Success with immunotherapy in handling hard to treat cancer

CHICAGO - Results of several clinical trials released Sunday show the revolutionary potential of immunotherapy in treating advanced cases of hard to treat types of cancer, such as bladder and lung cancer.

One has shown that the antibody Tecentriq -- a product of Genentech, a subsidiary of the Swiss pharmaceutical Roche -- reduced advanced bladder tumors in a quarter of 119 patients tested, with a median survival of almost 15 months. These results compare with a nine to 10 month survival rate typical with chemotherapy, the researchers said.

The findings were presented at the annual conference of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the world's largest cancer congress, held this weekend in Chicago.

Tecentriq, which allows the immune system to attack the cancer cells, was shown to be effective with patients who had advanced bladder cancer and were too weak for chemotherapy.

"Up to half of patients with advanced bladder cancer are too frail to receive the only known survival-prolonging treatment," said lead study author Arjun Vasant Balar, a medical doctor and assistant professor of medicine at New York University.

"We are encouraged to see that atezolizumab immunotherapy may help address this major unmet need," Balar said.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently authorized sales of Tecentriq on an expedited basis based on preliminary results of this clinical trial.

"This and other immunotherapies have brought new momentum to bladder cancer treatment, which until recently had seen practically no treatment advances in more than a decade," said Charles Ryan, a professor of clinical medicine and urology at the University of California at San Francisco who participated in the study.

"The fact that this treatment appears safe for elderly patients, who too often have few good options, is all the more encouraging," Ryan said.

The researchers plan to carry out a more extensive clinical trial with Tecentriq as first treatment for advanced bladder cancer that mainly affects older people, the vast majority of whom are smokers or former smokers.


Promising treatment

A new immunotherapy combined with an agent that kills cancer cells has also shown to be promising in treating patients suffering from the most aggressive form of lung cancer, which amounts to 10 to 15 percent of all lung tumors, according to the results of a separate clinical trial with 74 patients that was presented at ASCO Sunday.

This treatment combines a new immunotherapy, rovalpituzumab tesirine (Rova-T), developed by the start-up Stemcentrx that was recently acquired by the US laboratory AbbVie.

This combination blocked tumor growth in 89 percent of patients with high levels of DLL3 protein, and resulted in a cancer regression in 39 percent of the group being tested, which included some who had been given only one more year to live.

"We've seen too few successes in recent years for small cell lung cancer, which makes these early signs of efficacy all the more encouraging," said lead study author Charles Rudin, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

A European study also presented at the ASCO conference showed encouraging results for an immunotherapy that targets the protein claudine18.2 in cases of advanced gastric cancer.

That immunotherapy, IMAB362 of Germany's Ganymed Pharmaceuticals, is also combined with chemotherapy.

The clinical study with 161 patients who suffered from aggressive gastric tumors showed that this antibody significantly prolonged their survival when combined with chemotherapy, with 13.2 months or 16.7 months against 8.4 or nine months in patients treated with chemotherapy alone.

source: interaksyon.com

Andy Williams, 'Moon River' Singer, Dies at 84

Andy Williams, whose corn-fed good looks, easygoing charm and smooth rendition of "Moon River" propelled him to the heights of music stardom in the early '60s, died Tuesday at his home in Branson, Mo., following a battle with bladder cancer, his family announced.

He was 84, and 2012 had marked his 75th year in showbiz. Williams is survived by his wife Debbie and his three children, Robert, Noelle and Christian.

With 17 gold and three platinum records to his name, Williams enjoyed his golden years playing golf and dividing his time between La Quinta, Calif., and Branson, where he appeared at his Andy Williams Moon River Theater since 1992.

It was on the stage of that theater, in November 2011, Williams announced he had bladder cancer. At the time, he assured fans the disease was no longer a death sentence and that he had every intention of being a survivor.

Born in Wall Lake, Iowa, the son of a railroad worker, Howard Andrew WIlliams sang in his family's church choir with older siblings Bob, Dick and Don. In the late '30s, the boys built up a name for themselves regionally on Midwestern radio stations as the Williams Brothers quartet.

After the war, in 1947, they joined entertainer Kay Thompson in her innovative and sophisticated nightclub act. In his 2009 memoir Moon River and Me, Williams admitted he had a long affair with Thompson, who had been a legendary vocal coach at MGM (she taught Judy Garland and Lena Horne to sing for the screen) and was 18 years the senior of her handsome young protégé.

In 1952, when the brothers' act broke up, Andy launched his solo career, only to find himself broke and without bookings. Giving himself one last shot, he wisely switched his repertoire from clever Noël Coward ditties to the latest pop hits, and his New York club appearances soon included singing spots on the Tonight show (which was in Manhattan at the time), then regular TV shots and a Columbia Records contract.

By the early '60s he had an easy-listening hit under his belt, "Can't Get Used to Losing You," though it was his romantic take on the Best Song Oscar winner from 1961's Breakfast at Tiffany's, "Moon River," that landed him on the map – and kept him there.

The smash hit recording led to NBC's 1962 launch of The Andy Williams Show, which remained on the air until 1971 and then returned as an annual Christmas special. It was on the variety weekly program in 1963 that Williams introduced to America a group of young singing siblings from Utah, The Osmond Brothers.

Despite his own clean-cut good looks – the Williams signature look was a turtleneck under a brightly colored pullover sweater – scandal did touch Williams's life. In the mid-1970s, his ex-wife, French dancer Claudine Longet, went on trial in Aspen for the fatal shooting of her lover, international skiing star Vladimir ("Spider") Sabich.

In the end, Longet, who claimed the shooting was an accident, was found guilty of misdemeanor criminal negligence and received only a 30-day sentence, which she served on and off at her convenience. In his 2009 memoir, Williams, who during the trial had accompanied his ex-wife to the courtroom on a daily basis, continued to defend her innocence.

Longet and Williams were married from 1961 to 1975 and had three children together: Noelle, Christian, and Robert. They survive him, as does his second wife (since 1991), Debbie Williams.

source: people.com