Tag Archives: iii

Drug regimen enough to control immune disease after some bone marrow transplants

Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center scientists first used cyclophosphamide to prevent severe graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) after bone marrow transplant involving haploidentical or “half-matched” transplants, a treatment first used in 2000 at the Cancer Center to treat leukemias and other blood cancers. The scientists began to use post-transplant cyclophosphamide in clinical trials of fully matched bone marrow transplants in 2004. Now, the new multi-center study confirms that the post-transplant cyclophosphamide is safe and effective for people who have received fully-matched bone marrow transplants. The shortened regimen, described online Sept. …

Anamorelin shown to improve appetite and body mass in patients with cancer anorexia-cachexia

“Anorexia and cachexia are among the most troubling and distressing symptoms of advanced cancer, for both patients and their families,” says the study’s principal investigator, Dr Jennifer Temel from the Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA. Symptoms of the wasting syndrome can include a loss of weight and muscles, together with fatigue, weakness, and loss of appetite. The condition is very common in patients with advanced lung cancer. Anamorelin aims to address the symptoms by mimicking the effects of the so-called “hunger hormone” ghrelin, which is secreted by the stomach…

Strategy to reduce side effects in modern cancer therapy

The aim of the research was to develop an improved tyrosine kinase inhibitor that is actually inactive and which is only activated selectively in the malignant tissue. This is intended to prevent damage to healthy tissue and therefore minimise side effects for patients. As part of the paper published in the journal Angewandte Chemie [Applied Chemistry], International Edition, a new inhibitor has been successfully synthesised and coordinated to cobalt(III). …

Mobility in cancer patients with malignant spinal cord compression

Malignant spinal cord compression (MSCC) is a complication of metastatic cancer mostly with bone involvement that occurs when a tumor’s secondary deposit presses on the spinal cord and nerves. This pressure exposes patients to neurological damage that can result in pain, loss of muscle strength and function of one or more of the senses. In some cases, the neurological damage can lead to paralysis of the entire body below the neck or paralysis of one or more limbs. …

Researchers to present results from breast cancer trials

"NeoALTTO is a randomized, phase III clinical trial evaluating whether a combination of two HER2-targeted therapies, trastuzumab and lapatinib, given with standard paclitaxel chemotherapy before surgery [neoadjuvant therapy] is better than just one of the HER2-targeted therapies given with the same chemotherapy," said Martine Piccart-Gebhart, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Breast International Group (BIG) in Brussels, Belgium. …

Diabetes drug with chemo, radiation may improve outcomes for lung cancer

The preclinical and clinical results, which have set the stage for a first-of-its-kind prospective study, point to metformin as an effective radiosensitizer — adrug that makes tumor cells more sensitive to radiation therapy — to treat stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Because of poor local response and five-year survival rates around 15 percent in late-stage NSCLC patients, well-tolerated, combination therapies are greatly needed. The abstract is being presented by Ildiko Csiki, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of Radiation Oncology at Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center. Metformin, the most-widely used drug for type-2 diabetes, has been shown to have anti-cancer effects on a number of cancers, including prostate and colon…