Tag Archives: major

Breast cancer specialist reports advance in treatment of triple-negative breast cancer

“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. …

Understanding, improving body’s fight against pathogens

While they exist in small populations in humans, the large amounts of antibodies secreted by plasma cells make them key to the body’s immune system and its ability to defend itself against pathogens, such as bacteria and viruses. Proper maintenance of a pool of plasma cells is also critical for the establishment of lifelong immunity elicited by vaccination. …

Three-quarters of depressed cancer patients do not receive treatment for depression; new approach could transform care

An analysis of data from more than 21,000 patients attending cancer clinics in Scotland, UK, published in The Lancet Psychiatry, found that major depression is substantially more common in cancer patients than in the general population. Major depression was most common in patients with lung cancer (13%) and lowest in those with genitourinary cancer (6%). Moreover, nearly three quarters (73%) of depressed cancer patients were not receiving treatment. To address the problem of inadequate treatment the SMaRT Oncology-2 randomised trial, published in The Lancet, evaluated the effectiveness of a new treatment program called ‘Depression Care for People with Cancer’ (DCPC)…

Sequence of rare kidney cancer reveals unique alterations involving telomerase

The collaboration, a project of the National Institutes of Health’s Cancer Genome Atlas initiative, completed the sequence of chromophobe renal cell carcinoma and published the results today in the journal Cancer Cell. “The Cancer Genome Atlas is a federally funded national effort that has already completed the sequence of many major types of cancer (breast, lung, ovarian, for example), but this project is now branching out to sequence more rare types of cancer,” said Dr. …

Scientists unlock key to blood vessel formation

Professor David Beech, of the School of Medicine at the University of Leeds, who led the research, said: “Blood vessel networks are not already pre-constructed but emerge rather like a river system. Vessels do not develop until the blood is already flowing and they are created in response to the amount of flow. This gene, Piezo1, provides the instructions for sensors that tell the body that blood is flowing correctly and gives the signal to form new vessel structures. …

Prostate cancer screening reduces deaths by a fifth: Large, long-term European trial — ScienceDaily

Despite this new evidence for the effectiveness of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing to reduce mortality, doubts as to whether the benefits of screening outweigh the harms remain, and routine PSA screening programmes should not be introduced at this time, conclude the authors. The European Randomised study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) began in 1993 to determine whether screening men for PSA reduces deaths from prostate cancer. …