone-dependent cancers rely on normal signalling pathways of the body in order to fuel their malignant potential. Fortunately, targeted therapies designed to deprive cancers of these growth signals have proven to be effective tools for treating patients with these types of cancers. New evidence published on August 5th by the New England Journal of Medicine now shows that combining androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) and the chemotherapy drug docetaxel increases survival in patients with hormone-sensitive prostate cancer. The study found that patients receiving ADT and docetaxel together improved their survival by 13.6 months compared to patients receiving ADT alone.
Read more at the NEJM.

Dr. Himisha Beltran and her team of researchers at the Institute for Precision Medicine at Weill Cornell and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital have published findings in the May 28 edition of JAMA Oncology that offer new insight into treatment options for resistant cancers. Genetic sequencing has allowed oncologists to further classify and predict the behavior of many cancers, allowing patients to receive treatments that are more tailored to their cancer’s unique mutations. Traditionally this has meant hunting for specific mutations in a patient’s cancer, but new advances in exome sequencing could streamline this process and offer physicians new precision in choosing the right treatments for their patients.

“Most institutions are using focused or panel sequencing to look at a few hot spot mutation areas in cancer,” said senior author Dr. Mark Rubin, the institute’s director, and the Homer T. Hirst III Professor of Oncology in Pathology and a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Weill Cornell. “But we believe that Whole Exome Sequencing, which tests more than 21,000 genes in the cancer’s exome, the DNA that is transcribed into RNA, is ideal for patients with advanced cancer where we don‘t know where the mutations of resistance are.”

Read more at the Cornell Chronicle.