Taking aspirin reduces a person's risk of colorectal cancer, but the molecular mechanisms involved have remained unknown, until a recent discovery by researchers at The Hormel Institute, University of Minnesota. These findings were published by Li et al in EBioMedicine. EGFR and COX-2 Association ...
A large population-based British study of newly diagnosed patients with lung cancer has found that those who had prolonged use of statins, especially simvastatin, had a 19% reduction in lung cancer deaths. Among all patients, those who used statins in the year before their lung cancer diagnosis had ...
For women with a family history of breast cancer, new multigene panel testing yields greater information about cancer risk while assessing deleterious BRCA1/2 mutations as accurately as BRCA testing alone, according to a study presented at the American Society of Breast Surgeons Annual Meeting....
The number of surgeries performed on terminally ill cancer patients has not dropped in recent years, despite more attention to the importance of less invasive care for these patients to relieve symptoms and improve quality of life. But new research from the University of California, Davis, also...
Survivors of Hodgkin lymphoma treated as adolescents or adults are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease throughout their lives, according to results of a retrospective cohort study of 2,524 Dutch patients followed for a median of 20 years. “Treating physicians and patients should be...
Mastectomies that preserve the nipple and an envelope of breast skin are as safe as more radical breast cancer operations for qualifying patient populations, according to one of the largest meta-analyses of studies involving women treated with this increasingly popular approach. Speaking at the...
In an Italian randomized phase II trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Pignata et al found that the addition of the antiangiogenic multikinase inhibitor pazopanib (Votrient) to weekly paclitaxel significantly improved progression-free survival in patients with platinum-resistant/refractory...
In the phase III RAISE trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Tabernero et al found that the addition of the antiangiogenic anti-VEGFR2 antibody ramucirumab (Cyramza) to second-line FOLFIRI (leucovorin, fluorouracil, irinotecan) improved overall survival in patients with metastatic colorectal...
A new study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center found that many women diagnosed with breast cancer are concerned about the genetic risk of developing other cancers themselves, or of a loved one developing cancer. These findings were published by Jagsi et al in the Journal of ...
No approved targeted therapies exist to treat triple-negative breast cancer, but new chemotherapeutic treatment strategies are helping shrink tumors so that less breast tissue needs to be removed during surgery. New research led by Brigham and Women's Hospital finds that breast-conserving therapy...
Mutations of the KRAS gene are commonly known to lead to cancer. However, deeper understanding of exactly how they do this continues to be explored by cancer researchers. Scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have gained further insight about the processes behind KRAS...
Long-term, regular aspirin use was associated with a modestly reduced overall risk for cancer, driven primarily by a reduction in the risk for colorectal cancers, according to research presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2015, held April 18 to 22 in Philadelphia (Abstract 876). “Previous...
Metformin use did not improve survival of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma in a retrospective cohort study presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2015, held April 18 to 22 in Philadelphia (Abstract LB-183). “The diabetes drug metformin is being used in some cancer treatment...
Breast density, which is associated with breast cancer risk, was found to be higher in black women than white women when measured using novel quantitative methods, according to research presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2015, held April 18 to 22 in Philadelphia (Abstract 2770). “Since...
Combining the immunostimulatory anti-CD40 monoclonal antibody CP-870,893 with the immune checkpoint inhibitor tremelimumab was found to be safe, with clinical evidence of response in patients with advanced melanoma, according to phase I clinical trial data presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2015, ...
The investigational immunotherapy MPDL3280A was safe, tolerable, and showed early signs of durable clinical activity in patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer, according to data from a first-in-human phase I clinical trial presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2015, held April 18 to...
The total number of breast cancer cases in the United States is forecast to be 50% greater in 2030 than it was in 2011, when invasive and in situ or screening-detected cancers are counted together. This increase is predicted to be driven mostly by a marked increase in cases of estrogen...
Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) was safe, tolerable, and yielded robust antitumor responses in patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma, according to data from the phase Ib KEYNOTE-028 clinical trial presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2015, held April 18 to 22 in Philadelphia (Abstract CT103)....
Patients with advanced cancers who received mesothelin-directed chimeric antigen receptor–modified T cells (CART-meso), a type of investigational adoptive immunotherapy, tolerated the treatment well, and there was evidence that the infused immune cells persisted in the patients’ blood...
In the first randomized trial to compare two U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved immune checkpoint inhibitors as first-line therapy for patients with advanced melanoma, pembrolizumab (Keytruda) yielded significantly better treatment outcomes than ipilimumab (Yervoy) for all endpoints...
More than 60% of patients with Epstein-Barr virus–associated lymphoproliferative disorder (EBV-LPD) that was nonresponsive to standard rituximab (Rituxan) treatment responded to a new type of immunotherapy called Epstein-Barr virus–specific cytotoxic T-lymphocyte (EBV-CTL) therapy....
Men who reported taking muscle-building supplements, such as pills and powders with creatine or androstenedione, reported a significantly higher likelihood of having developed testicular cancer than men who did not use such supplements, according to a study by Li et al in the British Journal of...
A new study showed that providing women with skills to manage stress early in their breast cancer treatment can improve their mood and quality of life many years later. Published by Stagl et al in Cancer, the findings suggest that women given the opportunity to learn stress management techniques...
A recent commentary published in Annals of Internal Medicine discusses the paradoxical finding that most patients are at below-average risk of disease and can expect to experience less-than-average benefits from a treatment. Yet, argue Vickers et al, too many people are being screened, diagnosed,...
A particular molecular pathway permits stem cells in pediatric bone cancers to grow rapidly and aggressively, according to researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center and its Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center. These findings were published by Basu-Roy et al in Nature Communications. Study...
A statistical analysis of 51 oncology drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) between January 1, 2009, and December 31, 2013, has found that cancer drug prices are rising faster than the prices in other sectors of health care and that the high cost of the drugs is not...
Long-term analysis of Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) 9903 demonstrates that the addition of erythropoietin did not improve local-regional control for anemic patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma who receive radiation therapy or chemoradiation, according to a study published...
Very low mammographic breast density worsens the prognosis of breast cancer, according to a recent study from the University of Eastern Finland. Researchers published their findings in an article by Masarwah et al in European Radiology. The lower the breast tissue density, the less fibroglandular...
In a new study, UCLA researchers have developed a cognitive rehabilitation program to address post-treatment cognitive changes, sometimes known as “chemobrain,” which can affect up to 35% of post-treatment breast cancer patients. Their findings were reported by Erocli et al in...
According to researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), hepatic parenchymal preservation, in which a surgeon removes less than a lobe of the liver in a patient undergoing an operation for liver cancer, is associated with lower mortality and complication rates. Their study...
In a single-institution study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Bochtler et al found that presence of the t(11;14) translocation on interphase fluorescence in situ hybridization (iFISH) was associated with poorer hematologic event-free and overall survival in patients receiving...
Girls who are overweight as young children and teens may face an increased risk for colorectal cancer decades later, regardless of what they weigh as adults, suggests a new study published by Zhang et al in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. “Our study supports the growing...
Researchers investigating the prevalence of childhood cancer survivors and the population-level burden of morbidity in these survivors have found that although the number of childhood cancer survivors has increased by nearly 60,000 since 2005, the majority of those who have survived 5 or more years ...
In a study of Swedish men with prostate cancer reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, O’Farrell et al found that use of gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists and orchiectomy were associated with a significantly increased risk of incident cardiovascular disease. In patients...
In a study of women with high-grade endometrial cancer, researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center found sentinel lymph node mapping accurately identified all women with node-positive, high-risk endometrial cancer, when prospectively compared to a complete pelvic and...
Diabetes is associated with more advanced stage breast cancer, according to a new study by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and Women's College Hospital. The findings, published by Lipscombe et al in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, confirm a strong link between diabetes...
Current smokers, and those who have quit smoking less than 10 years previously, have twice the risk of a recurrence of prostate cancer after surgery, according to new research by Rieken et al presented at the European Association of Urology (EAU) 2015 Congress in Madrid (Abstract 508). In 2012,...
In a phase III trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Stone et al found that the combination of cytarabine and amonafide L-malate, a DNA intercalator and non–ATP-dependent topoisomerase II inhibitor, did not improve complete remission rate compared with cytarabine plus...
Patients with colorectal cancer experience significantly higher rates of numbness/tingling but comparable neuropathic pain relative to patients with other cancers, according to a study by Lewis et al in the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management. In addition, numbness/tingling was more likely to be ...
Current smoking and heavy alcohol consumption appear to be risk factors for prolonged use of a gastrostomy tube in patients with head and neck cancer undergoing radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy. The findings were published in a report by O’Shea et al in JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck...
Scientists from the Broad Institute and the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT used CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology to “knock out,” or turn off, all genes across the genome systematically in a mouse model of non–small cell lung cancer cells and then tested...
A surgical algorithm developed and implemented by ovarian cancer specialists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center dramatically increases the frequency of complete removal of all visible tumor—a milestone strongly tied to improved chances of survival. The researchers describe...
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA, Wang et al found that the proportion of patients with lung cancer who would have met U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) criteria for low-dose computed tomography (CT) lung screening decreased significantly between the periods of 1984 to...
Increasingly high prices for cancer drugs are affecting patient care, as well as the health-care system overall, in the United States. These findings were published in a special article by Rajkumar and Kantarjian in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings. “Americans with cancer pay 50% to 100%...
Despite sharp increases in spending on cancer treatment, cancer mortality rates in the United States have decreased only modestly since 1970. Researchers led by Samir Soneji, PhD, of Dartmouth's Norris Cotton Cancer Center and The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice...
In a pooled analysis reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Schadendorf et al found 3-year overall survival rates of 26% and 20% in treatment-naive and previously treated patients receiving ipilimumab (Yervoy)-based treatment for unresectable or metastatic melanoma. A survival curve plateau...
Scientists have developed a new test that predicts the survival chances of women with breast cancer by analyzing images of “hotspots” where there has been a fierce immune reaction to a tumor. Using statistical software previously used in criminology studies of crime hotspots,...
Although dendritic cell–based immunotherapy has shown limited promise in the treatment of patients with advanced cancers, including glioblastoma, the factors dictating dendritic cell–based vaccine efficacy have been poorly understood. Now, a clinical trial funded by the National...
The International Lymphoma Radiation Oncology Group (ILROG) has issued a guideline outlining the use of three-dimensional (3D) computed tomography (CT)–based radiation therapy planning and volumetric image guidance, specifically to more effectively treat pediatric Hodgkin lymphoma. The...
The St. Jude Children's Research Hospital–Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project reports that a highly aggressive form of leukemia in infants has surprisingly few mutations beyond the chromosomal rearrangement that affects the MLL gene. The findings, reported by Andersson et al ...