Category Archives: Cancer

Two drugs before surgery help women with triple-negative breast cancer, research shows

“We found that adding either carboplatin or bevacizumab to standard preoperative chemotherapy increased pathologic complete response rates for women with basal-like cancers — that is, it increased the proportion of women who had no residual cancer detected at surgery. At the same time, we found that while carboplatin had a similar effect in the smaller group of triple-negative patients with nonbasal-like cancers, adding bevacizumab actually decreased response rates for women with nonbasal-like cancers,” says William M…

Long noncoding RNAs: Novel prognostic marker in older patients with acute leukemia

The researchers investigated patterns of molecules called long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), a class of RNA molecules more than 200 nucleotide units long that are involved in regulating genes. The researchers examined the abundance, or expression, of lncRNAs in patients who were 60 years and older and who had cytogenetically normal (CN) AML. The study is published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…

Signaling mechanism could be target for survival, growth of tumor cells in brain cancer

Researchers found that this mechanism — a type of signaling termed constitutive or non-canonical epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signaling — is highly active in glioblastomas, the most common type of adult brain cancer and a devastating disease with a poor prognosis. When activated in cancer cells, it protects the tumor cells, making them more resistant to chemotherapy treatment. The pathway may also have implications for other types of lung and breast cancers where overexpression of EGFR is a factor. “Abnormal EGFR signaling, a common and key feature of human cancer, is of considerable interest both for a role in the growth of malignant cells and as a target for treatment,” said Dr…

Cancer therapy using specialized apheresis holds great promise

“What we know now about ECP is that it is able to function in more than one way,” said Ratcliffe. “It can immunotolerize in the autoreactive setting, and immunize against, in a situation such as lymphoma. This enigma poses tremendous opportunity for future basic science investigation in immunology where cancer applications in bone marrow transplantation and lymphoma will benefit from novel therapeutics.” Currently, ECP is used to treat cancer patients who have cutaneous T-cell lymphoma or in patients with Graft versus Host disease after transplantation. There are many questions about how the therapy works and the best schedules for treating patients…

Bacterial biofilms are associated with colon cancer, imaging technique reveals

“This is the first time that biofilms have been shown to be associated with colon cancer, to our knowledge,” says co-author Jessica Mark Welch, a scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Mass. The discovery, led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, draws on a novel way to “see” microbial community structure that was developed by Mark Welch and colleagues at the MBL. Called combinatorial imaging, it could potentially be used to clinically diagnose pre-cancerous and cancerous conditions in the ascending colon…

Important gene interaction defined that drives aggressive brain cancer

In a study recently published in the journal Neuro-Oncology, a team of scientists led by Luni Emdad, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., and Paul B. Fisher, M.Ph., Ph.D., provided the first evidence of an important link between a specific microRNA, miR-184, and a cancer promoting gene, SND1, in the regulation of malignant glioma. miR-184 is known to suppress tumor development by regulating a variety of genes involved in cancer growth, while SND1 has been shown to play a significant role in the development of breast, colon, prostate and liver cancers. Through a variety of preclinical experiments, the team demonstrated that increasing the expression of miR-184 slows the growth and invasive characteristics of glioma cells through direct regulation of SND1. …

Diagnostic tool Oncotype DX associated with reduction in chemotherapy rates post-surgery in younger women with breast cancer — ScienceDaily

Mariana Chavez Mac Gregor, M.D., assistant professor, health services research and breast medical oncology, will present the findings at a poster session of the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Oncotype DX is a 21-gene assay used to help estimate the likelihood of recurrence in women with early-stage breast cancer and, thus, determine those who may or may not benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network includes its use for women with lymph node-negative, hormone receptor (HR)-positive and HER2-negative disease. …