- An article on Charles L. Sawyers, chair of the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program at MSK, points out Dr. Sawyers’ crucial contribution to the discovery of three cancer drugs. The most recent one, Xtandi, is for the treatment of metastatic castration resistant prostate cancer. With the development of these three drugs, Dr. Sawyers has helped to bring about a novel approach to cancer treatment.
- In a study carried out by Jianda Yuan and colleagues of Memorial Sloan Kettering, serum levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) of patients with metastatic melanoma were analyzed before and after treatment with ipilimumab. Patients with high levels of VEGF before treatment with ipilimumab have poorer survival than patients with lover VEGF levels. Serum VEGF may be a predictive biomarker for ipilimumab treatment.
- MSK researchers conducted a trial of initial targeted therapies where patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma were treated with tivozanib, which showed extended progression-free survival ( PFS) as compared with patients treated with sorafenib. The research was led by Robert J. Motzer of Memorial Sloan-Kettering. Tivozanib did not prolong overall survival (OS,) but the study indicated that further research on tivozanib is warranted. Results were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (2013; 31:3791-3799, PMID: 24019545).
- An MSK breast cancer surgeon was instrumental in the publication of a guideline on margins for breast-conserving surgery with whole –breast irradiation for stages i and ii invasive breast cancer. Dr. Monica Morrow, Chief of Breast Surgery at MSK collaborated with Dr. Meena S. Moran of Yale School of Medicine to bring about the guideline which was announced by the American Society for Radiation Oncology and The Society of Surgical Oncology.