Olaparib, an experimental twice-daily oral cancer drug, produced an overall tumor response rate of 26% in several advanced cancers associated with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, according to a phase II study reported by Kaufman et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The positive response provides...
In a prospective Chinese study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Seto et al found a 2-year rate of hepatitis B virus (HBV) reactivation of 41.5% in hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg)-negative and anti–hepatitis B core antigen antibody (anti-HBc)–positive patients receiving...
Analysis of 607 small cell lung cancer (SCLC) tumors and neuroendocrine tumors identified common molecular markers among both groups that could reveal new therapeutic targets for patients with similar types of lung cancer, according to research presented at the 2014 Chicago Multidisciplinary...
New research by the international Cancer Genomics of the Kidney consortium (CAGEKID) reveals an important connection between kidney cancer and exposure to aristolochic acid, an ingredient in some herbal remedies. The findings, published by Scelo et al in Nature Communications, have important...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Maude et al reported achieving sustained remissions in children and adults with relapsed/refractory acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) using autologous CD19-targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-modified T cells. Study Details In the...
ASCO has endorsed the recently developed joint College of American Pathologists (CAP), International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), and Association of Molecular Pathologists (AMP) guideline on molecular testing for selection of patients with lung cancer for EGFR and ALK inhibitor ...
A study involving a patient with metastatic anaplastic thyroid cancer who achieved a near-complete response to everolimus (Afinitor) that lasted for 18 months, followed by progressive disease, has revealed a previously unknown mutation in the TSC2 gene and in the mTOR protein. The discovery...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Prat et al found that there was little difference in downstream gene or protein expression according to intrinsic breast cancer subtypes among clinical HER2-positive vs -negative breast cancers and that clinical HER2 status did...
Sequencing RNA, not just DNA, could help doctors predict how prostate cancer tumors will respond to treatment, according to research published in the journal Genome Biology. Because a tumor’s RNA shows the real-time changes a treatment is causing, the authors believe that this could be a...
Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations found in the circulating-free tumor DNA from the plasma of advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients correlates well with the EGFR mutations from patient-matched tumor tissue DNA, according to new data reported by Douillard et...
An international scientific collaboration led by Baylor College of Medicine as part of The Cancer Genome Atlas initiative has revealed clues about genetic alterations that may contribute to a rare form of kidney cancer. The study, which describes the landscape of somatic genomic alterations of...
In a study reported in a letter to The New England Journal of Medicine, Dreijerink et al in the International Breast Cancer in MEN1 Study Group identified a high risk of breast cancer in women with multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN1). MEN1 is caused by germline mutations in the MEN1...
The Cancer Genome Atlas Research Network has recently reported its comprehensive molecular profiling of lung adenocarcinoma in Nature. Findings included a high rate of somatic mutations including alterations in tumor-suppressor genes, chromatin-modifying genes, and RNA-splicing genes and suggested...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved Cologuard, the first stool-based colorectal screening test that detects the presence of red blood cells and DNA mutations that may indicate the presence of certain kinds of abnormal growths that may be cancers such as colon cancer or...
A large DNA analysis of people with and without pancreatic cancer has identified several new genetic markers that signal increased risk of developing the highly lethal disease, reported scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The study by Wolpin et al was published in Nature Genetics. The...
Cancer research lost a pioneer on August 3, 2014, with the passing of Emmanuel Farber, MD, PhD, a renowned pathologist who made fundamental contributions to our understanding of chemical carcinogenesis. Dr. Farber’s studies in experimental pathology demonstrated that chemical carcinogens are...
Physicians at Johns Hopkins have developed blood and saliva tests that help accurately predict recurrences of HPV-linked oral cancers in a substantial number of patients. The tests screen for DNA fragments of the human papillomavirus (HPV) shed from cancer cells lingering in the mouth or other...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Sabine et al found that PIK3CA mutation was not an independent predictor of distant relapse-free survival among postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer receiving endocrine therapy in the TEAM (Exemestane...
Investigators of The Cancer Genome Atlas project have developed a molecular classification that divides gastric cancer into four major genomic subtypes, according to a study published in Nature. They include (1) tumors positive for the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) that display recurrent PIK3CA...
Noninvasive quantitative computed tomography–based texture analysis can accurately differentiate the presence of a KRAS mutation from pan–wild-type non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), based on the results of a study in PLOS ONE. Weiss et al reported that this tumor heterogeneity...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Noreen et al found that aspirin and hormone-replacement therapy reduced age-related gene promoter DNA methylation, and smoking and high body mass index (BMI) increased methylation in the colonic mucosa in women. Similar...
Researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and other centers have identified novel mutations in a well-known cancer-causing pathway in lung adenocarcinoma, the most common subtype of lung cancer. Knowledge of these mutations could potentially identify a...
Although cancer immunotherapy with adoptive transfer of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes represents an effective treatment for patients with metastatic melanoma, the antigen targets recognized by these effective tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes remain unclear. According to a new study, a novel...
The new combination agent TAS-102 can improve overall survival compared to placebo in patients whose metastatic colorectal cancer is refractory to standard therapies, researchers reported at the ESMO 16th World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer in Barcelona (Abstract O-0022). “Around 50%...
New research published online in Blood suggests that the diversity of bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract of patients receiving stem cell transplants may be an important predictor of their post-transplant survival. Potential Connections Previous studies have shown that the intensive treatment...
A unique public-private collaboration among the National Cancer Institute (NCI), SWOG Cancer Research, Friends of Cancer Research, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), five pharmaceutical companies (Amgen, Genentech, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and AstraZeneca’s global...
Around a quarter of smokers who carry a mutation in the BRCA2 gene will develop lung cancer at some point in their lifetime, a large-scale, international study reveals. Scientists described a previously unknown link between lung cancer and a particular BRCA2 mutation, which occurs in around 2% of...
In a recent study by the Lung Cancer Mutation Consortium (LCMC), investigators incorporated tumor genotyping into therapeutic decision-making for patients with lung adenocarcinomas. An oncogenic driver was detected in 64% of tumors from patients in this study. According to data from this study...
In a phase II feasibility study (MRC FOCUS3) reported in British Journal of Cancer, Maughan et al used KRAS and BRAF mutation status and topoisomerase-1 expression status to randomly assign patients with advanced colorectal cancer to molecular hypothesis–driven treatment or control treatment. ...
A new method for using immunotherapy to specifically attack tumor cells that have mutations unique to a patient’s cancer has been developed by scientists at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health. The researchers demonstrated that the human immune...
Inhibiting enzymes that cause changes in gene expression could decrease chemotherapy resistance in patients with ovarian cancer, according to research by Cacan et al. The study investigated the silencing of RGS10 expression in ovarian cells by epigenetics and identified two epigenetic regulators,...
In a Chinese study reported in JAMA Surgery, Huang et al found that preoperative elevated hepatitis B virus (HBV) surface antigen (HBsAg) level is an independent risk factor for hepatocellular carcinoma recurrence and mortality in patients with low HBV DNA levels undergoing hepatic resection....
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, D’Souza et al found that while human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive patients with oropharyngeal cancer had high prevelances of oncogenic oral HPV DNA and oral HPV16 DNA, their sexual partners did not appear to have increased risk of...
Researchers from the Abramson Cancer Center and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have employed a novel DNA vaccine that indirectly kills cancer cells by targeting a protein found in the tumor vasculature. The vaccine also indirectly creates an immune response to the ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved the first human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA test that can be used as a primary cervical cancer screening test for women aged 25 years and older. The test also can provide information about the patient’s risk for developing cervical...
Researchers have developed a quantitative multiplexed methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction assay called cMethDNA for a panel of 10 breast cancer–specific genes. The blood-based assay was found to be highly sensitive in detecting advanced breast cancer and monitoring tumor burden and ...
The St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital–Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project has identified new mutations in pediatric high-grade gliomas. The findings by Wu et al were published in Nature Genetics and may lead to improved outcomes for children with these brain...
A quartet of proteins that play critical roles in cell replication, cell death, and DNA repair could lead to better targets for therapy against treatment-resistant head and neck squamous cell cancers. In a study presented this week at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual...
Using comprehensive genomic analysis, researchers have sorted low-grade brain tumors into three categories, one of which has the molecular hallmarks and shortened survival of glioblastoma multiforme, the most lethal of brain tumors. The findings were reported at the American Association for Cancer...
Patients with cancer of the throat and who are positive for the human papillomavirus (HPV) have a good prognosis, but until now the effect of being HPV-positive on the prognosis of tumors located elsewhere in the head and neck was unknown. A new study presented at the 33rd Conference of the...
A new genetic signature to identify prostate cancer patients who are at high risk of their cancer recurring after surgery or radiotherapy has been developed by researchers in Canada, according to a study presented at the 33rd Conference of the European Society for Radiotherapy and Oncology in...
First-line treatment with the combination of palbociclib plus letrozole extended progression-free survival by approximately 50% in patients with metastatic estrogen receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, according to final results of a randomized phase II study presented at the...
The St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital–Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project found mutations in the tumor-suppressor gene TP53 in 90% of osteosarcomas, suggesting the alteration plays a key role early in development of the bone cancer. The study by Chen et al was...
A new study by Andrew et al published in BJU International suggests that certain inherited DNA sequences may affect the prognosis of patients with bladder cancer. The findings may help physicians identify subgroups of patients with high-risk bladder cancer who should receive more frequent...
Obesity, rather than diet, causes changes in the colon that may lead to colorectal cancer, according to a study in mice by the National Institutes of Health. The finding bolsters the recommendation that calorie control and frequent exercise are not only key to a healthy lifestyle, but a strategy to ...
A DNA methylation marker test performed on patients with noninvasive urothelial carcinoma can predict tumor recurrence with high sensitivity and specificity, according to a study by Su et al. The findings may help eliminate costly and unnecessary invasive exams and reveals the importance of DNA...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) committee of genetic experts has determined that Cologuard, a stool-based DNA, noninvasive screening test for colorectal cancer, has demonstrated safety, effectiveness, and a favorable risk-benefit profile. The FDA is now considering the...
In the phase II US Leukemia Intergroup Trial E1905 reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Prebet et al found that prolonged administration of lower-dose azacitidine produced a high response rate in patients with myelodysplastic syndrome or acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with myelodysplastic...
Preliminary research suggests that a targeted oral agent may improve outcomes while minimizing side effects in women with gynecologic cancers who carry a BRCA mutation and whose disease is not responding to other therapies. According to a phase II study presented at the Society of Gynecologic...
In a study reported in The New England Journal of Medicine, Imperiale et al found that a noninvasive, multitarget stool DNA test—including assays for KRAS mutations, aberrant NDRG4 and BMP3 methylation, β-actin, and hemoglobin—was significantly more sensitive but significantly less ...