The multi-centre, double-blind, randomised, phase 3 trial compared oral dabrafenib (150 mg twice daily) and oral trametinib (2 mg once daily) combination therapy with oral dabrafenib (150 mg twice daily) and placebo. …
Neufeld, associate professor in the Department of Molecular Biosciences, studies the adenomatous polyposis coli protein, which protects against colon cancer. Many of her experiments involve testing mice with APC mutations, which cause colon cancer, and seeing if any new drug compounds will work against the mutations…
The University of Illinois team reports its findings in the journal Oncogene. …
In a randomized phase II study, researchers showed that patients whose lung cancers expressed low levels of an enzyme called thymidylate synthase experienced a greater benefit from treatment with the combination of pemetrexed and cisplatin than those whose tumours expressed high levels. “Thymidylate synthase is one of the proteins that is targeted by pemetrexed which is the most widely used chemotherapeutic regimen in the treatment of non-squamous NSCLC,” explains study author Professor Myung-Ju Ahn, from the Section of Hematology-Oncology at Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea. “In this study, we tried to evaluate whether expression of thymidylate synthase is a predictive factor for response to pemetrexed plus cisplatin chemotherapy compared with gemcitabine plus cisplatin in non-squamous cell lung cancer patients.” In terms of response rate and progression-free survival, the clinical benefits of the pemetrexed combination compared to other regimen were more prominent in those patients who expressed low levels of the molecule, Ahn said…
Dr Vanessa Cottet from INSERM Unit� 866 in Dijon, France, and colleagues studied the region of C�te-d’Or, where a registry has been collecting data on adenomas since 1976. They wanted to evaluate the rate of diagnosis of adenomas before and after the initiation of a screening program using fecal occult blood testing that began in 2003…
The discovery has led to human trials for pancreatic cancer, even in advance of its publication today in the journal Cell. By attacking a wound repair mechanism called fibrosis, the findings may also have implications for other tough-to-treat tumors, such as lung, kidney and liver cancer…
In recent years, genetic studies have found thousands of links between genes and various diseases. But in order to prove that a specific gene is playing a role in the development of the disease, researchers need a way to perturb it — that is, turn the gene off, turn it on, or otherwise alter it — and study the effects. The CRISPR-Cas9 genome-editing system is one of the most convenient methods available for making these alterations in the genome. While the tool is already being used to test the effects of mutations in vitro — in cultured cell lines, for instance — it is now possible to use this tool to study gene functions using intact biological systems…
The results are good news for children and adolescents with Philadelphia chromosome-like ALL (Ph-like ALL), a subtype that until now was associated with a poor prognosis. …
The new method works by silencing cancer ‘survival genes’ and could potentially combat cancer through the selective killing of colorectal cancer cells without adverse effects on normal, non-cancer cells. Funded by York’s Centre for Chronic Diseases and Disorders (C2D2), the project led by Professor Jo Milner from York’s Department of Biology involved preliminary studies to establish the suitability of an ex vivo model for the future development of anti-cancer therapies for colorectal cancer using a technique called RNA interference. The new approach builds on ground-breaking research by Professor Milner and her team at York more than a decade ago. This early work, funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research (YCR), used the newly-developed technique of RNA interference to successfully kill human cervical cancer cells grown in culture without causing damage to healthy cells. …
“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. …