Maintenance Therapy on TKIs and Other Agents

[Fictional]

Hi guys,

I don't know whether this is applicable to ASPS, but I try to keep up with trends on oncology for solid tumors.

I found it interesting that there is a new trend for some doctors in metastatic solid tumor treatment - if a patient stabilizes or responds in the first 4 cycles on an approved drug, many are seeing if continuing certain drugs indefinitely until progression has a benefit on survival.

At least in some cancers it does. In non small cell lung cancer and ovarian cancer, there is some evidence that continuing drugs like avastin (a TKI like Sutent or Cediranib) or Gemzar have a benefit on progression free survival and survival in general.

It looks like more doctors are also looking into switching agents too. The discussion in this area might have relevance to ASPS because we are also dealing with metastatic solid tumors and if anything, the dividing times are even slower -- so taking medication for a longer time is more important.

I'm going to attach the article of the discussion. it may be too technical for some - but there are doctors of various sorts on the list and many who have become essentially doctors researching the disease. I found it interesting there is more discussion of the economics of some of these expensive drugs. I am worried about the costs of these drugs in the US - especially as the FDA is becoming more aggressive about considering taking cancer medications off Medicare approval (boo Obamacare).