News • Cancer research
Origins of metastasis unraveled
For a long time, the origin of metastasis remained obscure. Now, scientists have discovered some of the mechanisms these cells arise.
Chemotherapy
News • Bone marrow transplant
The impact of chemotherapy on the brain
Pre-transplant chemotherapy facilitates the replacement of the brain's innate immune cells, by other immune cells derived from the transplanted stem cells.
News • Cancer therapy
Chemo after breast cancer surgery? Gene expression test to help decision
Physicists from Leipzig University have developed gene expression tests to examine whether additional chemotherapy is necessary and really effective after breast cancer surgery.
News • Chemotherapy approach
New receptor insights might leave cancer bitter
Bitter taste receptors do not only support humans in tasting. They are also found on cancer cells. A team led by Veronika Somoza from the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Vienna and the German Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich has investigated the role they play there. For this purpose, the scientists compiled and evaluated extensive…
Article • Cancer research
Prostate cancer: Blood tests predict chemotherapy resistance
Researchers have found that regular blood tests can help detect whether prostate cancer patients have resistance to drugs treating the condition. The findings were presented at the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) virtual Festival.
News • Ductal adenocarcinoma
Pancreatic cancer ‘priming’ may make chemotherapy more effective
A new approach to ‘prime’ the tumour environment may improve how effective chemotherapy is for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, one of the most aggressive forms of pancreatic cancer. In preclinical models, a team at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research could enhance the tumours’ response to chemotherapy by reducing the stiffness and density of the connective tissue known as the stroma,…
News • DNA damage causes AML
Cancer chemotherapy side-effects on blood cell development
By analysing secondary acute myeloid leukaemias, researchers at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) Barcelona have detected mutations caused by platinum-based chemotherapies in cells that were healthy at the time of treatment. Treatment with chemotherapies influences the development of blood cells, favouring clonal hematopoiesis from cells with pre-existing mutations. The study has…
News • Combined chemotherapy
Pancreatic cancer: New treatment promising for older patients
Pancreatic cancer is a disease of the elderly: the average age of patients is 72. In Austria, about 1,600 people are diagnosed each year. Since pancreatic cancer has no specific symptoms, it is not usually diagnosed until the tumor is locally advanced or has already metastasized. Once the tumor has metastasized, it is usually no longer treatable by surgery or radiotherapy. In addition, the drug…
News • Cancer care
Remote 24-hour monitoring shows promise in chemotherapy patients
Remote 24-hour monitoring for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy helps to better manage side effects and improve quality of life, finds a study published by The BMJ. The researchers say remote monitoring can provide a safe, secure, and “real time” system that optimises symptom management and supports patients to remain at home - and is particularly relevant in the context of the Covid-19…
News • Neoadjuvant chemotherapy
Breast cancer: New test predicts therapy success
In a collaboration with the Faculty of Statistics at TU Dortmund and the University Medical Center in Mainz, a research team at the Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors in Dortmund (IfADo) has developed a test that can be used to predict the success of therapy for breast cancer. Breast cancer is one of the most common tumour diseases worldwide. One in eight women will…
News • Mammacarcinoma study
Breast cancer: finishing treatment soon after diagnosis increases survival
Research from Cleveland Clinic in the U.S. and Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi in the U.A.E. has found a decrease in patient survival rates when treatment options – surgery, chemotherapy and radiation – are completed more than 38 weeks from the time of diagnosis. The observational study, which included more than 28,000 breast cancer patients registered in the American National Cancer Database, is…
News • Chemotherapeutic delivery
Bowel cancer: Nanotechnology offers new hope
Bowel cancer survival rates could be improved if chemotherapy drugs were delivered via tiny nanoparticles to the diseased organs rather than oral treatment. That’s the finding from Indian and Australian scientists who have undertaken the first study, using nanoparticles to target bowel cancer, the third most common cancer in the world and the second most deadliest.
News • Biological evidence
Scalp cooling protects hair from chemotherapy
A study reveals that scalp cooling physically protects hair follicles from chemotherapy drugs. It is the world’s first piece of biological evidence that explains how scalp cooling actually works and the mechanism behind its protection of the hair follicle. The data was part of an innovative hair follicle research project carried out by the dedicated Scalp Cooling Research Centre based at the…
News • New mechanism discovered
UPR: Stress raises cancer cells' chemo resistance
Resistance of cancer cells against therapeutic agents is a major cause of treatment failure, especially in recurrent diseases. An international team around the biochemists Robert Ahrends from the University of Vienna and Jan Medenbach from the University of Regensburg identified a novel mechanism of chemoresistance which has now been published in "Nature Communications". It is driven by…
Sponsored • Screening for the use of 5-FU anti-cancer drug
Fully-automated DPD deficiency testing
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…
News • Chemo side effects
Breakthrough in cancer hair loss treatment discovered
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…
News • Targeted treatment
New nanomedicine for efficient cancer chemotherapy
Researchers at the University of Helsinki in collaboration with researchers from Åbo Akademi University (Finland) and Huazhong University of Science and Technology (China) have developed a new anti-cancer nanomedicine for targeted cancer chemotherapy. This new nano-tool provides a new approach to use cell-based nanomedicines for efficient cancer chemotherapy. Exosomes contain various molecular…
News • Stem cell regeneration
Drug accelerates recovery after chemo, radiation
A drug developed by US physician-scientists and chemists speeds up the regeneration of mouse and human blood stem cells after exposure to radiation. If the results can be replicated in humans, the compound could help people recover quicker from chemotherapy, radiation and bone marrow transplants. The study, published in Nature Communications, also sheds light on the basic biology behind blood…
News • Oncology
Anti-inflammation approach shows promise for preventing cancer metastasis
An anti-inflammatory drug called ketorolac, given before surgery, can promote long-term survival in animal models of cancer metastasis, a team of scientists has found. Furthermore, so-called "pro-resolution" therapies can also trigger the immune system to eliminate metastatic cells. The research also suggests that flanking chemotherapy with anti-inflammatory drugs can unleash anti-tumor…
Sponsored • Chemotherapy
5-FluoroUracil: Curing or killing the patient?
Fluoropyrimidine-based chemotherapies are widely used, at least in the European area, for treating various types of cancer including digestive, breast, throat and brain cancer. Fluoropyrimidines are a group of anticancer drugs including the well-known 5-FluoroUracil (5-FU) and the prodrug capecitabine.
News • Brain tumor
Scorpion venom makes tumor surgery even better
A novel imaging technique that uses a synthesized form of scorpion venom to light up brain tumors has shown promise in a clinical trial. The imaging system enables neurosurgeons to better see malignant growths that often are difficult to fully eliminate.
News • Oestrogen-receptor positive, HER2-negative
Test determines most effective treatment for breast cancer
A breast cancer test has been found that helps doctors make treatment decisions for some breast cancer patients, following research carried out at Queen Mary University of London and funded by Cancer Research UK. The test was successful in predicting whether chemotherapy would be beneficial for patients with the most common type of breast cancer (oestrogen-receptor positive, HER2-negative),…
News • Post-cancer impairment
'Chemobrain': New biomarkers found
Cognitive impairment associated with cancer, also known as “chemobrain”, has gained recognition as a complication of the disease and its treatment, as it can negatively affect the daily lives of cancer patients and survivors. Chemobrain can be subtle yet persistent, with some cancer patients reporting difficulties related to memory and attention even months after completing their treatment.…
News • NSCLC
Liquid biopsy as effective as tissue biopsy for non-small cell lung cancer
Test more accurately identifies four mutations for which FDA-approved drugs exist and offers faster turn-around time between initial testing and commencement of therapy.
News • Network analysis
AI identifies and predicts development of cancer symptom clusters
Cancer patients who undergo chemotherapy could soon benefit from a new AI that is able to identify and predict the development of different combinations of symptoms – helping to alleviate much of the distress caused by their occurrence and severity. In the first study of its kind, published by Nature Scientific Reports, researchers from the University of Surrey and the University of California…