Researchers at Johns Hopkins have identified a gene that, when repressed in tumor cells, puts a halt to cell growth and a range of processes needed for tumors to enlarge and spread to distant sites. The researchers hope that this so-called “master regulator” gene may be the key to...
Patients with advanced bladder cancers that are surgically removed might need additional therapy to prevent recurrence in certain situations, a new UT Southwestern Medical Center study suggests. The 5-year international study led by researchers at UT Southwestern validates the use of a marker...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is alerting health-care professionals that the use of the incorrect nonproprietary name for the breast cancer drug Kadcyla (ado-trastuzumab emtansine, also known as T-DM1 during preapproval clinical trials) in some medication-related electronic systems...
Patients with advanced alveolar soft part sarcoma achieved some control of their disease using the experimental anticancer drug cediranib. The results from this largest clinical trial on alveolar soft part sarcoma to date were published online ahead of print on April 29, 2013, in the Journal of...
Postmenopausal women aged 55 to 75 with early-stage breast cancer can be safely treated with breast-conserving surgery without postoperative radiation therapy, according to a double-arm, prospective, randomized study presented this week at the American Society of Breast Surgeons Annual Meeting. The ...
FDA has granted daratumumab breakthrough therapy designation for the treatment of patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least three prior lines of therapy, including a proteasome inhibitor and an immunomodulatory agent, or who are double refractory to a proteasome inhibitor and...
Smoking increased the risk for developing colon cancer, and female smokers may have a greater risk than male smokers, according to data published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. “Globally, during the last 50...
Tamoxifen and three similar drugs reduce breast cancer incidence by 38% in women at an increased risk of the disease according to a Cancer Research UK study published in The Lancet today. In the most comprehensive study to date scientists calculate that one breast cancer would be prevented for...
“Today, out of concern for public safety, Congress provided the Federal Aviation Administration enhanced flexibility in application of sequestration related cuts, including reversal of furlough requirements imposed on air traffic controllers. Individuals with cancer deserve no less....
Tamoxifen is a time-honored breast cancer drug used to treat millions of women with early-stage and less-aggressive disease, and now a University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) team has shown how to exploit tamoxifen’s secondary activities so that it might work on more aggressive breast...
Obese men were more likely to have precancerous lesions detected in their benign prostate biopsies compared with nonobese men and were at a greater risk for subsequently developing prostate cancer, according to data published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the...
When retinoblastoma is diagnosed in racial and ethnic minority children whose families don't have private health insurance, it often takes a more invasive, potentially life-threatening course than in other children, probably because of delays in diagnosis, researchers at Dana-Farber/Children's...
A prospective study by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital observed an association between risk of second primary cancer and history of nonmelanoma skin cancer in white men and women. The researchers found that people with a history of nonmelanoma skin cancer had a modestly increased risk...
Nearly two-thirds of children receiving stem cell transplants returned to the hospital within 6 months for treatment of unexplained fevers, infections, or other problems, according to a study performed at Dana-Farber/Children’s Hospital Cancer Center in Boston. Children who received donor...
Merck has announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has designated lambrolizumab (MK-3475) as a Breakthrough Therapy for the treatment of patients with advanced melanoma. Lambrolizumab is Merck’s investigational antibody therapy targeting the programmed death receptor (PD-1) that...
More than a quarter of a century after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, many children and teenagers who developed thyroid cancer due to radiation are in complete or near remission, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology ...
The American Society of Clinical Oncology, Community Oncology Alliance, ION Solutions, and The US Oncology Network today commended a bipartisan group of 124 lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives who sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) expressing concern...
A new study led by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James) suggests that an unusual experimental drug can reduce breast cancer aggressiveness, reverse resistance to...
A combination of therapies may prove to be a promising advance for the treatment of anaplastic thyroid cancer based on results of a phase I clinical trial, said researchers at Mayo Clinic in Florida. Anaplastic thyroid cancer is one of the deadliest of all cancers. Nearly all patients diagnosed...
Pharmacyclics, Inc, announced today that the enrollment target of 350 patients for RESONATE, its phase III study using ibrutinib monotherapy vs ofatumumab (Arzerra) in patients with relapsed or refractory chronic lymphocytic leukemia or small lymphocytic lymphoma, was achieved on April 3, 2013. As...
Breast cancer survivors are among the women who could most benefit from regular physical activity, yet few meet national exercise recommendations during the 10 years after being diagnosed, according to a study by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Prior studies and available...
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in a case seeking to invalidate patents on two genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. The American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG) was one of the first plaintiffs to sign onto this historic legal case. ACMG was also ...
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues analyzed national data to investigate the differences in cancer prevention beliefs by race and ethnicity. They found that minorities, including blacks, Asians, and Hispanics, have differing beliefs about cancer prevention and feel they are...
Frozen balls of ice can safely kill cancerous tumors that have spread to the lungs, according to the first prospective multicenter trial of cryoablation. The results were presented on April 14, 2013, at the Society of Interventional Radiology’s 38th Annual Scientific Meeting in New Orleans....
A costly and widely used mammography add-on increases detection of noninvasive and early-stage invasive breast cancer but also makes more mistakes than mammography alone, researchers from UC Davis and the University of Washington have found. A new study shows that computer-assisted detection (CAD) ...
A new study on how the progression of acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) is influenced by the bone marrow environment has demonstrated for the first time that targeting a specialized protein known as osteopontin may be an effective strategy to increase the efficacy of chemotherapy in patients with...
The chances of developing lung cancer associated with asbestos exposure, asbestosis, and smoking are dramatically increased when these three risk factors are combined, and quitting smoking significantly reduces the risk of developing lung cancer after long-term asbestos exposure, according to a new ...
Patients with primary mediastinal B-cell lymphoma who received infusions of chemotherapy, but who did not have radiation therapy to the mediastinum, had excellent outcomes, according to clinical trial results. Until now, most standard treatment approaches for patients with this type of...
The President has released his proposed budget for fiscal year 2014, which proposes new reductions for cancer care services. Taken in combination with existing strains imposed by sequestration, this proposal threatens access to care for some of America's most vulnerable: elderly patients with ...
When given sequentially, two orally available experimental drugs—sapacitabine and seliciclib—worked together to elicit antitumor effects in patients with incurable BRCA-deficient cancers, according to phase I data presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013, held in Washington, DC, April...
New results from a clinical trial conducted in Shanghai, China, indicate that adding cetuximab (Erbitux) to standard chemotherapy enables some patients with otherwise inoperable liver metastases due to colorectal cancer have their metastases surgically removed. Such surgery can be curative, and is...
Although previous research has linked alcohol consumption to an increased risk of developing breast cancer, a new study has found that drinking before and after diagnosis does not impact survival from the disease. In fact, a modest survival benefit was found in women who were moderate drinkers...
Black women with breast cancer had significantly worse survival compared with other racial and ethnic groups across cancer subtypes, which suggests that the survival differences are not solely attributable to the fact that black women are more frequently diagnosed with less treatable breast cancer...
Researchers using patients’ own immune cells in an immunotherapy approach called anti-CD19 chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy achieved responses in children whose acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) had returned after a bone marrow transplant, according to preliminary results...
A novel two-step immunotherapy approach yielded clinically beneficial responses in patients with advanced ovarian cancer, including one patient who achieved complete remission, according to data from two phase I clinical trials presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013, held in Washington, DC,...
For women with metastatic, HER2-positive breast cancer, the amount of HER2 on their tumor might determine how much they benefit from T-DMI—also now known as ado-trastuzumab emtansine (Kadcyla)—according to data from a subanalysis of the phase III clinical trial that led the FDA to...
A strong, stable federal investment in cancer research, prevention, and treatment is critical to continue the progress we are making for the more than 1.66 million Americans newly diagnosed with cancer every year. ASCO calls on Congress to renew its commitment to this life-sustaining research. As...
Pharmacyclics, Inc, announced today that the FDA has granted an additional Breakthrough Therapy Designation for the investigational oral agent ibrutinib as monotherapy for the treatment of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) or small lymphocytic lymphoma with deletion of the short arm...
The antibody-drug conjugate DMUC5754A, a novel member of a relatively new class of drugs, showed activity in women with ovarian cancer, even those with hard-to-treat, platinum-resistant disease, in a phase I trial presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013, held in Washington, DC, April 6 to 10....
The emergence of molecular diagnostic testing in lung cancer offers new hope for patients battling the number 1 cancer killer in the United States and abroad. Now, for the first time after a decade of biomarker testing in lung cancer, a uniform approach for testing for the EGFR mutation and ALK...
The NeuroBlate Thermal Therapy System provides a new, safe, and minimally invasive procedure for treating recurrent glioblastoma, according to the first-in-human study of the system. The study, published online today in the Journal of Neurosurgery, was written by lead author Andrew Sloan, MD,...
For the first time, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have isolated adult stem cells from human intestinal tissue. The accomplishment provides a much-needed resource for scientists eager to uncover the true mechanisms of human stem cell biology. It also enables them to ...
Taking a break from hormone-blocking prostate cancer treatments once the cancer seems to be stabilized is not equivalent to continuing therapy, a new large-scale international study finds. Previous smaller studies had indicated that intermittent androgen deprivation therapy might be just as good...
The antidepressant drug duloxetine (Cymbalta) helped relieve painful numbness and tingling feelings caused by chemotherapy in 59% of patients, a new study finds. This is the first clinical trial to find an effective treatment for this pain. Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy is a common...
A research team jointly led by scientists from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the University of California, Los Angeles, has enhanced a device they developed to identify and “grab” circulating tumor cells (CTCs) that break away from cancers and enter the blood, often leading to the...
The Community Oncology Alliance (COA), in conjunction with the American Society of Clinical Oncology, International Oncology Network/AmerisourceBergen, and the US Oncology Network, issued a joint statement on the crippling effects of sequestration cuts to cancer drugs and services which began April ...
Poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors may be a novel treatment strategy for patients with cancer that has become resistant to the commonly used chemotherapy drug cisplatin, according to data from a preclinical study published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for...
A team of international cancer researchers led by Mathieu Lupien, PhD, at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network, has identified the signaling pathway that is overactivated in estrogen receptor (ER)–positive breast cancer cells that are resistant to hormone therapies...
Researchers at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) have found that a new formulation of a promising anticancer agent, the small chemical molecule FL118, is even more effective in controlling two types of cancer than a version reported in PLOS ONE 6 months earlier proved to be. Additional evidence...
Men with Lynch syndrome face a higher lifetime risk of developing prostate cancer and appear to develop the disease at an earlier age, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. Results of the study appear online in the Journal of Clinical ...