“Our ability to combine a novel microfluidic CTC isolation device, developed here at MGH, with single-cell RNA sequencing has given us new biological insights into these cells and revealed novel avenues to try and block the spread of cancer,” says lead author David T. Ting, MD, MGH Cancer Center. Pancreatic cancer is among the most deadly of tumors because it spreads rapidly via CTCs carried in the bloodstream. …
Current screening by cervical cytology (smear test) is invasive and time-consuming — and in recent years, cervical screening in the UK has fallen below 80%, particularly amongst women aged 25-30. Several studies have suggested that detecting HPV in urine may be a feasible alternative to cervical sampling, but the accuracy of such a test is still uncertain. …
In a paper featured on the cover of the current issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Michigan State University researchers provide the first detailed examination of a set of mutations similar to those present in the human cancer gene, said Irina Pushel, MSU undergraduate and co-author. “By systematically evaluating mutations of increasing severity, we now have a model to better predict how we think the protein will react with each mutation,” said Pushel, who co-authored the paper with Liang Zhang, lead author and MSU graduate student, and Bill Henry and David Arnosti, MSU molecular biologists. …
The results, which Fox Chase researchers presented at the American Society for Radiation Oncology’s 56th Annual Meeting on September 14, suggest that low-risk patients over 65 years old with small tumors may achieve comparable survival after treatment with adjuvant radiation therapy alone — without undergoing endocrine therapy. …
The study, using a national database of more than 100,000 women treated during the last decade, found that today nationally radiation oncologists are less likely to use radiotherapy in women older than 70 with early-stage estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer and that when they do, treatment is appropriately less-intensive. This follows a randomized trial demonstrating low rates of recurrence in women who don’t receive radiotherapy after lumpectomy, provided they take endocrine therapy. This confirms radiation oncologists are responding to a growing impetus to keep medical practices current and cost-effective, said first author Charles Rutter, M.D., a radiation oncology resident in Yale’s School of Medicine. “In light of the current environment surrounding the cost of healthcare — with an intense focus on costs — only treatments with meaningful benefit should be delivered,” Rutter said…
Researchers analyzed data from 561 patients with high-risk prostate cancer from a multi-center, randomized phase III trial in Canada (PCS IV clinical trials, Gov. # NCT 00223171). …
Ravi F. Saraf and Chieu Van Nguyen point out that early diagnosis of breast cancer, the most common type of cancer among women, can help save lives. But small masses of cancer cells are not always easy to catch. …
“Impact of the Addition of Carboplatin and/or Bevacizumab to Neoadjuvant Once-Per-Week Paclitaxel Followed by Dose-Dense Doxorubicin and Cyclophosphamide on Pathologic Complete Response Rates in Stage II to III Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: CALGB 40603 (Alliance)” was accepted as a rapid publication and published online this month by the Journal of Clinical Oncology. It will come out in print in September. Because of its rapid growth rate, many women with triple-negative breast cancer receive chemotherapy to try to shrink it before undergoing surgery. …
Scientists from the Cancer and Blood Diseases Institute (CBDI) at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center report their results in a study posted online Sept. 4 by Cell Reports. The specific forms of AML and MDS in the current study involve deletions on the arm of a specific chromosome in blood cells (del(5q)…
These interim results of the 5-year Phase II clinical trial using the experimental regimen are being presented at the Breast Cancer Symposium 2014 in San Francisco by Anthony E. Dragun, M.D., vice chair and associate professor of radiation oncology at the University of Louisville. Dragun, a radiation oncologist with University of Louisville Physicians, launched the trial three years ago at UofL’s James Graham Brown Cancer Center, a part of KentuckyOne Health and the only site offering the experimental regimen in the United States…