by Mary Miller

Fight Colorectal Cancer is thrilled to announce during this holiday season that thanks to the generous donations made to the Lisa Fund, it will be awarding its first-ever two-year $100,000 grant to a scientist whose work fights advanced stage colorectal cancer.

Andrea Bertotti, MD, PhD, of the Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment (IRCC) in Candiolo, Italy, has learned that his lab will receive this major grant. “His work will be ground-breaking and exactly in line with the reason Lisa Dubow created this fund—to support a promising researcher working to advance the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer,” said Carlea Bauman, president of Fight Colorectal Cancer. Fully 100 percent of donations go directly to support young scientists. Each year’s winner is selected by an expert panel of researchers, through a review process administered by the American Association for Cancer Research. Read the rest of this entry »

The FDA has approved Erbitux™ (cetuximab) in combination with FOLFIRI for first-line treatment of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer whose tumors have a wild-type (WT) KRAS gene.  Erbitux was first approved in 2004 for patients whose cancer was not responding to available treatments.

FDA’s action was prompted by results from a look back at patient outcomes and KRAS status from three trials:

• CRYSTAL:  phase 3, 1217 patients newly diagnosed with metastatic CRC, comparing FOLFIRI vs FOLFIRI + Erbitux
• OPUS: phase 2, 337 patients newly diagnosed with metastatic CRC, comparing FOLFOX vs FOLFOX + Erbitux
• CA225025: phase 3, 572 patients with metastatic CRC that stopped responding to available treatments, comparing Best Supportive Care (BSC) to BSC + Erbitux

Read the rest of this entry »

Even in colorectal cancer patients with wild-type KRAS mutations, there was no increase in overall survival time or in the time it took before cancer progressed when Erbitux® (cetuximab) was added to FOLFOX or CAPOX chemotherapy.

More tumors got smaller with Erbitux treatment, but there was an increase in both serious gastrointestinal toxicity and severe skin rash when the drug was added.

Patients with tumor mutations in any of three genes — KRAS, BRAF, or NRAS — had poorer survival. Read the rest of this entry »

On Monday, April 25th, Fight Colorectal Cancer held a free patient webinar that tackled the somewhat complex but fascinating topic of personalized medicine.

Personalized medicine is what the cancer community calls treatments that are tailored to each patient’s genetic makeup. It is the future of cancer care and in some cases, it is already making a big difference in the ways patients are treated.

You can learn about these cutting edge treatments and about emerging findings in an archive of the webinar below.

Our thanks to Carolyn Grande, CRNP, AOCNP for leading the discussion. She a phenomenal educator on this topic and a member of our Medical Advisory Board. She graciously donated her time to bring this information to patients.

Medicine that is tailored to each patient’s genetic makeup is the future of cancer care. In some cases, it is already making a big difference in the ways patients are treated. Learn about these cutting edge treatments and about emerging findings that will be important for future diagnoses and treatments of colorectal cancer. Discussion led by Carolyn Grande, CRNP, AOCNP.