The novel research shows that brain metastases have dense concentrations of tumour infiltrating lymphocytes, providing an immunoactive environment. Moreover, both primary and secondary brain cancers often exhibit high expression of the immunosuppressive factor programmed cell death ligand 1 (PDL1), which can be inhibited by new treatments, thus activating the immune system. …
Associate professor Mary-Ellen Taplin, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, USA, will tell the 26th EORTC-NCI-AACR Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Barcelona, Spain,�that galeterone was well tolerated by patients in the ARMOR2 trial, and also lowered PSA levels in a subset of men with CRPC that was resistant to other drugs that target the cancer, such as enzalutamide and abiraterone. “Recent data have shown that a variant of the androgen receptor called AR-V7, found in tumour cells circulating in the blood of patients with metastatic CRPC, predicted resistance to treatment with enzalutamide and abiraterone,” she will say. “Indeed, we believe AR-V7 and other, related variants are a mechanism of resistance in this disease and patients who have them may have a poorer prognosis.” Researchers believed that galeterone could be effective against CRPC because it disrupts the androgen receptor signalling pathways that are involved in the cancer, and preclinical work has shown it is active against the AR-V7 variant…
The findings are published online in Lancet Oncology. Study co-leads Dr. Robert Bristow, a clinician-scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and Dr. Paul Boutros, an investigator at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, report that the gene test provides a much-needed quick and accurate tool to determine with greater precision the men who will do well with local treatment only (surgery or radiation), and those who will need extra treatment (chemotherapy and hormone therapy) to ensure the cancer is completely eradicated. …
The catalysts behind the formation of these deadly metastatic tumors are believed to be cancer cells that are launched into the bloodstream from the original site of the cancer. Researchers are very interested in leveraging these circulating tumor cells, or CTCs, which have the potential to allow the properties of a tumor to be better understood without a biopsy, and may also help physicians recognize how aggressive a tumor is and whether it is likely to cause metastatic disease. …
The immune system is designed to remove things not normally found in the body. Cells undergoing change, e.g…
The rates of increase were steepest among women with lymph node-negative and in situ (contained) disease. This is a reversal of trends seen since the 1990s when breast conservation surgery (BCS) was found to produce equivalent cancer outcomes and was endorsed as a standard of excellence by a National Institutes of Health Consensus Conference. The Vanderbilt University study, led by Kristy Kummerow, M.D., and Mary Hooks, M.D., MBA, was published online in the Nov. …
International guidelines recommend annual follow-up mammograms for every woman after treatment for early breast cancer, regardless of the risk of her cancer returning. There is also no strong evidence to support annual mammography compared with other possible mammography schedules. …
The gene, called MACROD2, might also be useful in screening for some aggressive forms of breast cancers, and, someday, offering a new target for therapy, says Ben Ho Park, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor of oncology in the Kimmel Cancer Center’s Breast Cancer Program and a member of the research team. The drug tamoxifen is used to treat estrogen receptor-positive breast cancers. Cells in this type of breast cancer produce protein receptors in their nuclei which bind to and grow in response to the hormone estrogen. Tamoxifen generally blocks the binding process of the estrogen-receptor, but some estrogen receptor-positive cancers are resistant or become resistant to tamoxifen therapy, finding ways to elude its effects…
According to the National Cancer Institute, more than 232,000 American women developed breast cancer last year and nearly 40,000 women died from the disease. It is the most common cancer among women in the United States. Most breast cancer deaths occur because the cancer has spread, or metastasized, which means that cells in the primary tumor have invaded blood vessels and traveled via the bloodstream to form tumors elsewhere in the body…
Glenn E. Palomaki, PhD, associate director of the Division of Medical Screening and Special Testing in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island has recently published an invited commentary in the November issue of Genetics in Medicine…