Cancer
In Battle Against Lung Cancer, Investigators Eye Oncolytic Virus Therapy
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A virus that destroys cancer cells but leaves normal cells unharmed may offer hope to those affected by squamous cell carcinoma of the lungs (SCC lung cancer), according to investigators from the Cancer Therapy & Research Center (CTRC) at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. The CTRC has started patient enrollment in a US Phase 2 clinical trial using intravenous administration of REOLYSIN® in combination with carboplatin and paclitaxel in patients with SCC lung cancer.
REOLYSIN is an experimental treatment derived from a common virus called the reovirus. REOLYSIN directly kills many types of cancer cells and works synergistically with many approved chemotherapies and radiation.
When the reovirus enters a cancer cell, it produces thousands of copies of itself, causing the cell to burst. But the reovirus can replicate only in cancer cells with mutations along a signaling pathway in the cell called the Ras pathway, while leaving normal cells unharmed. Approximately two-thirds of all human cancers express this particular mutation and are therefore a potential target for REOLYSIN treatment.
Vitamin K lowers cancer risk
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People with higher dietary intake of vitamin K are less likely to develop or die of cancer, particularly lung or prostate cancers.
Vitamin K exists in two natural forms: vitamin K1, or phylloquinone, found largely in green leafy vegetables, as well as some vegetable oils, such as canola and soybean oils; and vitamin K2, or menaquinone, for which meat and cheese are the primary dietary sources.
To evaluate the association between dietary intake of vitamin K1 and vitamin K2, researchers analysed data on 24,340 cancer-free German adults, aged between 35 and 64 years. The researchers estimated the participants’ usual vitamin K intake based on a detailed dietary questionnaire. Over the next decade, 1,755 participants were diagnosed with colon, breast, prostate or lung cancers, of whom 458 died during the study period.
Excessive dioxin in 8 pct of European food samples
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Illegal levels of cancer-causing dioxins showed up in 8 percent of food and feed samples taken in Europe between 1999 and 2008, a report from Europe’s food safety agency said on Wednesday.
Animal and fish liver products had the highest dioxin levels in food while fish oil showed the strongest concentrations in animal feed, the Italy-based European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) said.
“Long-term exposure to high levels of dioxins has been shown to cause a range of effects, including cancer,” EFSA said.
Obesity to blame for breast cancer
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Obesity has been associated with some serious diseases in the past but a new study has now found that obese women face a significantly higher risk of developing breast cancer.
Carol La Vecchia who ran the study is a qualified health expert at the University of Milan. She subscribes to the opinion that 30% of women suffering with breast cancer are also obese. These conclusions were given at a conference in Barcelona.
Although it is difficult to say exactly why obese women run more of a risk, one theory put forward is that obesity can affect the chemicals in the body, raising the odds of developing oestrogen-related tumours. Whilst the details are somewhat unclear, the main details are – obese women are more likely to develop breast cancer.
Childhood Cancer Patients Enrolled in Clinical Trials Need Clearer Communication About Their Role in Research
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A small study of children with cancer enrolled in therapeutic clinical research trials shows that they don’t fully understand what physicians and parents tell them about their participation, nor do they feel they are genuinely involved in the choice to take part.
The study, led by Yoram Unguru, M.D., an associate faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, will be published online March 29 in the journal Pediatrics.
While an estimated 70 percent of young cancer patients participate in clinical trials during their treatment, more than half of the 37 children who were interviewed for the study did not know or recall that their treatment was considered experimental or part of research, the investigators report.
Diabetes Raises Risk of Death in Cancer Surgery Patients
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People with diabetes who undergo cancer surgery are more likely to die in the month following their operations than those who have cancer but not diabetes, an analysis by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests.
The study, to be published in the April issue of the journal Diabetes Care, finds that newly diagnosed cancer patients — particularly those with colorectal or esophageal tumors — who also have Type 2 diabetes have a 50 percent greater risk of death following surgery. Roughly 20 million Americans — about 7 percent of the population — are believed to have diabetes and the numbers continue to grow.
“Diabetic patients, their oncologists and their surgeons should be aware of the increased risk when they have cancer surgery,” says Hsin-Chieh “Jessica” Yeh, Ph.D., assistant professor of general internal medicine and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and one of the study’s leaders. “Care of diabetes before, during and after surgery is very important. It should be part of the preoperative discussion.
Thirty percent breast cancer caused by obesity
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Up to a third of breast cancer cases could be avoided if women ate less and exercised more, researchers claim.
Experts believe more than 14,000 women a year would probably not develop the disease if they had adopted healthier behaviour from an early age.
Modern lifestyles which feature regular drinking, lack of exercise and increased obesity are fuelling the rise of the disease, reported dailymail.co.uk.
New way discovered to predict which breast cancer patients should be treated with anthracyclines
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Barcelona, Spain: An international team of researchers has discovered a new way of detecting which breast cancer patients are going to respond best to chemotherapy that includes anthracycline antibiotics*.
The research, presented at the seventh European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC7) in Barcelona today (Thursday), is important because, until now, there was conflicting evidence about the best way of predicting response to anthracyclines and it was unclear whether any of the known biomarkers, such as the genes HER2 and TOP2A, were accurate indicators of response to these drugs.
By conducting a meta-analysis of four large breast cancer trials including nearly 3,000 patients, the researchers have discovered that an abnormality on chromosome 17, called CEP17, is associated with a worse outcome for patients, but also that its presence is a highly significant indicator that the tumour will respond to anthracyclines.
Doctors must collaborate so that patients get full benefit of tamoxifen treatment
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Barcelona, Spain: Recently published research has shown that some breast cancer patients taking tamoxifen may not be getting the full benefit of their treatment because they have also been taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), prescribed drugs that inhibit the effect of an important enzyme. Now researchers have developed a strategy for overcoming this problem, the seventh European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC7) in Barcelona will hear today (Wednesday). Mr. Sean Hopkins, a clinical pharmacy specialist in breast cancer at the Ottawa Hospital Regional Cancer Centre, Ottawa, Canada, will present his research which shows that changing drug therapy at an early stage can help patients get the full benefit of tamoxifen and aid the effectiveness of their treatment.
Tamoxifen is used both to prevent development of oestrogen-receptor-positive cancer and as a therapy to stop it coming back. Taking medications such as fluoxetine (Prozac) and paroxetine for depression (and in some patients hot flashes), and bupropion (Zyban) for smoking cessation, can inhibit the action of CYP2D6, an enzyme that is related to drug metabolism and response to treatment, and which is crucial to the metabolism of tamoxifen for breast cancer.
Mr. Hopkins and his team set out to investigate how many patients taking hormonal therapy for breast cancer were also being prescribed CYP2D6 inhibitors. Research has shown that up to 25% of breast cancer patients have depressive disorders, and many of them are prescribed SSRIs. Additionally, many patients with cancer try to give up smoking and may use non-nicotine replacement therapies, such as buproprion.
Obesity tied to poorer colon cancer survival
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Obese people are known to have a higher risk of colon cancer. Now, a new study suggests they may have poorer long-term survival odds than their thinner counterparts if they do develop the disease.
The latest findings, reported in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, suggest that excess weight may particularly affect male survivors’ long-term prognosis.
In a study of nearly 4,400 U.S. adults treated for colon cancer, researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester found that obese patients were one-quarter to one-third more likely to die over the next eight years than their normal-weight counterparts.
Rare ATM gene mutations, plus radiation, may increase risk of a second breast cancer
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Certain rare mutations in the ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM) gene, combined with radiation exposure, may increase a woman’s risk of developing a second cancer in the opposite breast, according to a study published online March 19 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Breast cancer survivors are at increased risk of developing a second cancer in the other, or contralateral breast, compared to women who have not had breast cancer. The ATM gene is known to play a role in cells’ response to DNA damage caused by ionizing radiation, another breast cancer risk factor. But it has been unclear whether women who carry ATM mutations are especially susceptible to radiation-induced breast cancer.
To address this issue, Jonine Bernstein, M.D., of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and colleagues, compared ATM mutations among women who had developed a second cancer in the contralateral breast to mutations in those who had a cancer in only one breast. The women were participants in the Women’s Environment, Cancer, and Radiation Epidemiology (WECARE) Study, an international case–control study. There were 708 case subjects—women with contralateral cancer—and 1,397 control subjects who did not have a second cancer but were similar to the case subjects in other respects, such as age and race.
Obesity and Colon Cancer a Deadly Combination
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Obese patients with colon cancer may have a greater chance of dying from the disease compared to those at a normal weight.
Every year in the United States, roughly 150,000 people are diagnosed with colon cancer. A new study involved 4,381 patients with stage II or II colon cancer who were treated with chemotherapy, 20 percent of whom were obese.
“Obesity has long been established as a risk factor for cancer, but our study in colon cancer patients shows that obesity predicts a poorer prognosis after the cancer is surgically removed,” Frank A. Sinicrope, M.D., a professor of medicine and oncology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, N.Y., was quoted as saying.
Red Meat, Obesity Raise the Risk of Colon Cancer
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Two new research studies have added weight to the evidence that both the consumption of red meat and excess weight contribute to the increased risk of developing colon cancer.
A team from the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Rockville MD reviewed data from a cohort of over 300,000 men and women and reviewed the detailed questionnaires by the participants about the types of meat that they consumed and how it was cooked. After seven years of follow-up, there were 2,710 cases of colon cancer in the group.
Those who ate the most red and processed meat showed a significantly higher risk of developing colorectal cancer than those in the bottom quintile who consumed the least amount of meat.
LSUHSC researcher finds first inherited prostate cancer genetic mutation in African-American men
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Shahriar Koochekpour, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Genetics at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, led research that has discovered, for the first time, a genetic mutation in African-American men with a family history of prostate cancer who are at increased risk for the disease. Dr. Koochekpour, who is also a member of the LSUHSC Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center, identified an inheritable genetic defect in the receptor for the male hormone, androgen (testosterone), that may contribute to the development of prostate cancer and its progression. Scientific reports linking inheritable androgen receptor mutations to prostate cancer in Caucasians are rare, and this is the first one that focuses on the African-American population. The study is available in the advance online publication of the Nature Publishing Group’s Asian Journal of Andrology.
Dr. Koochekpour and his laboratory discovered this genetic change by testing DNA extracted from white blood cells of African-American and Caucasian men from Louisiana who had a proven medical history of prostate cancer in their families.
“We detected this mutation only in African-American men with prostate cancer,” notes Dr. Koochekpour.
Cellular Communication in the Cancer Microenvironment
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Writing in the journal Genes & Development, Dr. Johanna Joyce and colleagues at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center lend new insight into the mechanism by which tumor-associated macrophages promote malignant progression.
Innate immune cells, including macrophages, comprise a large fraction of the cellular environment that infiltrates tumors – the so-called “tumor microenvironment.” Tumors have a dynamic relationship with their microenvironment, communicating via secreted factors to modulate cellular growth and cancer progression.
In their paper, Joyce and colleagues delineate how tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) promote tumor growth and invasion. The researchers found that macrophage cells infiltrating pancreatic, mammary and lung tumors produce high levels of the proteases cathepsin B and S (Cts B and S), which enhances tumor growth and invasion. Interestingly, the researchers discovered that increased Cts B and S activity is stimulated by the tumors, themselves – through the release of interleukin (IL)-4.
