CME CREDIT INFORMATION

There are 4 case studies with questions from the audience.  Each of these sessions is approximately 20 minutes in length. Sessions can be individually reviewed for credit. You can participate in as few or as many as you desire.

This independent, continuing medical education (CME) Internet-Based Activity has been planned and is conducted by the Oncology Learning Center, Inc., which is a CME provider accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education.

The following four malignancies will each be reviewed as a challenging clinical case study: breast cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and metastatic melanoma. The latest clinical data regarding the treatment of these tumor types with novel taxane therapies will be reviewed. The potential to use biomarkers, including those involved in the bio-distribution of chemotherapy to tumor cells as predictive factors for response to treatment or to assess the risk of disease progression, will be discussed.

The format of this Internet-Based Activity is highly interactive and utilizes adult learning principles. Four medical oncology experts who use biomarkers and novel taxanes to treat solid malignancies will each present one challenging clinical case and then engage the audience with a few patient treatment questions using the Audience Response System (ARS). Next, the entire faculty will comment on the answers, and the presenting faculty member for each case will review some additional data to provide the most up-to-date clinical and scientific information for clinicians.

Before the Internet-Based Activity begins, a pre-activity educational test consisting of several patient care, treatment strategy questions with multiple-choice answers will be asked of the audience to determine the baseline of how they currently treat their patients with these malignancies. These questions will be asked at the conclusion of the Internet-Based Activity, and asked yet again of willing participants three to four months following the symposium to determine how the Internet-Based Activity has changed their practices.

Despite the increasing availability of novel or targeted anti-cancer therapies, the backbone of treatment regimens for most solid tumors remains chemotherapy. Nevertheless, many cancer patients still fail to achieve a complete response or a partial response to systemic treatment. And many patients who achieve an initial response relapse due to the presence of residual disease.

Molecular biomarkers are becoming increasingly important as predictive and as prognostic factors to help increase the overall efficacy of systemic anti-cancer therapy with taxanes and with other chemotherapy agents for many solid malignancies.

There are several potential biomarkers that may help predict response to taxane therapy. And at least two different approaches to novel taxane therapy are being evaluated, liposomal taxane formulations and a nanopartical, albumin-bound taxane formulation. However, only the nanoparticle, albumin-bound taxane is available commercially. High beta-tubulin expression has been linked to resistance to docetaxel. And high expression of SPARC by the tumor, and expression of caveolin-1 may enhance the value of nanoparticle, albumin-bound paclitaxel therapy.

Because of the improved efficacy and safety profiles of novel taxane formulations, clinical trials are ongoing to validate their role for improving therapy for several solid malignancies including breast cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer and melanoma. The optimal use of biomarkers to help maximize the use of novel taxanes in multiple tumor types is an educational need that is the focus of this symposium.

The Oncology Learning Center designates this educational activity for a maximum of 2 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

All faculty and OLC staff participating in the content, planning or implementation of an educational CME activity are required to disclose to the audience of the educational activity any relevant financial relationships or interests and to assist in the resolution of any conflict of interest that may arise from the relationship(s) or interest(s). It is also the policy of the OLC to require all faculty presenters to make a meaningful disclosure to the audience of their discussions of unlabeled or FDA unapproved drugs, products, tests or devices. This information will be available as part of the educational activity and related material.

The following faculty and OLC staff have reported real or potential relevant conflicts of interest and these conflicts have been resolved, prior to this educational activity through a peer-review process by two medical oncologists who have had no affiliation with this educational activity other than the peer review process.  This is documented on this page immediately following the financial disclosures below.