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The Latest News from the Life Raft Group
The ability of mutational analysis to predict the response of GIST tumors to Gleevec has been known since Dr. Charles Blanke’s GIST presentation at the plenary session of the 2001 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting. A new paper by Maria Debiec- Rychter and colleagues from the European Organization for Research and Treatment of […]
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Jan. 26 that it has approved Sutent (sunitinib) for patients with gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST) and advanced kidney cancer. It was the first time the agency has approved a new oncology product for two cancers simultaneously.
SU11248 is similar to Gleevec in the way it works. It is a small molecule inhibitor of the receptor tyrosine kinases PDGFRA, VEGFR, KIT and FLT3. For patients with KIT or PDGFRA mutations, the main targets of this drug are still KIT and PDGRFA. SU11248 also inhibits VEGFR. This provides an anti-angiogenic effect in addition to the primary anti-tumor effect. All tumors need new blood vessels (angiogenesis) in order for tumor growth to occur; treatments that block the growth of these new blood vessels are called “anti-angiogenesis” treatments.