| GPC Regroups
During its third-quarter conference call yesterday, GPC Biotech (Nasdaq: GPCB) gave investors an idea of what to expect down the road, now that it has to regroup in the wake of surprisingly negative study results on its lead drug. Last week, GPC announced that in a phase 3 study, its chemotherapy treatment Satraplatin failed to improve overall survival rates in late-stage prostate cancer patients, compared with a control group. The company didn't give any updates on the multiple subgroup analyses, but as GPC's CEO has said, it's now best to consider Satraplatin a phase 2 compound. Satraplatin is still a viable drug candidate, based on the data it has produced so far. But now that GPC has to push the drug through phase 2 studies and start phase 3 testing all over again, it will almost certainly take years before Satraplatin reaches the market -- if it ever gets that far at all.
Breast cancer treatment could be better for patien
Breast cancer treatment has come a long way. In recent years patients have been getting what's called partial breast radiation therapy, which takes one week instead of seven. Now there's a new kind of this therapy that could be even better for patients. .
Breakthrough Vaccine May Prove Successful for Treating Brain Cancer
Researchers at New York University's Clinical Cancer Center and several other U.S. medical colleges believe they may have found a breakthrough vaccine to treat the most deadly form of brain cancer. The vaccine actually uses proteins found in brain tumors of patients with glioblastoma multiforme, the most common and fatal form of brain cancer, to destroy the tumors themselves. Several universities including NYU, Duke University and the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit are testing it. The five-year study will track the effects of the vaccine on patients, who receive radiation and chemotherapy treatments over a three-year period. The participants will receive the vaccines every couple of weeks at first, then once every few months and several times per year for three years and will be screened for two additional years following the treatment.
Scan can tell if body is cancer-free
A whole-body PET scan may be just what the doctor orders now to tell women how successful their cervical cancer treatment has been. Researchers at Washington University say they have found that a PET scan three months after treatment ends can determine whether a woman is disease-free -- or whether she needs additional therapy. "This is the first time we can say that we have a reliable test to follow cervical cancer patients after therapy," said Dr. Julie E. Schwarz, a resident in the Department of Radiation Oncology. "If the scan shows a complete response to treatment, we can say with confidence that they are going to do extremely well. That's really powerful." Without a test like PET (positron emission tomography), it can be difficult to tell whether treatment has destroyed the cervical tumors, Schwarz said.
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