Article • Oncology
Cost cutting cancer drugs
How to cut the high cost of cancer drugs engendered high interest at the recent Forum on Hospital Management held in Vienna.
Oncology
Article • Radiotherapy
Dutch centre of excellence adopts dedicated device
Patients with locally advanced rectal cancer have been treated with intra-operative radiotherapy (IORT) for over twenty years. Partly due to this type of radiation, survival rates in a group of patients considered to have inoperable cancer changed dramatically from five to 70 percent.
News • Chemotherapy
Precision medicine test helps guide breast cancer patients’ decision
One of the earliest widespread applications of precision medicine in cancer care is helping patients and physicians decide whether chemotherapy is needed, a new study finds.
News • Politics
New EU recommendations on Cytotoxic Drugs
New policy recommendations on preventing occupational exposure to cytotoxic drugs were launched in the European Parliament on 26 April 2016, an important new initiative designed to protect healthcare professionals working across the EU.
News • Oncology
Nanoparticle creates ‘wave of destruction’ in cancer cells
Nanoparticles known as Cornell dots, or C dots, have shown great promise as a therapeutic tool in the detection and treatment of cancer. Now, the ultrasmall particles – developed more than a dozen years ago by Ulrich Wiesner, the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Engineering at Cornell University – have shown they can do something even better: kill cancer cells without attaching a cytotoxic drug.
News • Melanoma treatment
Dermatology develops an effective immunotherapy against solid cancer
Melanomas account among the eight most frequent deadly cancers in Europe and Northern America. Two major clinical criteria separate melanomas from most other cancers: the risk to die from a melanoma is a question of being less or more than 1 mm – and not a question of cm. About 95% of patients with melanomas ≤0.5 mm in thickness are clinically cured by early detection and appropriate melanoma…
News • Oncology
Fighting cancer with sticky nanoparticles
A team of researchers at Yale found that a treatment using bioadhesive nanoparticles loaded with a potent chemotherapy drug proved more effective and less toxic than conventional treatments for gynecological cancer.
Article • Tomosynthesis
Additional cancer screening for women with dense breasts
Italian-led research has highlighted the value of utilising additional screening technologies to help diagnose breast cancer in some women. Interim analysis from the Adjunct Screening with Tomosynthesis or Ultrasound in Women with Mammography-Negative Dense Breasts (ASTOUND) study has delivered evidence of the potential benefit of adding either ultrasound or tomosynthesis to standard mammograms…
News • Prostate Cancer
Fusion targeted biopsy proves more accurate in diagnosis
New research confirms that an innovative procedure combining MRI and ultrasound to create a 3D image of the prostate can more accurately locate suspicious areas and help diagnose whether it’s prostate cancer.
News • Oncology
Nanotechnology supports treatment of malignant melanoma
Changes in the genetic make-up of tissue samples can be detected quickly and easily using a new method based on nanotechnology. This report researchers from the Swiss Nanoscience Institute, the University of Basel and the University Hospital Basel in first clinical tests with genetic mutations in patients with malignant melanoma.
News • Breast cancer
A small implanted device could improve survival
A small device implanted under the skin can improve breast cancer survival by catching cancer cells, slowing the development of metastatic tumors in other organs and allowing time to intervene with surgery or other therapies. These findings suggest a path for identifying metastatic cancer early and intervening to improve outcomes.
News • Oncology
Potential new biomarker for cancer patient prognosis
To treat or not to treat? That is the question researchers at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) hope to answer with a new advance that could help doctors and their cancer patients decide if a particular therapy would be worth pursuing.
News • Oncology
Nanovaccine could enhance cancer immunotherapy
NIBIB researchers have created a nanovaccine that could make a current approach to cancer immunotherapy more effective while also reducing side effects. The nanovaccine helps to efficiently deliver a unique DNA sequence to immune cells – a sequence derived from bacterial DNA and used to trigger an immune reaction. The nanovaccine also protects the DNA from being destroyed inside the body, where…
Overcoming multidrug-resistant cancer with smart nanoparticles
Multidrug resistance (MDR) is the mechanism by which many cancers develop resistance to chemotherapy drugs, resulting in minimal cell death and the expansion of drug-resistant tumors. To address the problem of resistance, researchers at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have developed nanoparticles that…
News • Oncology
Infra-red light to deteact early signs of oesophageal cancer
Researchers at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute sprayed a dye on oesophageal tissue samples taken from people with Barrett’s oesophagus – a condition that increases the risk of developing oesophageal cancer. The dye sticks to healthy oesophageal cells but not to pre-cancerous cells. They then shone near-infrared light - which is just beyond the red colours that our eyes can normally…
News • Oncology
Loophole for cancer cells
Many cancers only become a mortal danger if they form metastases elsewhere in the body. Such secondary tumours are formed when individual cells break away from the main tumour and travel through the bloodstream to distant areas of the body. To do so, they have to pass through the walls of small blood vessels. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim and…
News • Low Oxygen, High Risk
How tumors adapt to become more aggressive
One of the many reasons tumors are so difficult to treat is that they are able to adapt whenever they are exposed to unfavorable conditions. Hypoxia, or a lack of oxygen, is one example of a phenomenon that should weaken the tumor, but instead, the malignant cells are able to compensate and drive more aggressive disease behavior.
News • Oncology
3-D Models yield insights into ovarian cancer
With a unique approach that draws on 3-D printing technologies, a team of University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers is developing new tools for understanding how ovarian cancer develops in women.
Interview • Fighting cancer
The first Spanish oncology forum
When two Spanish oncologists launched the first independent Spanish oncology forum this May in Madrid, European Hospital’s correspondent spoke with Dr Javier Cortés, co-organiser of the event, to find out more about its expected impact in their field.
News • Breakthrough
Early detection of leukemia patients' resistance to therapy
Australian researchers have made a world-first breakthrough in the early detection of patients' resistance to a common treatment for chronic myeloid leukemia. The discovery offers some hope that the patients' treatment could be changed sooner to improve their chances of survival.
Sponsored • Innovators-in-BC.com
Raising bladder cancer awareness
Bladder cancer is the 2nd most frequent urological cancer in men in Europe and the 7th most common cause of cancer-specific mortality.* Despite the fact that it is one of the most expensive cancers to treat from diagnosis to death**, it is still underrepresented in public awareness and cancer research. IPSEN aims to make a difference in providing Innovators in BC® – a website for international…
News • Photoacoustic imaging
Promising option for noninvasive monitoring of prostate cancer
While active surveillance is often recommended for patients with nonaggressive prostate cancer to reduce unnecessary treatment, the challenge for clinicians is to monitor and distinguish early-stage tumors from advanced cancers. A team of scientists led by researchers from Roswell Park Cancer Institute have demonstrated that photoacoustic imaging (PAI) may be an effective tool for more accurately…
News • Tumor removal
3D printed kidney helps save woman's organ
Doctors and scientists at Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City printed and used a 3D kidney to help save a patient's organ during a complicated tumor-removal procedural. The 3D-printed model allowed doctors to study the patient's kidney in 3D to determine how to best remove the tumor as it was located in a precarious location adjacent to vital arteries and veins. Thanks to the model of…
News • From nanotechnology
A better prognostic tool for brain cancer
A new nano-fabricated platform for observing brain cancer cells provides a much more detailed look at how the cells migrate and a more accurate post-surgery prognosis for brain cancer (glioblastoma) patients.
Article • Brexit
Oncologists join the UK EU referendum debate
Leading oncologists from across Europe and the UK have joined the debate over the British referendum on whether to leave the EU, adding their support to the campaign to remain in the European Union. Report: Mark Nicholls