• ODAC Votes to Nix Amgen's Drug Xgeva for Proposed Prostate Cancer Indication
• Appropriations 2013: Obama Proposes Flat Funding for NIH
• Nevins Reverses Position, Claims Potti Manipulated Data For Basis of Clinical Trials

• Planned Parenthood May Be Doing Harm By Selling Breast Cancer Screening to Women Under 40
• Komen Board Approved Defunding Planned Parenthood, Says Karen Handel
• 60 Minutes to air segment on the "Deception at Duke"

• The Pink Machine Sputters, Goes in Reverse: Komen Funding Decision Sparks Outrage
• FASEB Delivers Its Recommendations For Federal Research Funding in 2013

• Regorafenib Trial Meets Primary Endpoint, Improves Overall Survival by 29 Percent
• Tesetaxel Showed 20 Percent Response in Second-Line Therapy in Phase IIb trial
• ETP-ALL May Be Linked to Acute Myeloid Leukemia
• FDA Approvals: Inlyta for Renal Cell Carcinoma
• NCI-approved trials for the month of January

• From One Competitive Market to Another: UC San Diego Stakes a Claim in Las Vegas
• FDA Didn't Punish Duke for Failing To Seek Proper Regulatory Clearance for Three Trials
• News Analysis by Keith Baggerly: Duke Trials Went On Despite FDA Statements 

• Is a New Cancer Center Always a Good Thing? UCSD To Buy Las Vegas Center at Bankruptcy Sale
• New Jersey Legislature Votes to Oppose USPSTF PSA Screening Downgrade
• FDA Proposes New User Fees for Generics and Biosimilar Products

• McGivney Out at NCCN as Board Cites Management Style, Strategic Direction
• Guest Editorial by ACS Chief Medical Officer Otis Brawley: ACS Revises Process for Making Guidelines
• A History of NCCN

• NCI Bioinformatics after Kenneth Buetow: Varmus launches fundamental redesign
• A conversation with Daniel Masys: acronym "caBIG" could be eliminated
• ACS journal Cancer refers I-ELCAP studies to Office of Human Research Protections

• Pfizer's Inlyta Gives FDA a Teaching Moment: Not All PFS Advantages are Created Equal
• caBIG Architect Kenneth Buetow Resigns
• Anil Potti Explains: "Coming from India, I Did Not Know This Was Not The Real Rhodes Scholarship"

• NCI's caBIG leader Kenneth Buetow Announces Resignation
• Email to staff members obtained by The Cancer Letter

• Anil Potti reprimanded by North Carolina Licensure Board
• Duke University settles 11 medical malpractice cases related to Potti's trials
• Excerpts from Potti's application to practice medicine in South Carolina
• Barbara Rimer and Owen Witte to be named members of the President's Cancer Panel

• Androgen-Deprivation Therapy Does Not Raise Risk of Heart Attack in Men with No History of Heart Disease
• Trial in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer to be Unblinded after Regorafenib Meets Primary Endpoint

• After Aggressive Budgetary Trimming, At $33 Million NCI's caBIG Remains Big
• Health Canada Suspends Avastin Approval; CMS Has Taken No Action After FDA Decision

• ACS Creates $1 Billion Nationwide Organization, Taking Fiduciary Control From 12 Divisions
• With no budget in sight, NCI takes careful steps; Success Rate last year was 14 percent
• FDA Revokes Avastin's Accelerated Approval In Metastatic Breast Cancer Indication
• Industry Groups Lobby for Lower Standards for FDA Approval

• NCI Boosts Funding For Cooperative Groups by $25 Million, Cuts Overall Accrual by 20 Percent, to 20,000 Patients
• Guest Editorial: Group Chairs urge implementation of NCI plan. Next Step: Bioinformatics and Tissue Banks

• IOM Committee Focuses on Studies Needed To Protect Patients on Omics-Based Trials
• Obama Executive Order Gives FDA Authority to Combat Drug Shortages
• Cold Spring Harbor Joins SWOG, Becoming First Lab to Join Cooperative Group

• Herceptin Regimen Minus Adriamycin Increases Survival With Less Toxicity
• Alimta Reduces Risk of PRogression in Patients Aged 70 Years or Older
• Family History of BRCA Mutation Does Not Equal Increased Cancer Risk
• Researchers Discover Specific Bacteria Common in Colon Cancer Tissue
• NCI CTEP Approved Trials for the month of October

• Reaction to PSA Guideline Muffled Compared to 2009 Mammography Guideline
• Hey Doc, Wanna Score Some Leucovorin? Drugs Available at 80 Times the Price
• Six Years into The Drug Shortage, And The Causes Are Still a Mystery
• Ralph Steinman Wins Nobel Prize Three Days After His Death

• How Low Can You Go? ODAC Accepts Retrospective Study for Accelerated Approval
• House Appropriations Boosts NIH By $1 Billion In Draft Budget That Cuts Other HHS Programs
• Pao Named Director of Department of Hematology and Oncology at Vanderbilt University
• Kulig Will Oversee Outcomes Research at NCCN

• Afinitor and Exemestane More than Doubles PFS, Reduces Progression Risk by 57 Percent
• Investigational Drug Radium-223 Chloride Improved Overall Survival By 44 Percent
• Two-Step Matching Process Increases Stem-Cell Transplant Success in Blood Cancers
• FDA News: Zofran Label Change Includes Warnings of QT Prolongation
• NCI CTEP Trials Approved for the month of September

• ODAC's Dilemma: Proposed Indication Created by Reliance on PSA Screening and Hormonal Treatment
• Possible Government Shutdown Looms Over Biomedical Research Funding Once More
• Two Cooperative Groups Renamed ECOG-ACRIN

• Varmus to NCAB: Budgetary "Haircuts" No Longer Sufficient to Cope With Fiscal Pressure
• NIH COI Rule Mandates More Disclosure, Leaves Institutions in Charge of Ethics of Extramural Researchers
• Peter Shields Named Deputy Director at Ohio State
• Another Potti Paper Retracted

• Trastuzumab Improved Survival in Women with Stage IV Breast Cancer with CNS Metastases
• Majority of Invasive Bladder Cancer Patients Do Not Receive Full Recommended Care

• Genentech: ODAC Lacks Expertise, Impartiality; FDA: Company's Proposal Unscientific
• Fadlo Khuri Named Editor-in-Chief of ACS Journal Cancer
• NCCN Launches Outcomes Improvement Program

• Group Chairs Urge NCI to Limit Authority of Steering Committees That Determine Which Trials Get Funded
• Robert Cook-Deegan on Implications of Appelate Court Ruling in Myriad Case Ruling
• Funding Opportunity: DOD Devotes $150 Million to Breast Cancer Research

• RTOG: Short-term Hormone Therapy Combined with Radiation Therapy Increases Survival of Early-Stage Prostate Cancer
• Zaltrap Shows Improvement of Survival in Stage IV Metatstatic Colorectal Cancer
• NCI-Approved Trials for the Month of July

• Part II of Q&A With NCI Director Harold Varmus
• Barnett Kramer Next Director of NCI Division of Cancer Prevention 

• NCI Moves Ahead with Trials Database, Reporting Studies in Progress at Cancer Centers
• Guest Editorial by Gregory Reaman: Memories of a Merger Past
• Chi Van Dang named director of University of Pennsylvania Abramson Cancer Center
• Monica Bertagnolli elected chair of the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology

• Advocates Call For Metrics and Action Plan In NCI's Redesign of Cooperative Groups
• Five New Members Appointed to the National Cancer Advisory Board
• Letters to the Editor from I-ELCAP's Claudia Henschke and Steve Walker from Abigail Alliance. 

• NCI Lung Cancer Mutation Consortium: Screening for mutations can focus therapy
• Two trials presented at ASCO annual meeting demonstrate drop in death risk and increased survival in advanced melanoma

• With Flashing Lights, Heckling, and Folk Song, Avastin Sets New Tone for FDA Debates
• Guest Editorial: Gerard Silvestri calls for uniform guideline for CT screening for lung cancer
• Preliminary estimates based on NLST results: Year of life saved could cost $38,000

• BSA approves Provocative Questions RFA; NCI Announces Review of SAIC-Frederick, for caBIG Restructuring
• Henschke: I-ELCAP Plans to Enroll 100,000 Patients in Controversial Screening Trial
• Guest Editorial: Richard Schilsky reflects on his past decade with the Board of Scientific Advisors
• I-ELCAP Results Internally Inconsistent, Peter Bach Writes

• Three Venerable Acronyms Fade Away As Cooperative Groups Form "Alliance"
• ASCO Urges NCI to Spell Out Metrics of Success Beyond Cutting Groups to Arbitrary Number
• Former NCI, FDA Chief Andrew Von Eschenbach Appointed to NCCN Foundation Board

• Sledge: Prepare for Genomic Information "Tsunami"
• James Doroshow named NCI deputy director, clinical research
• Abrams, Tomaszewski to co-direct DCTD
• O'Shaughnessy, Burris to present for Genentech at FDA hearing at June 28-29
• ASCO 2011 Award Winners

• Physicians accept plans by City of Hope to pay for services through new foundation
• Gregory Reaman named Associate Director of FDA Office of Oncology Drug Products
• Anil Potti joins Myrtle Beach private practice.

• Las Vegas cancer center cuts staff, seeks lifelines during "perfect storm"
• Ten Cooperative Group Chairs propose eight "Guiding Principles" for change
• Harvard's DePinho becomes finalist at MD Anderson

• Henschke and supporters call for urgent action based on results of NLST
• NIH grant success rate drops to under 20 percent after 2011 budget cuts

• Varmus to cut five percent from cancer centers as NCI adjusts to "financial disaster"
• I-ELCAP: NEJM and other journals seek information on the study's confidential review from Henschke and her employers

• Study finds that IMRT usage and cost related to geography and Medicare reimbursement policy
• Aflibercept improves overall survival in second-line colorectal cancer setting
• FDA News: Centocor withdraws NDA application for Yondelis
• NCI approved trials for the month of April

• FDA Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee: Trials in a small indication tell big story about pitfalls of delaying progression
• Guest Editorial: Anil Potti hires "online reputation managers" as journals retract his biomarker research

• CTEP Publishes Final Version of Plan for Assigning Intellectual Property Rights on Correlative Research
• Varmus Pledges to Keep Grants at 2010 Level as Federal Shutdown Looms 
• FDA, Genentech Agree on Framework for Avastin Hearing June 28-29
• Nobel Laureate Baruch Blumberg Dies at 85
• Southwest Oncology Group Becomes "SWOG"

• Nevins: Duke Administration Did a "Very Good Job" of Handling the Crisis
• Guest Editorial: Chernobyl Doctor's Notes from Fukushima
• Group Chairs Respond to Center Directors' White Paper
• The Cancer Letter Wins Journalism Award

• Rituximab and Fludarabine combination produces long-term remissions in CLL
• Two-year remission while taking Gleevec puts patients into normal mortality rate for CML
• DCIS: Radiation and Tamoxifen after lumpectomy reduces cancer recurrence
• Dendritic cell vaccine may boost survival of glioblastoma
• Multiple Births increases risk for triple-negative breast cancer
• Statins associated with lower risk of high-grade prostate cancer

• Why Four? NCI Official Challenged to Explain Rational for Proposed Number of Groups
• An alliance of NSABP-RTOG and GOG?
• Pazdur: Registration Trials Run by Groups Need Same Rigor as Industry Trials
• McCormick President-elect of AACR; Garber to Start Term as President
• BMS Agent Yervoy Received FDA Approval for Metastatic Melanoma

• Scrutiny of caBIG Exposes Conflicts, Bonanza for Contractors
• ECOG, ACRIN Agree to Join; NCI's Goal of Four Adult Groups is One Merger Away
• Guest Editorial: Don Berry on Cancer Centers Publishing Comparative Survival Data

• Coooperative Groops Announce Two Sets of Mergers: NSABP, RTOG Form Alliance; CALGB, NCCTG & ACOSOG Seek to Become Single Group 
• BSA Strikes Down NCI Tissue Bank Plan, Calls for Audit of caBIG

Talking Back: FDA Faces Challenges Over Avastin & Prostate Cancer Prevention

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Varmus: NCI Faces "Budgetary Disaster;" Flat Funds, Cuts Loom For Most Programs

Phase III Study: Rituxan Improved PFS By 79% In Advanced Follicular Lymphoma  

NCI Proposes Consolidation of Nine Cooperative Groups to Four

(Last issue of 2010. Next issue Jan. 7, 2011.)

NCAB Calls For Modification Of Rules For NIH Scientist-Industry Collaboration

FDA Sets High Bar For Prevention Agents As ODAC Votes Down Proscar And Avodart

NCI-Funded Modelers Accurately Predicted Outcome Of Lung Cancer Screening Trial

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JCO Retracts Key Duke Genomics Paper; Duke Shuts Down Three Phase II Trials; Anil Potti Resigns

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Over Half of ALK-Positive NSCLC Patients Responded To Crizotinib In Colorado Study

Varmus: NCI Needs To Rethink, Review; Programs Must Be “At A High Level”

NLST Shows 20.3 Percent Mortality Benefit For CT Vs. X-Ray In Lung Cancer Screening 

Nevins Retracts Key Paper By Duke Group, Raising Question Of Harm To Patients 

IOM Review Of Duke Genomics Trials To Focus On Validation, Scientific Criteria

2010 Breast Cancer Symposium reports: Ten-Year Breast Cancer Survival Improved In Past 60 Years, MD Anderson Study Finds. Swedish screening study reports benefit for younger women. Racial disparities remain in patient care. Ovarian cancer: adding topotecan to standard therapy didn't improve progression-free survival in phase III trial. NCI-approved trials listed. 

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Wanted: Methods To Measure Or Estimate Renal Function For Dosing Cancer Drugs

New Creatinine Test Raises Questions About Accuracy Of Carboplatin Dosing 

New Immunotherapy Increased Survival Of Neuroblastoma In Phase III Trial. Cancer Patients Who Die In Hospital Or ICU Have Worse QOL; Caregivers Affected, Too. Rituximab Prolonged Survival Of CLL In Phase III Trial. Cervical Cancer: Colorado Researchers Developing Low-Cost HPV Vaccine. Screening: Targeting Men At Risk Finds More Suspicious Head & Neck Lesions. Use Of Multivitamin Doesn't Affect Colon Cancer Treatment Outcomes. NCI-Approved Trials Listed.

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Cooperative Group Consolidation Unlikely To Save Money, NCI's Doroshow Says. National Breast Cancer Coalition Sets Goal To End Breast Cancer By Jan. 1, 2020. FDA Delays Decision On Avastin Approval For Breast Cancer. MD Anderson Completes $500 Million Research Endowment. NIH Biennial Report Offers Research Portrait. Gulf Health Study Begun With $10 Million Each from NIH, BP.

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In this issue: 

Senate Resolution Urges CMS To Reopen Coverage Policy on ESAs In Oncology.

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In this issue: 

Alcohol Consumption Increases Risk Of Lobular And HR+ Breast Cancer. Olaparib, A PARP Inhibitor, Reduced Tumor Size In Advanced Ovarian Cancer in Phase II Trial. Brothers Of Prostate Cancer Patients At Higher Risk Of Diagnosis. Use Of Estrogen Alone Didn't Increase Risk Of Lung Cancer In WHI. Two Avastin Trials Show Overall Survival Benefit In Advanced Lung Cancer. Elderly Patients Fail To Receive Newer Therapy For CML. Radiation To Stem Cell Niche Improved PFS For Glioblastoma. NCI-Approved Cooperative Group Trials Listed.

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