Clinical Roundup

Clinical Roundup

Metastasis-directed radiation therapy plus hormone therapy improves PFS for men with advanced prostate cancer

Researchers from MD Anderson Cancer Center demonstrated that adding metastasis-directed radiation therapy to intermittent hormone therapy improved progression-free survival in patients with oligometastatic prostate cancer. Findings from the multicenter EXTEND trial were presented Oct. 25 at the 2022 American Society for Radiation Oncology Annual Meeting.
Clinical Roundup

VCU Massey scientists pinpoint druggable target in TNBC

Through a genomic screening method known as CRISPR/CAS9 screening, Massey scientists—led by Anthony Faber and Jennifer Koblinski—identified a specific enzyme called UBA1 that revealed itself as an ideal therapeutic target in triple negative breast cancer. Using a novel UBA-inhibiting drug called TAK-243, they blocked the cellular function of UBA1 and effectively killed cancer cells in patient-derived breast tumors in mice.
Clinical Roundup

Analysis of radiotherapy and locoregional recurrence in RxPONDER patients

An analysis of data on the use of radiation therapy in a large clinical trial of patients with HR+, HER2- breast cancer who had one to three involved lymph nodes and a 21-gene recurrence score of 25 or less found that rates of locoregional recurrence of the disease were low regardless of whether a patient had received regional node irradiation. The results suggest that a randomized clinical trial is required to answer the question of whether these favorable-risk patients can safely skip RNI.
Clinical Roundup

Phase III pancreatic cancer study launched with OS primary endpoint for patients receiving MRI-guided ablative radiation therapy

ViewRay Inc. began a phase III randomized controlled trial titled “Locally Advanced Pancreatic cancer treated with ABLATivE stereotactic MRI-guided adaptive radiation therapy”—also known as LAP-ABLATE—which will compare stand-alone multi-agent chemotherapy, which is the current standard of care for patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer, to patients receiving a combination of chemotherapy and 5-fraction MRIdian stereotactic MR-guided adaptive radiotherapy. 
Clinical Roundup

Researchers discover how bacteria make pancreatic cancer cells grow and move

Scott Verbridge, associate professor in biomedical engineering and mechanics at Virginia Tech, and Barath Udayasuryan, an alumnus from the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, have discovered a characteristic of a common oral bacterium that relocates to pancreatic cancer tumors which may help guide future therapeutic interventions for treatment.