Scientists have designed nanoparticles that release drugs in the presence of a class of proteins that enable cancers to metastasize. That is, they have engineered a drug delivery system so that the very enzymes that make cancers dangerous could instead guide their destruction.
A single dose of an FDA-approved intravenous nutrition source may be able to significantly reduce the toxicity and increase the bioavailability of platinum-based cancer drugs, according to a study by Carnegie Mellon University biologists published in Scientific Reports.
Injecting toxic chemicals into the body to kill cancer cells is a physically and mentally brutal experience for patients. The treatment cost is equally brutal for healthcare systems. Yet, often after six months of difficult treatment, patients may hear that the chemotherapy did not stop or kill the cancer. There is now a way to find out, in just 30 days and at a cost of just €183, whether the…
Coping with the side effects of chemotherapy treatment is challenging for people with cancer. When fatigued or nauseous, it is not easy to assess if these conditions are acceptable treatment side effects or require medical assistance.
In a series of studies involving 140 American men and women with liver tumors, researchers at Johns Hopkins have used specialized 3-D MRI scans to precisely measure living and dying tumor tissue to quickly show whether highly toxic chemotherapy – delivered directly through a tumor’s blood supply – is working.
Apart from tumour immunologists themselves, for a long time oncologists have underestimated the role of the immune system in cancer treatment. Nonetheless, in recent years increasing attention has been given to this aspect of cancer.
‘All human body cells contain the same DNA, but every type of cell – for example a muscle cell compared to that of a nerve – has a different gene expression pattern’, said Dr Sonja Stadler, speaking at the 2012 congress of DGKL (German Society for Clinical Chemistry).
Hedvig Hricak, Chair of the Radiology Department at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA, describes emerging applications and potential trends in gynaecological cancer treatment described at the 15th International Symposium Crossing Barriers
In laboratory studies, scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have developed a way to personalize chemotherapy drug selection for cancer patients by using cell lines created from their own tumors.
BRAF is a protein that plays an important part in the transmission of growth signals. In a mutated state it can lead to uncontrolled cell growth. Around every second malignant melanoma – the deadliest and most aggressive form of skin cancer – has a certain mutation of the BRAF gene.
Faster assay for targeted chemotherapy's success against deadly liver cancer saves lives, and could speed lifesaving switch to alternative drug therapies for well-known pancreatic cancer.
The world’s first gene cancer therapy study of an innovative oral vaccine is underway at the Surgical Clinic of Heidelberg University Hospital.
Reliable Cancer Therapies (RCT) celebrates the first anniversary of its website in style. The Swiss non-for-profit organization has completed comprehensive guides for cancer patients and their relatives, which are now available on its website.
Although powerful, new, targeted treatments are regularly introduced to cancer clinics, choices for the first-line treatment of invasive breast cancer normally lie between preventive surgery and chemotherapy. A recent American study used genomic prediction combining multiple signatures to determine outcomes to standard chemotherapy.
A multi-centre French study is demonstrating that a four-minute ultrasound scan using a contrast agent can be performed after the first month of treatment and provide quantitative proof of whether a tumour is responding to the therapy.
Agenzia Provinciale Per la Protonterapia (ATreP) has signed a contract with Ion Beam Applications S.A. (IBA), based in Luvain-La-Neuve, Belgium, for the installation of a proton therapy centre in a new hospital planned for Trento. Over the next 15 years, IBA will provide the construction, installation and technical operation of this the first gantry-equipped proton therapy-dedicated centre in…
That wait time might be shortened for patients with soft-tissue sarcomas thanks to new research, from the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), demonstrating that PET/CT can be used as early as one week after a single treatment cycle to determine whether the drugs are killing the cancer. Researchers made another surprising discovery—some tumors…
A global vaccination programme against human papilloma virus (HPV), to include boys as well as girls, could lead to eradication of the virus and virtual disappearance of cervical cancer, according to Nobel Prize winner, Professor Emeritus Harald zur Hausen (University of California, San Diego) after recently delivering a keynote lecture at the 16th International Meeting of the European Society of…
Pain is the most common symptom of any illness thus having an alerting function to evoke protective responses. If tissue damage has happened as a consequence of surgery, obstruction, injuries, or cancer a cascade of changes in the peripheral and central nervous system occurs leading to physical inactivation, an increase of morbidity thus delaying hospital stay and treatment costs.
It is very difficult to predict whether a cancer drug will help an individual patient: only around one third of drugs will work directly in a given patient. Researchers at the Heinz Nixdorf Chair for Medical Electronics at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) have developed a new test process for cancer drugs. With the help of microchips, they can establish in the laboratory whether a…
Radionuclide therapy has been rapidly developing for the last 20 years, due to the availability of new carrier molecules and radionuclides. For some years the clinical efficacy has been modest with a low percentage of objective responses and no survival benefit because, most often, the patients had large tumor burden.
A global vaccination programme against human papilloma virus (HPV), to include boys as well as girls, could lead to eradication of the virus and virtual disappearance of cervical cancer, predicted Nobel Prize winner, Professor Harald zur Hausen, after delivering the key-note lecture at the 16th International Meeting of the European Society of Gynaecological Oncology (ESGO) in Belgrade, Serbia,…
Colorectal cancer (CRC) jointly describes cancers of the colon and rectum. Worldwide, CRCs are among the most common cancers. In Europe and the USA the occurrence of CRCs are considerably higher than in Africa and Asia.
Positive CB7630 (Abiraterone Acetate) Phase II Data was presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago this May/June, Cougar Biotechnology Inc, a development stage biopharmaceutical firm with a specific focus on oncology. In mid-July, Johnson & Johnson announced its acquisition of Cougar, which is now working with Ortho Biotech Oncology Research & Development, a division of the J&J firm Centocor…
Researchers around the globe are studying whether a genomic test, developed with micro-array technology, is superior to traditional methods in assessing aggressive breast cancer, and therefore could spare a considerable percentage of women from the onslaught of chemotherapy The Breast International Group (BIG) in Brussels, Belgium, manages TRANSBIG, an international network created to avoid…