Tag Archives: tumor

Clinical waste may be valuable for monitoring treatment response in ovarian cancer

"We were able to demonstrate that simply squirting small amounts of otherwise discarded ascites fluid into our device allowed us to quantify tumor cells and explore mechanistic markers of tumor progression without the need to process liters of ascites with advanced instrumentation not readily available in many community hospitals," says Cesar Castro, MD, MMSc, MGH Cancer Center and Center for Systems Biology, co-lead author of the PNAS paper. "Moreover, achieving point-of-care readouts of tumor cell markers from repeatedly collected ascites at different time points, could allow for frequent monitoring of treatment response without having to wait for the next imaging scan." The ability to reliably track treatment response essentially lets caregivers know whether a particular anticancer drug should be continued or if another option should be tried. Tumor recurrence begins before metastases become visible on imaging studies, so several options for non-invasive "liquid biopsies" are being investigated, including analysis of circulating tumor cells and other factors found in the blood. Since ovarian cancer metastases are usually confined to the abdominal cavity and ascites commonly form in advanced disease, the research team theorized that ascites fluid could be an alternative, if not better, option than blood for treatment monitoring. …

Women prescribed hormone therapy should use caution when taking apigenin supplement

A new study shows that when the supplement apigenin is ingested in a diet at the same concentration as subjects received during IV injections in previous studies — the benefits were reversed leading to a higher incidence of cancerous tumors in subjects receiving progestin. "Typically, hormone replacement therapies improve the lives of menopausal women and achieve very good results," said Salman Hyder, the Zalk Endowed Professor in Tumor Angiogenesis and professor of biomedical sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine and the Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center. "However, research has proven that in women receiving therapies that involve a combination of the natural component estrogen and the synthetic progestin, a higher incidence of breast cancer tumors can occur." Hyder explains that many women normally have benign lesions in breast tissue. These lesions don’t typically form tumors until they receive the "trigger" that attracts blood vessels to cells essentially feeding the lesions causing them to form and expand — in this case, progestin is the trigger…

Chemotherapy drug improves survival following surgery for pancreatic cancer

"Pancreatic cancer is a disease with a poor prognosis, mainly because of the inability to detect the tumor at an early stage, its high potential for early dissemination, and its relatively poor sensitivity to chemotherapy or radiation therapy," according to background information in the article. Even after complete removal of the tumor, the vast majority of patients relapse within 2 years, leading to a 5-year survival rate of less than 25 percent. No consensus has been reached on a standard treatment approach for additional therapy…

Blood-pressure drug may help improve cancer treatment

"Angiotensin inhibitors are safe blood pressure medications that have been used for over a decade in patients and could be repurposed for cancer treatment," explains Rakesh K. Jain, PhD, director of the Steele Laboratory for Tumor Biology at MGH and senior author of the study. "Unlike anti-angiogenesis drugs, which improve tumor blood flow by repairing the abnormal structure of tumor blood vessels, angiotensin inhibitors open up those vessels by releasing physical forces that are applied to tumor blood vessels when the gel-like matrix surrounding them expands with tumor growth." Focusing on how the physical and physiological properties of tumors can inhibit cancer therapies, Jain’s team previously found that losartan improves the distribution within tumors of relatively large molecules called nanomedicines by inhibiting the formation of collagen, a primary constituent of the extracellular matrix…

New approach to treating human brain cancer could lead to improved outcomes

The research team, led by Robert Wechsler-Reya, Ph.D., professor in Sanford-Burnham’s NCI-Designated Cancer Center and director of the Tumor Initiation and Maintenance Program, discovered that the medulloblastoma cancer cells responsible for tumor growth and progression (called cancer stem cells or tumor-propagating cells — TPCs) divide more quickly than normal cells. Correspondingly, they have higher levels of certain enzymes that regulate the cell cycle (Aurora and Polo-like kinases). By using small-molecule inhibitors to stop the action of these enzymes, the researchers were able to block the growth of tumor cells from mice as well as humans…