Based on analysis of two large breast cancer databases, reduced activity of an autophagy gene, beclin 1, was related to both a higher incidence of triple-negative breast cancer and a poorer prognosis for breast cancer patients. …
In work published in Cell, the research team describes a three-dimensional “organoid” culture system for pancreatic cancer. …
The researchers at the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute discovered that the ties which lash cells together — controlled by a protein called TIAM1 — are chopped up when cell maintenance work goes wrong. …
It may soon serve another purpose: zapping tumors. The biomedical advancement, which is under development at the University at Buffalo, could make chemotherapy more efficient, reduce its side effects and improve how doctors treat some of the most deadly forms of cancer. “We are developing a novel endoscopic device that will improve our ability to detect and destroy cancer cells,” says Ulas Sunar, PhD, a research assistant professor in UB’s Department of Biomedical Engineering and the principal investigator of a National Institutes of Health grant that supports the research. Conventional endoscopic imaging has limitations. …
The study, funded by the UK charity Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund, investigated whether the effectiveness of the Vaccinia oncolytic virus — a virus modified to selectively infect and kill cancer cells — as a treatment for pancreatic cancer, would be improved by arming it with a gene which modulates the body’s immune system. Despite laboratory studies which show that they can both kill cancer cells and provide immunity against cancer regrowth, oncolytic viruses have not performed well in clinical trials, as the immune system naturally attacks the virus before it can be effective…
As part of a Phase II clinical trial, adult patients with advanced prostate cancer (as evidenced by two rising prostate-specific antigen or PSA values and no visible metastasis) whose cancer is resistant to hormone therapy and had either surgery or radiation were recruited from member institutions in the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group. In their work, published in the current online edition of European Urology, ECOG-ACRIN investigators examined two different experimental treatment options. In step one, patients were treated with PROSTVAC-V/TRICOM and PROSTVAC-F/TRICOM. PROSTVAC-V is derived from a vaccinia virus that was used for many years to vaccinate against smallpox. …
As part of a Phase II clinical trial, adult patients with advanced prostate cancer (as evidenced by two rising prostate-specific antigen or PSA values and no visible metastasis) whose cancer is resistant to hormone therapy and had either surgery or radiation were recruited from member institutions in the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group. …
Published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the study found that Herceptin, when added to chemotherapy, improved 10-year survival from 75 percent with chemotherapy alone to 84 percent with the addition of trastuzumab. Additionally, results also demonstrated continued improvement of survival without cancer recurrence — the 10-year disease-free survival rate increased from 62 percent to 74 percent with the addition of trastuzumab. Although heart problems are recognized side effects of Herceptin, the incidence rate of such events was found to be about 3 percent and the majority of those patients recovered from the initial effects. “We have found that when Herceptin is used in combination with chemotherapy, a patient’s survival is significantly improved,” said Geyer, who serves as a senior scientific advisor to the NSABP and at Massey is the Harrigan, Haw, Luck Families Chair in Cancer Research, associate director for clinical research and member of the Developmental Therapeutics research program, as well as professor in the Division of Hematology, Oncology and Palliative Care at the VCU School of Medicine. …
The study – funded by Cancer Research UK, Action Medical Research and others – shows that taking an extra tumour sample at recurrence, when there are no effective therapies, could identify subsets of patients that might be treatable with existing drugs that target the genetic faults. …
In a revolutionary approach the researchers from the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute made the discovery by combining images from cancer samples with genetic data. …