Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have identified a molecular partnership in pancreatic cancer cells that might help to explain how the disease metastasizes in some cases. Their findings reveal urgently needed new targets to treat pancreatic cancer and were published by Foley et...
Chemotherapy prolongs life for older adults with most types of cancer, but for women with breast cancer over age 80, the chances of survival with chemotherapy alone are significantly lower than in younger patients, according to a study led by researchers from the University of Texas...
Medulloblastoma, the most commonly occurring malignant brain tumor in children, can be classified into four subgroups, each with a different risk profile requiring subgroup-specific therapy. Currently, subgroup determination is done after surgical removal of the tumor. Investigators at...
Results of a phase I trial show that an investigational topical drug, resiquimod gel, causes regression of both treated and untreated tumor lesions and may completely remove cancerous cells from both sites in patients with early-stage cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. Currently, there is no cure for...
Combing data collected on thousands of California patients with ovarian cancer, University of California Davis researchers have determined that almost one-third of patients survived at least 10 years after diagnosis. The findings upend the notion that women diagnosed with cancer of the ovaries...
Scientists have known for years that a mutation in the BRAF gene makes moles start to grow but until now have not understood why they sometimes do not become cancerous. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have identified a major genetic factor that...
Duke University researchers found that packaging the widely used cancer drug paclitaxel into nanoparticles more than doubled the drug’s effectiveness in destroying tumors in preclinical models. Their findings were published by Bhattacharyya et al in Nature Communications. Paclitaxel has been ...
Patients undergoing surgery for lung cancer may wait too long to receive treatment, and too many patients skip vital diagnostic steps that are needed to help determine the best possible treatment, according to findings published by Faris et al in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery. The 5-year relative ...
Older persons are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population and account for the majority of cancer diagnoses and deaths and the majority of cancer survivors. However, since this population is underrepresented in clinical trials, the evidence base for treating older patients is poor. As...
High-grade serous ovarian cancer often responds well to the chemotherapy drug carboplatin, but it frequently recurs after the first line of treatment. A team of University of California, Los Angeles, researchers has discovered that a subset of tumor cells that don’t produce the protein CA125, ...
A team of researchers at Barts Cancer Institute–Queen Mary University of London has discovered a combination of three proteins found at high levels in urine that can accurately detect early-stage pancreatic cancer. The discovery could lead to a noninvasive, inexpensive test to...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Van Poznak et al, ASCO has issued a clinical practice guideline on the use of biomarkers to guide decisions on systemic therapy in women with metastatic breast cancer. The statement is based on an ASCO expert panel assessment of systematic reviews, ...
A new way to detect—and perhaps treat—one of the deadliest types of breast cancer may have been found. Led by researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), the study was published by Papageorgis et al in Breast Cancer Research. A subset of the triple-negative breast...
A large-scale genetic study of the links between telomere length and risk for five common cancers found that long telomeres are associated with an increased risk of lung adenocarcinoma. No significant associations between telomere length and other cancer types or subtypes were observed. The study,...
ASCO has issued a clinical practice guideline update on the use of hematopoietic colony-stimulating factors, as reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Smith et al. This update to the ASCO 2006 guideline was based on a systematic review of randomized clinical trials, meta-analyses, and ...
The stem cells in the gut divide so fast that they create a completely new population of epithelial cells every week. However, this quick cell division is also why radiation and chemotherapy wreak havoc on the gastrointestinal systems of patients with cancer, as such therapies target rapidly...
More than 80,000 people undergo resection of a pulmonary tumor each year, and currently the only method to determine whether the tumor is malignant is histologic analysis. A new study reported that a targeted molecular contrast agent can be used successfully to render lung adenocarcinomas...
Pharmaceutical firms underinvest in long-term research to develop new cancer-fighting drugs due to the greater time and cost required to conduct such research, according to a newly published study authored by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) economists. These findings were published by...
Cancer can be caused solely by protein imbalance within cells, a study of ovarian cancer has found. Until now, genetic aberrations have been seen as the main cause of almost all cancer. The research, published by Timsah et al in Oncogene, demonstrates that protein imbalance is a powerful prognostic ...
Lower levels of ERCC1 (excision repair cross-complementation group 1) and thymidylate synthase expression may be predictive of longer survival in patients with metastatic colon cancer, according to a study by Choueiri et al in PLOS One. It was shown that patients with low levels of ERCC1 and...
Cancer therapy has evolved to a personalized approach, and important aspects of this method are pharmacogenomic studies that analyze associations between genetic variations and patient drug responses. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers published a study by Dressler et al in the Journal of the...
Use of gene therapy to deliver a protein that suppresses the development of female reproductive organs may improve the survival of patients with ovarian cancer that has recurred after chemotherapy. In a study published by Pepin et al in PNAS Early Edition, a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)...
Recent advances in the understanding of cancer have led to the development of more personalized therapies. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have contributed to these advances by developing the first test that analyzes the sensitivity of tumors to radiation therapy. Their findings were published by ...
A new study points to the need for increased awareness of fertility preservation options for young patients with cancer. Published by Shnorhavorian et al in Cancer, the study found that factors such as gender, education, and insurance status impact whether patients and their physicians have...
The FDA has granted Orphan Drug designation to NanoSmart Pharmaceuticals’ novel formulation of dactinomycin for the treatment of Ewing sarcoma, a rare type of childhood bone cancer. The designation was granted on the basis of a plausible hypothesis that the novel formulation, which uses...
After decades of overtreatment for low-risk prostate cancer and inadequate management of its more aggressive forms, patients are now more likely to receive medical care matched to level of risk, according to a study by researchers at the University of California, San...
A new study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, reveals a protein’s critical—and previously unknown—role in the development and progression of acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The finding offers a novel target for better treating AML, and...
As reported by Schnipper et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the ASCO Value in Cancer Care Task Force has released an ASCO statement detailing a conceptual framework to assess the value of cancer treatment options. The aim of ASCO in developing the framework is to encourage more...
In a study reported in the Journal of Oncology Practice, Keng et al at Cleveland Clinic found that institution of an emergency department febrile neutropenia pathway for patients with cancer reduced the time to antibiotic administration compared with historical and direct admission cohorts....
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted lenvatinib (Lenvima) Breakthrough Therapy designation for investigational use in patients with advanced or metastatic renal cell carcinoma who were previously treated with a vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-targeted therapy. Lenvatinib...
In their bid to find the best combination of therapies to treat anaplastic thyroid cancer, researchers at Mayo Clinic's Florida campus demonstrated that all histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors are not created equal. In testing multiple HDAC inhibitors in combination with the chemotherapy drug...
As part of a multi-institutional effort, researchers with Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah have found that patients with multiple myeloma with a genetic variation in the gene FOPNL die, on average, 1 to 3 years sooner than patients without it. The finding was identified with...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved carfilzomib (Kyprolis) in combination with lenalidomide (Revlimid) and dexamethasone for the treatment of patients with relapsed multiple myeloma who have received one to three prior lines of therapy. The approval was based on a demonstration of ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved sonidegib (Odomzo) for the treatment of patients with locally advanced basal cell carcinoma that has recurred following surgery or radiation therapy or those who are not candidates for surgery or radiation therapy. The approval was based on...
Researchers led by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists have developed new diagnostic criteria to enable clinicians to distinguish malignant cancerous chest cavity masses from those caused by fungal histoplasmosis infection. Their findings were published by Naeem et al in the...
A study of long-term thyroid cancer outcomes shows, among other findings, that moderate suppression of thyroid-stimulating hormone, which drives the disease, may be as beneficial as more extreme hormone suppression. Extreme thyroid-stimulating hormone suppression is associated with increased side...
Results from a clinical trial investigating a new T-cell receptor therapy demonstrated a clinical response in 80% of patients with multiple myeloma who had advanced disease after undergoing autologous stem cell transplants. Researchers at Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center modified T cells to ...
Scientists at Lawson Health Research Institute have uncovered an important new target for ovarian cancer therapy. Contrary to current research, this new study found that LKB1, a molecule that regulates the metabolism of many adult cells, is important in the cancer's promotion and survival. These...
Although palliative chemotherapy is used to improve quality of life for patients with end-stage cancer, a study evaluating its use found that palliative chemotherapy did not improve quality of life near death for patients with a moderate or poor performance status and that it worsened quality of...
Physicians have long sought a way to accurately predict cancer patients’ survival outcomes by looking at biologic details of the specific cancers they have. Now, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have compiled a database that integrates gene expression patterns of ...
A clinical trial has shown that patients with a specific molecular subtype of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma are more likely to respond to ibrutinib (Imbruvica) than patients with another molecular subtype of the disease. The study was published by Wilson et al in Nature Medicine. In this phase II...
A “pill on a string” developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge could help doctors detect esophageal cancer at an early stage, helping them overcome the problem of wide variation between biopsies, suggests research published by Ross-Innes et al in Nature Genetics. The...
In a review of nearly 2,000 surveys with people whose loved ones died of cancer, researchers led by Johns Hopkins School of Medicine experts said they found a 40% increase over a 12-year period in the number of patients with cancer who participated in one form of advance care...
Delcath Systems, Inc, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Office of Orphan Products Development has granted Orphan Drug designation to melphalan for the treatment of cholangiocarcinoma. Cholangiocarcinoma is recognized by the FDA as an orphan disease,...
More than two-thirds of adolescents and young adults dying of cancer utilized one or more aggressive interventions in the last month of life, according to a retrospective study from researchers at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center and Kaiser Permanente Southern...
UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center scientists have identified a new mechanism that delivers a key substance that fuels the growth of pancreatic and prostate cancer cells, a finding that offers new hope in the fight against two of the deadliest forms of the disease. Their findings were published by...
A study published by Bianchi et al in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed that genetic test results revealed by noninvasive prenatal testing for fetal chromosomal abnormalities may detect underlying conditions in the mother, including cancer. The study reports on a case...
A low-methionine diet that starves triple-negative breast cancer cells of an essential nutrient primes the cancer cells to be more easily killed by a targeted antibody treatment, according to a study published by Strekalova et al in Clinical Cancer Research. The study's senior author, Vincent...
By combining two modalities of imaging, investigators from Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth, led by Keith Paulsen, PhD, and collaborators from Xijing Hospital in Xian, China, demonstrated that a dual breast exam using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and near-infrared spectral tomography is ...
Spending more leisure time sitting was associated with a higher risk of total cancer risk in women, specifically heightened multiple myeloma, breast, and ovarian cancer risk, according to a new study by the American Cancer Society. The higher risk was present even after taking into account body...