Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have discovered a way to target the immune system to shrink or eliminate tumors in mice without causing autoimmune problems. Researchers also found evidence that the same mechanism may operate in humans. The study was published online today...
The contribution of purging of peripheral blood stem cells to outcome of autologous stem cell transplantation in high-risk neuroblastoma has not been defined. In a trial (COG A3973) reported in Lancet Oncology by Susan G. Kreissman, MD, of Duke University Medical Center, and colleagues, children...
Many factors play into why women diagnosed with breast cancer often choose overly aggressive treatment even when there is little evidence to show clinical benefit: the shock and fear of suddenly being confronted with a major health threat, the impression of having to make treatment decisions...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is informing the public that acetaminophen has been associated with a risk of rare but serious skin reactions. These skin reactions, known as Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, toxic epidermal necrolysis, and acute generalized exanthematous pustulosis, can...
Scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center who identified a protein’s dual role in cancer promotion have discovered a way to shut it down, opening a potential new avenue for cancer treatment. Reporting their findings in the journal Cell, the researchers describe the first ...
A new study led by researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute reveals how a promising anticancer compound called SMIP004 specifically kills prostate cancer cells by compromising their ability to withstand environmental stress. The study, recently published in Oncotarget, uncovered...
Nonsentinel lymph node positivity appears to be a significant prognostic factor in patients with stage III melanoma, according to a study by Anna M. Leung, MD, of the John Wayne Cancer Institute at Saint John’s Health Center, Santa Monica, California, and colleagues. The study was published...
Scientists studying acute myeloid leukemia (AML) have discovered that rather than displacing hematopoietic stem cells in the bone marrow as previously believed, the cancer is in fact inhibiting production of downstream hematopoietic cells, effectively putting them to sleep. The findings were...
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force posted its final evidence report and draft recommendation statement on screening for lung cancer. The Task Force is providing an opportunity for public comment on this draft recommendation statement; comments can be submitted from July 30 to August ...
Richard I. Fisher, MD, a leading cancer center administrator and nationally recognized hematology/oncology expert, has been appointed President and CEO of Fox Chase Cancer Center. Dr. Fisher will also hold the title of Cancer Center Director of Fox Chase, serving as the principal investigator on...
Ambient air pollution has been associated with lung cancer risk. In a study reported in Lancet Oncology by Ole Raaschou-Nielsen, PhD, of the Danish Cancer Society Research Center, and colleagues, lung cancer incidence in European countries was prospectively assessed according to several measures of ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced today that oral ketoconazole should not be used as first-line treatment for any fungal infection and should only be used for the treatment of endemic mycoses when alternative antifungal therapies are not available or tolerated. The use of...
For the first time since the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine became available for adolescent girls in 2006, the vaccination rate for the teenagers has stalled, according to data published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly...
An analysis of data from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) of the height measurement at enrollment of 144,701 postmenopausal women and the risk of all cancers combined has found that 20,928 of the women had a diagnosis of one or more invasive cancers during a median follow-up of 12 years....
This afternoon, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) hosted a congressional briefing to highlight the significance of federally funded biomedical research in improving our understanding of cancer health disparities and developing targeted interventions to eliminate them. The...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM) seeking additional information to help the agency make informed decisions about menthol in cigarettes. Despite decades of work to reduce tobacco use in the United States, it continues to be the...
In an analysis of 5-year survival rates among black and white women diagnosed with breast cancer between 1991 and 2005, black women continued to have a lower rate of survival, with most of the difference related to factors including poorer health of black patients at diagnosis and more advanced...
A multidisciplinary team at UT Southwestern Medical Center has found that measuring the oxygenation of tumors can be a valuable tool in guiding radiation therapy, opening the door for personalized therapies that keep tumors in check with oxygen enhancement. In a study examining tissue oxygenation...
Boys are more likely to receive the quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine if their mothers receive flu shots or Pap screenings, according to a study from Kaiser Permanente published in the American Journal of Public Health. Study Details The study examined the electronic health records of...
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, and Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital in China have discovered a gene-expression signature that may lead to new immune therapies for patients with lung cancer. Their findings, published in The Journal of Clinical...
Decreased pregnancy rates and early menopause have been reported in female cancer survivors, although there is less information on infertility rates and reproductive interventions in these patients. In a study reported in Lancet Oncology, Sara E. Barton, MD, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital...
Women who survive cancer have more frequent, severe, and troubling hot flashes than other women with menopausal symptoms, according to a study published online in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS). But surprisingly, the cancer survivors fare better...
A set of proteins involved in the body’s natural defenses produces a large number of mutations in human DNA, according to a study led by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The findings, published in Nature Genetics, suggest that these naturally produced mutations are just as...
A new study by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), in partnership with Costa Rican investigators and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), shows for the first time that the vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV) types 16 and 18, which is used to prevent cervical cancer, also...
Low-dose aspirin (100 mg) taken every other day may reduce a woman’s risk of developing colon cancer, according to an observational study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. The findings are based on a large long-term study of 38,876 healthy women enrolled in the Women’s...
The results from a large cohort study of 3.5 million veterans in the Veterans Affairs (VA) Boston Healthcare System show that most types of cancer were associated with a reduced risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease of between 9% and 51%. The cancers associated with the greatest reduction in ...
Cancer patients who receive chest radiation should be screened for heart disease every 5 to 10 years, according to the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI) of the European Society of Cardiology and the American Society of Echocardiography. Their recommendations are outlined in the ...
The American Psychosocial Oncology Society (APOS) has announced recommendations to support a new criterion for cancer center accreditation. In 2015, the American College of Surgeons (ACoS) Commission on Cancer (CoC) will require cancer centers to implement screening programs for...
Researchers from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center recently discovered that the most frequently used cancer cell lines in ovarian cancer research are not suitable models of ovarian cancer. Their findings are the result of a detailed review of genomic data that recently became publicly...
Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have found that nerves play a critical role in both the development and spread of prostate tumors. Their findings, using both a mouse model and human prostate tissue, may lead to new ways to predict the aggressiveness of...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved the tyrosine kinase inhibitor afatinib (Gilotrif) for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors express epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) exon 19 deletions or exon 21...
Improvements in radiation therapy and the development of chemotherapy regimens, such as MOPP (mechlorethamine [Mustargen], vincristine, procarbazine [Matulane], and prednisone), and ABVD (doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, and dacarbazine), in the treatment of Hodgkin lymphoma have made the...
Jamie H. Von Roenn, MD, Professor of Medicine at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, has been named as the Senior Director of the Education, Science and Professional Development Department of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). A long-time ASCO member and...
Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have discovered that a protein used by cancer cells to evade death also plays a vital role in heart health. This dual role complicates efforts to develop cancer drugs that target the protein, but may lead to new therapies for heart muscle...
A second large, prospective study by scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has confirmed the link between high blood concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids and an increased risk of prostate cancer. Study Details Published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the...
Scientists have successfully targeted a malfunctioning immune system enzyme to kill diseased cells from patients with myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a precursor to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Reporting their results in Cancer Cell, researchers say their successful laboratory tests in human MDS...
According to research published in PNAS, scientists have used an efficient new screening strategy to identify gene mutations in tumor cells that are possible drug targets for the most common form of lung cancer. Researchers from the Cancer Research UK’s Paterson Institute for Cancer Research ...
Pharmacyclics, Inc, today announced that it has submitted a New Drug Application (NDA) to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the investigational oral Bruton's tyrosine kinase inhibitor ibrutinib, for two relapsed/refractory B-cell malignancy indications: mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) and...
New evidence suggests that using advanced genetics technologies to monitor for remaining cancer cells after treatment may soon become an effective tool to inform treatment decisions and ultimately predict patient outcomes for patients with a particularly aggressive form of acute lymphocytic...
The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) issued a newly updated clinical practice guideline today on pharmacologic prevention interventions for premenopausal and postmenopausal women who are at increased risk for breast cancer. Compared to the previous version of the guideline, this third...
Although aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) have been shown to reduce cancer mortality by 20%, exactly why these drugs reduce the number of cancer incidences and deaths is not known. Now, a small longitudinal study of 13 patients with Barrett’s esophagus is...
For patients with advanced gastric cancer, treatment with chemotherapy after surgery can reduce the risk of cancer-related death by 34% over 5 years compared to surgery alone, researchers reported at the 15th ESMO World Congress in Gastrointestinal Cancer (Abstract 007), held July 3 to 6 in...
Timothy Henrich, MD, Associate Physician in the Division of Infectious Disease at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, reported that two patients with long-standing HIV infections have no detectable levels of the disease in their blood cells, even though they stopped taking their...
Smokers and single men are more likely to acquire oncogenic oral human papillomavirus (HPV), according to new results from the HPV Infection in Men (HIM) Study. Researchers from Moffitt Cancer Center, the National Cancer Institute, Mexico, and Brazil also reported that newly acquired oral HPV...
A jointly signed letter by ASCO and more than 50 other cancer and health-care organizations to the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius and Acting Secretary of the Department of Labor (DOL) Seth D. Harris asks that they provide clear federal regulations and guidance on...
Two drugs were given Priority Review designation by FDA earlier this week. Obinutuzumab (GA101) was granted Priority Review for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), based on final stage 1 data from the pivotal CLL11 trial. FDA also granted Priority Review to a pertuzumab (Perjeta)...
A novel pairing of two investigational cancer drugs in patients with recurrent ovarian cancer showed promising activity and had manageable toxicities, according to a phase I trial published online in the European Journal of Cancer. The combination of the poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP)...
Tobacco control measures put in place in 41 countries between 2007 and 2010 are predicted to prevent an estimated 7.4 million premature deaths by 2050, according to a study published in the July issue of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization. The study is one of the first to ...
Investigators in The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network have uncovered a connection between how tumor cells use energy from metabolic processes and the aggressiveness of the most common form of kidney cancer, clear cell renal cell carcinoma. Their findings demonstrate that normal...
Recurrence of melanoma skin cancer 10 or more years after initial treatment is more common than previously thought, occurring in more than 1 in 20 patients. However, according to a new study, these patients tend to live longer after their cancer returns than patients whose melanoma recurs in the...