Category Archives: Cancer Treatment

‘Sugar-coated’ microcapsule eliminates toxic punch of experimental anti-cancer drug

“We developed 3BrPA to target a hallmark of cancer cells, namely their increased dependency on glucose compared with normal cells. But the nonencapsulated drug is toxic to healthy tissues and inactivated as it navigates through the blood, so finding a way to encapsulate the drug and protect normal tissues extends its promise in many cancers as it homes in on tumor cells,” says Jean-Francois Geschwind, M.D., chief of the Division of Interventional Radiology at Johns Hopkins Medicine. …

Targeted treatment herceptin found to greatly improve long-term survival of her2-positive breast cancer patients — ScienceDaily

Published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the study found that Herceptin, when added to chemotherapy, improved 10-year survival from 75 percent with chemotherapy alone to 84 percent with the addition of trastuzumab. Additionally, results also demonstrated continued improvement of survival without cancer recurrence — the 10-year disease-free survival rate increased from 62 percent to 74 percent with the addition of trastuzumab. Although heart problems are recognized side effects of Herceptin, the incidence rate of such events was found to be about 3 percent and the majority of those patients recovered from the initial effects. “We have found that when Herceptin is used in combination with chemotherapy, a patient’s survival is significantly improved,” said Geyer, who serves as a senior scientific advisor to the NSABP and at Massey is the Harrigan, Haw, Luck Families Chair in Cancer Research, associate director for clinical research and member of the Developmental Therapeutics research program, as well as professor in the Division of Hematology, Oncology and Palliative Care at the VCU School of Medicine. …

Survey of the general population in France identifies knowledge gaps in the perception of lung cancer

Lung cancer management in recent years has improved patient outcomes because of screening, improved surgery and radiotherapy in early and locally-advanced stages of disease, new chemotherapies, validated maintenance therapy, and effective targeted therapies. However, fears or misperceptions about lung cancer may alter physician-patient communications and could delay lung cancer screening, diagnosis, or treatment…

Promising new method for rapidly screening cancer drugs

As Rotello and his doctoral graduate student Le Ngoc, one of the lead authors, explain, to discover a new drug for any disease, researchers must screen billions of compounds, which can take months. One of the added keys to bringing a new drug to market, they add, is to identify how it works, its chemical mechanism. “Rapid determination of drug mechanism would greatly streamline the drug discovery process, opening the pipeline of new therapeutics,” Ngoc says. She adds, “Drugs with different mechanisms cause changes in the surface of cells that can be read out using the new sensor system…

Getting antibodies into shape to fight cancer

The latest types of treatment for cancer are designed to switch on the immune system, allowing the patient’s own immune cells to attack and kill cancerous cells, when normally the immune cells would lie dormant. In a study, funded by Cancer Research UK and published in the journal Cancer Cell, the Southampton team have found that a particular form of antibody, called IgG2B, is much more effective at stimulating cancer immunity than other types. Unlike other forms of antibody, IgG2B can work independently without needing help from other immune cells, making it more active and able to work in all tissues of the body. The team have also been able to engineer antibodies that will be locked into the particular shape (called a locked B structure) that is most active, making them much stronger immune stimulators than previous drugs…

Tool to better classify tumor cells developed for personalized cancer treatments

Just as cancer is not a single disease, but a collection of many diseases, an individual tumor is not likely to be comprised of just one type of cancer cell. In fact, the genetic mutations that lead to cancer in the first place also often result in tumors with a mix of cancer cell subtypes. The WPI team developed a new statistical model that uses an advanced algorithm to identify these multiple genetic subtypes in solid tumors by analyzing gene expression data from a small biopsy sample…

Majority of women with early-stage breast cancer in U.S. receive unnecessarily long courses of radiation — ScienceDaily

“Hypofractionated radiation is infrequently used for women with early-stage breast cancer, even though it’s high-quality, patient-centric cancer care at lower cost,” said lead author Bekelman, an assistant professor of Radiation Oncology, Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and Abramson Cancer Center. “It is clinically equivalent to longer duration radiation in curing breast cancer, has similar side effects, is more convenient for patients, and allows patients to return to work or home sooner.” Shown to reduce local recurrence and improve overall survival after breast conserving surgery, conventional whole breast radiation, given daily over five to seven weeks, has been the mainstay of treatment in the U.S. for women for decades…

Majority of women with early-stage breast cancer in U.S. receive unnecessarily long courses of radiation

“Hypofractionated radiation is infrequently used for women with early-stage breast cancer, even though it’s high-quality, patient-centric cancer care at lower cost,” said lead author Bekelman, an assistant professor of Radiation Oncology, Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and Abramson Cancer Center. “It is clinically equivalent to longer duration radiation in curing breast cancer, has similar side effects, is more convenient for patients, and allows patients to return to work or home sooner.” Shown to reduce local recurrence and improve overall survival after breast conserving surgery, conventional whole breast radiation, given daily over five to seven weeks, has been the mainstay of treatment in the U.S. for women for decades…

Majority of women with early-stage breast cancer in U.S. eceive unnecessarily long courses of radiation — ScienceDaily

“Hypofractionated radiation is infrequently used for women with early-stage breast cancer, even though it’s high-quality, patient-centric cancer care at lower cost,” said lead author Bekelman, an assistant professor of Radiation Oncology, Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and Abramson Cancer Center. “It is clinically equivalent to longer duration radiation in curing breast cancer, has similar side effects, is more convenient for patients, and allows patients to return to work or home sooner.” Shown to reduce local recurrence and improve overall survival after breast conserving surgery, conventional whole breast radiation, given daily over five to seven weeks, has been the mainstay of treatment in the U.S. …

Majority of women with early-stage breast cancer in U.S. eceive unnecessarily long courses of radiation

“Hypofractionated radiation is infrequently used for women with early-stage breast cancer, even though it’s high-quality, patient-centric cancer care at lower cost,” said lead author Bekelman, an assistant professor of Radiation Oncology, Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and Abramson Cancer Center. “It is clinically equivalent to longer duration radiation in curing breast cancer, has similar side effects, is more convenient for patients, and allows patients to return to work or home sooner.” Shown to reduce local recurrence and improve overall survival after breast conserving surgery, conventional whole breast radiation, given daily over five to seven weeks, has been the mainstay of treatment in the U.S. for women for decades. …