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Available data suggest an increased risk of bladder cancer with pioglitazone treatment for diabetes. In an analysis of Kaiser Permanente Northern California data reported in JAMA, Lewis et al found no significantly increased risk of bladder cancer in patients with diabetes ever using pioglitazone....
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 protein encoded by the gene glypican-1 (GPC1) present on cancer exosomes may be used as part of a potential noninvasive diagnostic and screening tool to detect early pancreatic cancer, potentially at a stage amenable to surgical treatment, according to a study completed by University of Texas MD...
In a Dutch phase II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Kordes et al found that adding metformin to gemcitabine-erlotinib (Tarceva) did not improve overall survival in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. Study Details In the double-blind study, 121 patients from four centers in the...
The SENRI trial has opened the window to evaluate neurokinin 1 (NK1) antagonists for emesis prevention in patients taking oxaliplatin chemotherapy, said European Society for Medical Oncology World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer (ESMO) spokesperson and antiemetics expert Fausto Roila, MD....
Because of their location, cancers on the pancreas often invade and wrap around nearby veins and arteries in the abdomen. When these vessels become involved, surgery to remove the cancer, which is typically the standard treatment, becomes significantly more difficult—sometimes impossible....
New research published by Søgaard et al in Blood found that blood clots in the abdominal veins might be an indicator of undiagnosed cancer. The study also suggests that these clots predict poorer survival in patients with liver and pancreatic cancer. Clotting and Cancer Risk Compared to...
In an analysis reported in JAMA Surgery, Paniccia et al identified patient and treatment characteristics that were associated with survival of at least 10 years after diagnosis of invasive pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, including lower positive lymph node ratio, receipt of adjuvant chemotherapy, ...
Two studies from researchers at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center add to preliminary evidence that high-dose radiation treatment, or stereotactic body radiotherapy, appears to be safe and as effective as standard radiation treatment for certain patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer....
In a phase II study reported in The Lancet Oncology, Phan et al found that the VEGFR-1, -2, -3 inhibitor pazopanib (Votrient) plus depot octreotide produced responses in patients with advanced well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumors. No responses were observed in patients with carcinoid tumors....
In the German CONKO-004 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Pelzer et al found that prophylactic treatment with the low-molecular-weight heparin enoxaparin reduced the risk of symptomatic venous thromboembolic events in ambulatory patients receiving first-line chemotherapy for...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Holter et al found that 4.6% of a large clinic population of patients with pancreatic adenocarcinoma harbored pathogenic germline BRCA mutations. The study involved analysis of 306 unselected, consecutive, incident patients with pancreatic...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation for the development of evofosfamide (TH-302), administered in combination with gemcitabine, for previously untreated patients with metastatic or locally advanced unresectable pancreatic cancer. Evofosfamide is an...
Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine recently found that pancreatic cancer rates are highest in countries with the least amount of sunlight. These findings were published by Garland et al in The Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. “If...
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...
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 a retrospective single-institution study reported in JAMA Surgery, Boone et al found significant improvements in blood loss, incidence of conversion to open surgery, pancreatic fistula incidence, and operative time with increased number of patients treated with robotic pancreaticoduodenectomy....
The growing use of sophisticated abdominal imaging techniques, which has led to a marked increase in the findings of incidental pancreatic cysts, has prompted the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) to issue new recommendations in the management of asymptomatic neoplastic pancreatic...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Jang et al found that palliative care consultation was associated with decreased use of chemotherapy near death and lower risks of ICU admission, multiple emergency department visits, and multiple hospitalizations near death in...
Cancer cells can cloak themselves within tumors by hiding behind a dense layer of cellular stroma. According to a new study by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), drugs that target and strip away the stroma would pave the way for other drugs to reach the cancerous cells within the ...
Results of clinical trials evaluating chemotherapy regimens for advanced pancreatic cancer and lung cancers “tended to correctly estimate survival for Medicare patients aged 65 to 74 years, but to overestimate survival for older Medicare patients by 6 to 8 weeks,” Lamont et al reported...
In a study reported in a research letter in JAMA Surgery, Shapiro et al found that use of radiotherapy in unresectable pancreas cancer has decreased over time and that disparities in use can be identified. Decreasing Use The study involved Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) data...
Pancreatic cancer affects approximately 46,000 people each year in the United States, and ranks fourth among the leading causes of cancer-related deaths. Only about 6% of individuals with pancreatic cancer will live 5 years after their diagnosis. One reason for this high mortality rate is the lack...
Researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center and Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have identified a potential treatment targeting a pathway by which several aggressive tumors maintain their ability to proliferate, according to a study by Flynn et al published...
A somatic mutation in the ATRX gene has recently been identified as a potential molecular marker for gliomas, neuroblastomas, and pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. Now, researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have found that the same mutated gene may serve...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Le et al found that adding Listeria monocytogenes–expressing mesothelin (CRS-207) boost to GVAX pancreas vaccine priming resulted in improved overall survival in patients with previously treated metastatic pancreas adenocarcinoma....
The immunooncology company Vicus Therapeutics announced the presentation of two separate studies demonstrating a safety and survival benefit for VT-122, the company's lead compound, when combined with standard-of-care therapy in patients with advanced liver and pancreatic cancers. Results from both ...
Additional analyses from the global phase III NAPOLI-1 study of MM-398 (aka PEP02), a nanoliposomal encapsulation of irinotecan, in metastatic pancreatic cancer were presented by Chen et al in an oral session at the 2015 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium (Abstract 234). The primary analysis ...
A simple change to a two-drug therapy for metastatic pancreatic cancer provides similar cancer control while significantly improving quality of life and reducing the cost of care, according to data reported by researchers at the The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur...
TH-302 is a hypoxia-activated prodrug that releases the DNA alkylator bromo-isophosphoramide mustard in hypoxic settings. In a phase II trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Borad et al found that the addition of TH-302 to gemcitabine improved progression-free survival in patients...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Yuan et al found that pancreas cancer patients with diabetes of more than 4 years’ duration at diagnosis had significantly poorer survival compared with nondiabetic patients. Study Details The study involved data from 1,006 patients...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation to the investigation of necuparanib as a first-line treatment in combination with paclitaxel and gemcitabine in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer. Necuparanib is a novel oncology drug candidate engineered from...
In a retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Surgery, Lau et al found that implementation of a multidisciplinary hepatopancreaticobiliary surgical program in a Veterans Affairs (VA) health-care region resulted in improved care and outcomes. The study involved analysis of practices and outcomes ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Orphan Drug Designation to pegylated recombinant human hyaluronidase (PEGPH20) for the treatment of pancreatic cancer. Halozyme Therapeutics is currently investigating PEGPH20 in a phase II study in combination with gemcitabine and...
In a phase III trial, treatment with everolimus (Afinitor) resulted in a median overall survival of over 3 and a half years in patients with well-differentiated and progressive pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, representing what the study authors called a "clinically important" although not...
In a recent study reported in Nature Medicine, scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Harvard School of Public Health, among other institutions, investigated whether pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma produces metabolic changes that can be...
Preclinical data indicate a role of vitamin D metabolism in pancreatic tumor development. In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Van Loon et al found that baseline serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) levels were not associated with progression-free survival or overall...
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...
In the German phase III CONKO-003 trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Oettle et al found that second-line oxaliplatin, leucovorin, and fluorouracil (5-FU) significantly increased overall survival and time to progression vs leucovorin/5-FU in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer...
In a UK phase III TeloVac trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Middleton et al found that the sequential or concurrent addition of the telomerase peptide vaccine GV1001 to gemcitabine/capecitabine did not improve survival in patients with locally advanced or metastatic pancreatic cancer. GV1001...
The addition of the novel agent MM-398 to standard treatment improved overall survival in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer who have already received gemcitabine, according to a phase III trial reported at the ESMO 16th World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer in Barcelona (Abstract...
Men and women who took low-dose aspirin regularly had a 48% reduction in their risk of developing pancreatic cancer, according to a new study. In addition, the longer a person started taking low-dose aspirin, the greater the benefit, ranging from 48% reduction in people who started 3 years before...
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is considered a “nonimmunogenic” neoplasm and does not typically respond to immunotherapy, in part due to a complex tumor microenvironment that provides a formidable barrier to immune infiltration and function. A new study by Lutz et al has found that by ...
The availability of cross-sectional imaging has resulted in increased diagnosis of low-grade pancreatic neoplasms and use of central pancreatectomy as an alternative to standard resection for such lesions. In a French single-center experience reported in JAMA Surgery, Goudard et al found that...
Researchers have identified a mutated gene common to adenosquamous carcinoma tumors, the first known unique molecular signature for this rare, but particularly virulent, form of pancreatic cancer. The findings by Liu et al are published in Nature Medicine. Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading...
Fibrous tissue long suspected of making pancreatic cancer worse actually supports an immune attack that slows tumor progression but cannot overcome it, scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported in the journal Cancer Cell. “This supportive tissue that’s...
A randomized phase Ib study of a combination of low radiosensitizing doses of gemcitabine and fractionated doses of 90Y-clivatuzumab tetraxetan in patients with metastatic pancreatic ductal cancer who had received at least two prior systemic therapies, has found a significant survival advantage in...
Two preclinical studies of tumor samples taken from 39 patients with pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors and 39 patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma has found that for both these pancreatic cancers, CD47 is expressed at elevated levels on the cells that make up the bulk of the tumors and on...
Despite the benefits of surgery for early-stage pancreatic cancer, it remains underutilized for patients with this deadly disease, according to a new national analysis of trends and outcomes. Physician-scientists at University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University...
The overexpression of Hedgehog family proteins contributes to the development of many cancers. Research by Konitsiotis et al has found that blocking the function of the Hedgehog acyltransferase (Hhat) enzyme slows the growth and spread of pancreatic cancer. Targeting inhibition of the Hedgehog...