“Cancer is most curable when it’s detected at its earliest stages. While it is much too soon to identify the specific cause of this positive trend, or determine whether it is sustainable and will improve outcomes, it is indeed a step in the right direction,” said ASCO President-Elect Bruce E. Johnson, MD, FASCO. An analysis of nearly 273,000 patients showed that between 2013 and 2014 there was a 1% increase in the percentage of breast, lung, and colorectal cancers diagnosed … Read More
Study Reveals New Way To Approach Prostate Cancer Treatment
Adding abiraterone to hormone therapy at the start of treatment for prostate cancer improves survival by 37 per cent, according to the results of one of the largest ever clinical trials for prostate cancer presented at the 2017 ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The results from the Cancer Research UK-funded STAMPEDE trial could change the standard of care for men with prostate cancer, making abiraterone a first-line treatment alongside hormone therapy. … Read More
Update About Immunotherapy Drug Pembrolizumab
UCLA scientists have discovered that people with cancers containing genetic mutations JAK1 or JAK2, which are known to prevent tumors from recognizing or receiving signals from T cells to stop growing, will have little or no benefit from the immunotherapy drug pembrolizumab. This early-stage research has allowed them to determine for the first time why some people with advanced melanoma or advanced colon cancer will not respond to pembrolizumab, an anti-PD-1 treatment. The study, led by Dr. Antoni Ribas, director … Read More
Head And Neck Cancer Treatment Update
Treating head and neck cancer patients with a twice-daily radiation therapy combined with chemotherapy could save more lives, according to new research presented at the European Cancer Congress 2017. The study, led by Dr Claire Petit, a resident in radiation oncology from Gustave Roussy cancer center in Paris, included patients with tumors in their mouths, throats or voice boxes, that had already begun to spread to neighboring tissue. These patients tend to have lower rates of survival than those whose … Read More
New Treatment Being Studied For Kidney Cancer
Kidney cancer patients may soon have more treatment choices that provide a higher quality of life, thanks to research completed by physician scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Their recent study showed that treating metastatic kidney cancer with an advanced and focused form of radiation called stereotactic ablative radiation therapy achieves more than 90 percent control of local tumors, and offers the possibility of safely delaying systemic therapy. “This study shows that stereotactic radiation provides a good noninvasive alternative to … Read More
New Treatment For Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML)
Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) refers to a group of disorders that are also known as blood cancer. AML is an aggressive disease of malignant immature blood cells which, if left untreated, almost always causes the death of the affected patient. The established method of treatment is the use of a combination of various chemotherapeutic agents. However, dependent on the genetic subtype and the age of the patient, only about half of those with AML respond to this kind of treatment. … Read More
Growing Literature Supports Integrative Therapy For Cancer Treatment
This systematic review adds to the growing literature on integrative therapies for patients with breast cancer and other cancer populations. The latest results are published online and in print in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, a publication of the American Cancer Society. The researchers evaluated more than 80 different therapies and developed grades of evidence. Based on those findings, the Society for Integrative Oncology makes the following recommendations: Use of music therapy, meditation, stress management and yoga for anxiety … Read More
New Possible Treatment Approach For Two Types Of Brain Tumors
Detailed analysis of two brain tumor subtypes has revealed that they may originate from the same type of neural progenitor cells and be distinguished by gene mutation patterns and by the composition of their microenvironments. The results of a study led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard are being published in the March 31 issue of Science. “Our study redefines the cellular composition of two closely related gliomas characterized by mutations … Read More
Platelets, T-cells and Cancer
Blood platelets help disguise cancer from the immune system by suppressing T cells, report scientists at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in the May 5, 2017 issue of Science Immunology. In extensive preclinical tests, a promising T cell therapy more successfully boosted immunity against melanoma when common antiplatelet drugs such as aspirin were added. Zihai Li, M.D., Ph.D., senior author on the article, is chair of the MUSC Department of Microbiology and Immunology, the program leader for the … Read More
Inflammatory Breast Cancer and BPA Study
The chemical bisphenol A, or BPA, appears to aid the survival of inflammatory breast cancer cells, revealing a potential mechanism for how the disease grows, according to a study led by researchers in the Department of Surgery at Duke University School of Medicine and the Duke Cancer Institute. Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is the most lethal and fastest-growing form of breast cancer and quickly develops resistance to treatments. Reporting in the March issue of the journal Carcinogenesis, senior author Gayathri … Read More