Using a computer algorithm, scientists at Uppsala University have identified a promising new treatment for neuroblastoma. This form of cancer in children, which occurs in specialised nerve cells in the sympathetic nervous system, may be life-threatening. In the long term the discovery, described in the latest issue of the scientific journal Nature Communications, may result in a new form of…
Researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) have gained new understandings of two key complexes of cancer-related proteins by producing the most detailed ever maps of the structures they form when they come together. The study reveals that the two protein complexes come together in cells in a series of steps that change how their individual component proteins are arranged together. It…
Ground-breaking research by the University of Birmingham has discovered a new technique to assess the aggressiveness of childhood brain tumours. Funded by Children with Cancer UK, Action Medical Research and The Brain Tumour Charity, the study is the first of its kind and will allow clinicians to give more personalised treatments for childhood brain cancers, which currently account for one third…
Each year almost 80,000 new patients in France alone receive fluoropyrimidines, a group of anti-cancer drugs including 5-FU which is normally administered intravenously to treat digestive, breast and head and neck cancer. However, fluoropyrimidines-based chemotherapies can cause severe toxicities (incidence at around 20%) and sometimes lethal toxicity (incidence between 0.1 and 1%) with part of…
Scientists from the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK) and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) at Tübingen University Hospital have managed to attach immunostimulatory cytokines to cancer-specific antibodies for the first time in such a way that they activate the immune response against cancer without causing a dangerous overreaction by the immune system. The research team has now been granted…
Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have discovered a way to move precision immunotherapy forward by using genomics to inform immunotherapy for multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, according to a study published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, in December. This is the first study to experimentally determine which…
An enthralling insight into the care that could be offered to cancer patients of the future was presented by cancer imaging expert Professor Regina Beets-Tan during her a keynote presentation at the recent British Institute of Radiology congress. In the session ‘Oncologic imaging: Future perspectives’, the professor outlined what a Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) of the future – a team in…
Unfortunately, cancers that occur in the back of the mouth and upper throat are often not diagnosed until they become advanced, partly because their location makes them difficult to see during routine clinical exams. A report in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics describes the use of acoustofluidics, a new non-invasive method that analyzes saliva for the presence of human papilloma virus…
Teams at Helmholtz Zentrum München, LMU Munich and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed a new algorithm that enables automated detection of metastases at the level of single disseminated cancer cells in whole mice. Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. More than 90% of cancer patients die of distal metastases rather than as a direct result of the primary…
More than one in ten cancer patients do not die from their cancer but from heart and blood vessel problems instead, according to new research published in the European Heart Journal. For some cancers, like breast, prostate, endometrial, and thyroid cancer, around half will die from cardiovascular disease (CVD). Dr Nicholas Zaorsky, a radiation oncologist, and Dr Kathleen Sturgeon, an assistant…
Five talented robotics specialists were selected by an international jury for the finals of the Kuka innovation competition from among 30 applications from all over the world. For the first time, the focus was put on medical robotics and the topic of “Healthy Living”. Each of the finalists were provided with the sensitive Kuka lightweight robot LBR Med and a 3D vision system from Roboception…
Chemical analysis of blood samples, combined with an artificial intelligence program, could speed up the diagnosis of brain tumours, according to research presented at the 2019 NCRI Cancer Conference. Brain tumours tend to have ambiguous symptoms, such as headache or memory problems, and a brain scan is currently the only reliable way of diagnosing them. Researchers say their test, which works by…
Advances in antiretroviral therapy mean that today, people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can expect a healthy and long life. However, living with HIV does increase the risk of cancer. The reasons for this are multiple and include behavioural risk factors (smoking etc.) but many cancers can be attributed to the effects the virus has on the immune system, specifically its…
Research that might lead to new treatment options and longer survival for patients with glioblastoma – a malignant and particularly invasive type of brain tumour – is ongoing at ZHT, the Centre for Brain Tumours, and the Wilhelm Sander Neuro-oncology Treatment Unit at University Hospital Regensburg, which form one of the largest and most modern facilities for brain tumour treatment in…
A key mechanism controlling tissue structure, which could help identify drugs that make it harder for cancer cells to spread, has been identified by researchers at the Francis Crick Institute. The two studies, published in Nature Materials and PLOS Computational Biology, explain the mechanism that causes changes in the structure of tissues. Using experimental and computational biology, the…
Research by team at Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS) showed that repeated exposures to dental X-rays may be associated with an increased risk of thyroid cancer and meningioma. About 3,500 new cases of thyroid cancer and 1,850 cases of meningiomas are diagnosed each year in the UK, and the incidence of both cancers has increased in many countries during the past three decades.
A team of researchers lead by Helmholtz Zentrum München and the University of Würzburg identified an enzyme as a novel and strong inhibitor of ferroptosis, the iron dependent form of cell death: ferroptosis suppressor protein-1, short FSP1. This protein is expressed in a variety of cancer cell lines and therefore represents an attractive drug target for cancer treatment.
The results of a major study across 195 countries, presented at UEG Week Barcelona 2019, indicate that global death rates for pancreatic cancer and incidence rates for colorectal cancer both increased by 10% between 1990 and 2017. The Global Burden of Disease study, is the first to provide comprehensive worldwide estimates of the burden, epidemiological features and risk factors of a number of…
X-rays could be tuned to deliver a more effective punch that destroys cancer cells and not harm the body, researches from Kyoto University find. Gadolinium delivered into cancer cells releases killer electrons when hit by specially tuned X-rays. The approach, published in the journal Scientific Reports, could pave the way towards a new cancer radiation therapy. “Our method opens up the…
A robot-controlled laboratory where decisions are made by artificial intelligence will change the way new drugs are discovered, says a leading researcher. The engineer leading a project to develop a prototype "lab-bot" says it will reduce the time it takes to identify and synthesise molecules for new medicines – a process that can take years as scientists refine the shape and property…
Most people can continue to eat red and processed meat as they do now. A major study led by researchers at McMaster and Dalhousie universities has found cutting back has little impact on health. A panel of international scientists systematically reviewed the evidence and have recommended that most adults should continue to eat their current levels of red and processed meat. The researchers…
Researchers at Leipzig University and Leipzig University Hospital (UKL) have discovered that tumour growth and tissue invasion by cancer cells can be predicted based on the ontogenetic distance between tissues.
Cancer treatment could be dramatically improved by an invention at the University of Waterloo to precisely locate the edges of tumors during surgery to remove them.
Lymphomas in the central nervous system are rare but dangerous. Scientists at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) have now discovered which molecular mechanism leads to lymphomas forming metastases in the central nervous system.
Scientists have determined a new way to protect the hair follicle from chemotherapy in an effort to prevent hair loss as a result of cancer treatments. Researchers based at The University of Manchester have discovered a new strategy for how to protect hair follicles from chemotherapy, which could lead to new treatments that prevent chemotherapy-induced hair loss – arguably one of the most…