Cancer Treatment | GRACE

Progression-Free Survival (PFS) as a Primary Endpoint: Pros and Cons

November 9, 2008 - 9:26 pm

There have been several good questions recently about the importance of progression-free survival (PFS) as a key endpoint in our clinical trials. In fact, there have been more trials recently that have assigned PFS as the “primary endpoint”, the main variable that the trial is designed to test to see if there is a [...]

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The Myth of Targeted Therapy, or, Why are there side effects, anyway?

September 11, 2008 - 7:30 pm

Targeting cancer cells and missing all of the normal tissue is the Holy Grail of cancer therapy. It is the cancer equivalent to the perfect diet: eat everything you want, never exercise and stay perfectly skinny and fit. Doesn’t happen in metabolics and doesn’t happen in cancer therapy. Yet, to hear radiation oncologists or [...]

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Energy Machines as 21st Century “Snake Oil”: Anecdotes vs. Clinical Data

December 2, 2007 - 2:07 pm

I have expressed a good deal of skepticism about certain aspects of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), but I’d emphasize that CAM is a diverse array of approaches, some becomingly increasingly studied and accepted by more conventional (acupuncture, massage, potentially some supplements), while others (far more likely to be alternative than complementary [...]

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Is Progression Always a Reason to Discontinue Treatment? Early Data on Continuing EGFR TKIs after Progression

August 17, 2007 - 9:18 pm

Several members here have asked questions on the discussion/Q&A forum over the last several months about the potential value of continuing treatment, usually tarceva, in the setting of mild progression. Our general rule in oncology is that if someone shows that a tumor is growing (in trials, generally defined as any [...]

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