Oncology

Pharmacists should be aware of what drug repurposing is and how it occurs as due to the vast amount of opportunities that exist.

Melissa B. Armitage, PharmD, BCOP, a clinical pharmacist who works in breast oncology at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, discussed this disease's pathophysiology, natural progression, and risk factors.

A session on the use of biosimilars, a topic that many pharmacists identify to be of growing importance in their practices, concluded the 2019 Directions in Oncology Pharmacy conference.

PARP inhibitors are novel therapies with indication focused on ovarian cancer; however, new agents are being studied for other cancers as well.

With cases of melanoma increasing more rapidly than those of other malignancies (especially in men), no conference on oncology pharmacy would be complete without a session covering this topic and its expansion of treatment options.

Many people are unaware that acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is the leading cause of acute leukemia in adults.

Approximately 73,000 NEW cases of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) are expected to be diagnosed in 2019 in the United States, with up to 70% of these cases anticipated to be clear-cell subtype.

Depending on the amount consumed, intake of dairy milk can increase the risk of breast cancer by up to 80%, according to new research from Loma Linda University Health.

Oncologists have grown increasingly concerned that high costs create ‘financial toxicity’ and may keep patients from getting needed treatments.

This is the first newly approved therapy for high risk locally advanced squamous cell carcinoma of LA-SCCHN in 25 years.

Prior authorization (PA) requirements, cost, and other factors can lead to turnaround times of up to 3 weeks, delaying the start of therapy and creating substantial anxiety for patients.

Two recently approved leukemia drugs could be enlisted against treatment-resistant lung cancer.

Officials from the FDA have approved a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for neratinib (NERLYNX, Puma Biotechnology) in combination with capecitabine for the treatment of adult patients with advanced or metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer that have received 2 or more prior anti-HER2-based regimens in the metastatic setting.

The research resulted in nearly 50 new drugs with previously unrecognized anti-cancer activity.

Patients with CLL may have genetic mutations that predict response to different treatments.

Current FDA-approved CAR-T cell therapies express CARs recognizing CD19, which is expressed on the surface of almost all B cells, making these therapies specific for B-cell malignancies.

As the growth of specialty continues at a record pace, pharmacy must keep up with new distribution trends as an oncology product’s supply chain of a product can take many paths.

Monotherapy with talazoparib demonstrated encouraging antitumor activity in patients with DNA damage repair mutations and docetaxel pretreated metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.

HER2 is a membrane-bound tyrosine kinase that when amplified contributes significantly to a tumor’s ability to proliferate and survive.

To stay up-to-date on the latest in oncology pharmacy, make sure to check out the slate of programming that will be offered this year through our Directions in Oncology PharmacyTM series.

Patients with ulcerative colitis have an increased risk of developing colorectal cancer (CRC), are diagnosed with less advanced CRC, and are at increased risk of death from CRC.

Guidelines indicate that there are a number of treatment options for head and neck cancers.

Patients diagnosed with Crohn disease and colorectal cancer (CRC) have a higher rate of mortality than patients without Crohn disease who are also diagnosed with CRC.

In a Directions in Oncology PharmacyTM Peer Exchange series, experts explained the right time to use bevacizumab, either as a front-line therapy or at the time of disease progression.

In a Directions in Oncology Pharmacy Peer Exchange series, experts discuss the PRIMA trial and the rationale for using PARP inhibitors.

Enfortumab vedotin-ejfv in combination with the anti-PD1-therapy pembrolizumab for the treatment of patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic urothelial cancer who are unable to receive cisplatin-based chemotherapy in the first-line setting.

The FDA has accepted Genentech’s supplemental biologics license application (sBLA) and granted priority review for atezolizumab (Tecentriq) as a first-line monotherapy for some patients with advanced non-squamous and squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

In the pivotal phase 3 KEYNOTE-355 study, pembrolizumab (Keytruda, Merck) combined with chemotherapy met one of its dual primary endpoints of progression-free survival (PFS) as a first-line treatment for patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) whose tumors expressed programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1).