Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation

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A First: Treatment Improves Survival in Metastatic Melanoma Patients

For the first time, researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center — including former Damon Runyon-Lilly Clinical Investigator Jedd D. Wolchok, MD, PhD — have improved the survival rates of metastatic melanoma patients.

The breakthrough was made in a Phase III clinical trial involving 676 patients with late-stage, inoperable metastatic melanoma.  Rather than attacking the disease directly, researchers used the drug ipilimumab to prompt the immune system to find and kill cancer cells. 

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FDA Speeds Review of Promising Melanoma Treatment

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted a priority review to ipilimumab, a promising experimental treatment for advanced melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.  In our last eNewsletter, we reported on the recent success of former Damon Runyon-Lilly Clinical Investigator Jedd D. Wolchok, MD, PhD, and colleagues at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in leveraging ipilimumab to improve survival rates in some metastatic melanoma patients.

The FDA gives priority review when a drug offers “major advances in treatment, or provide a treatment where no adequate therapy exists.”

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FDA Approves First Effective Melanoma Treatment in Decades

Patients with metastatic melanoma have renewed hope in their fight against the most lethal form of skin cancer thanks to the FDA’s approval of a new treatment, Yervoy.

It marks the first major advancement in decades against a disease that affects more than 68,000 Americans each year.  In a recent clinical trial led by former Damon Runyon-Lilly Clinical Investigator Jedd. D. Wolchok, MD, PhD, nearly 50% of patients who received Yerboy survived for at least one year, compared to 25% of those who received other treatments.

Long before Yervoy got its brand name, Jedd was playing a key role in its development.

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A Tipping Point in Cancer Research

Cancer research is undergoing a major paradigm shift in which scientists and doctors are increasingly able to use genetic information to personalize treatments for cancer patients.  At the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in June, national leaders, including seventeen Damon Runyon Clinical Investigators, presented the results of promising studies involving new, targeted therapies that are transforming cancer treatment. 

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal on this shift in the world of cancer research, Dr. John Mendelsohn, Damon Runyon alumnus and President of Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center, said “A pattern is developing at an accelerated pace where we are able to match genetic information about a tumor to a new agent and get results.”  In short, scientists are better able to match treatments to individual patients.

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Combination Therapy Yields Remarkable Results for Melanoma Patient

Former Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Jedd D. Wolchok, MD, PhD, is back in the news with remarkable results from his latest melanoma study. He recently treated a patient with advanced melanoma, forty-two year-old Valerie Esposito of Long Island, with the immunotherapy Yervoy. Yervoy was approved by the FDA last year thanks to clinical trials led by Jedd.

Alone, it did not stop the slow growth of Valerie’s melanoma. After administering localized radiation, however, Jedd witnessed something extraordinary. Rather than the targeted tumor regressing, tumors all over Valerie’s body disappeared, an extremely rare result.

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