Cancer
Genetic test identifies eye cancer tumors likely to spread
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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a genetic test that can accurately predict whether the most common form of eye cancer will spread to other parts of the body, particularly the liver.
In 459 patients with ocular melanoma at 12 centers in the United States and Canada, the researchers found the test could successfully classify tumors more than 97 percent of the time.
The study will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Ophthalmology, but is now online.
“When the cancer spreads beyond the eye, it’s unlikely any therapy is going to be effective,” says principal investigator J. William Harbour, MD. “But it’s very possible that we can develop treatments to slow the growth of metastatic tumors. The real importance of this test is that by identifying the type of tumor a patient has, we can first remove the tumor from the eye with surgery or radiation and then get those individuals at high risk into clinical trials that might be able to help them live longer.”
Obese Patients Face Higher Radiation Exposure From CT Scans But New Technology Can Help
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Most medical imaging equipment is not designed with overweight and obese patients in mind. As a result, these individuals can be exposed to higher levels of radiation during routine X-ray and CT scans.
A new study from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is the first to calculate exactly how much additional radiation obese patients receive from a CT scan. Research results show the internal organs of obese men receive 62 percent more radiation during a CT scan than those of normal weight men. For obese women, it was an increase of 59 percent.
New technology developed at Rensselaer by nuclear engineering expert X. George Xu could help solve this problem. Xu’s research team created ultra-realistic 3-D computer models of overweight and obese men and women, and used computer simulations to determine how X-rays interact with the different body types. These models, known as “phantoms,” can help empower physicians to configure and optimize CT scanning devices in such a way that minimizes how much radiation a patient receives.
DNA sequencing lays foundation for personalized cancer treatment
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cientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are using powerful DNA sequencing technology not only to identify mutations at the root of a patient’s tumor – considered key to personalizing cancer treatment – but to map the genetic evolution of disease and monitor response to treatment.
“We’re finding clinically relevant information in the tumor samples we’re sequencing for discovery-oriented research studies,” says Elaine Mardis, PhD, co-director of The Genome Institute at the School of Medicine. “Genome analysis can play a role at multiple time points during a patient’s treatment, to identify ‘driver’ mutations in the tumor genome and to determine whether cells carrying those mutations have been eliminated by treatment.”
This work is helping to guide the design of future cancer clinical trials in which treatment decisions are based on results of sequencing, says Mardis, who is speaking April 1 at the opening plenary session of the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting in Chicago. She also is affiliated with the Siteman Cancer Center at the School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
To date, Mardis and her colleagues have sequenced all the DNA – the genome – of tumor cells from more than 700 cancer patients. By comparing the genetic sequences in the tumor cells to healthy cells from the same patient, they can identify mutations underlying each patient’s cancer.
Risk for some cancers rises with U.S. obesity rate
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The total number of Americans dying from or diagnosed with cancer is falling, but certain cancers linked to obesity and inactivity are on the rise, according to an annual report on the status of cancer in the United States.
U.S. cancer rates fell 0.6 percent per year between 2004 and 2008, according to the report, based on data from the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other sources.
For men, the incidence of prostate cancer dropped by an average 2.1 percent per year, while lung cancer rates fell 2 percent. In women, lung cancer rates declined by 1.2 percent a year, while the incidence of breast cancer, which is associated with obesity, was flat.
“Breast cancer incidence did drop when hormones were stopped, but it has now plateaued,” said Dr. Powel Brown, chairman of clinical cancer prevention in the department of breast medical oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
Continued Smoking Can Spread Cancer
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Cigarette smoke cannot only cause cancer, but it’s also responsible for the spread of it, according to research by UC Merced biochemistry Professor Henry Jay Forman.
Forman discovered tobacco smoke activates an enzyme - called Src - that causes cancer cells to spread to other parts of the body. The study will appear in the April 15 edition of Free Radical Biology and Medicine.
Cigarette smoke is the major cause of lung cancer, Forman said, but nearly half of lung cancer patients remain active smokers. Nonetheless, researchers haven’t understood how cigarette smoke causes cancer to metastasize.
The lab was also able to prevent cigarette smoke from activating the enzyme by introducing an antioxidant. Forman’s discovery could prove useful in the fight against cancer, as it creates more understanding on how it spreads and how antioxidants can help combat this.
Photoacoustics technique detects small number of cancer cells
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Researchers have developed multiple techniques and procedures to detect cancer cells during the earliest stages of the disease or after treatment. But one of the major limitations of these technologies is their inability to detect the presence of only a few cancer cells.
Now, a research collaboration between the University of Missouri-Columbia and Mexico’s Universidad de Guanajuato shows that pulsed photoacoustic techniques, which combine the high optical contrast of optical tomography with the high resolution of ultrasound, can do just that, in vitro. Most cancer cells are naturally elusive, so they used a photoacoustic enhancer to detect them.
New developments are necessary, the researchers say, to be able to properly use photoacoustic techniques to recognize different cancer cell types inside the human body or in blood or tissue samples.
Using game theory to understand the physics of cancer propagation
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In search of a different perspective on the physics of cancer, Princeton University and University of California, San Francisco researchers teamed up to use game theory to look for simplicity within the complexity of the dynamics of cooperator and cheater cells under metabolic stress conditions and high spatial heterogeneity. In the context of cancer, cooperator cells obey the general rules of communal survival, while cheater cells do not.
The ultimate goal of this research was to gain an understanding of the dynamics of cancer tumor evolution under stress. Since cancer can be likened to a community of bacteria, the researchers zeroed in on a simple bacterial model to examine the progression of resistance to drugs under high competition and stress conditions.
Among their key findings: they discovered emergent cooperative outcomes between the two cell types after modifying their game theory framework to account for heterogeneous stress patterns.
New genomic test spares patients chemotherapy with no adverse effect on survival
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Testing a breast cancer tumour for its genomic signature can help identify which patients will need adjuvant systemic therapy (additional chemotherapy) after surgery, and spare its use in those for whom it is not necessary, according to the results of a study to be presented to the 8th European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC-8) today (Thursday). Dr. Sabine Linn, an Associate Professor of Medical Oncology at The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, will say that this is the first study where such a test has been incorporated in decision-making about adjuvant systemic therapy, and that the results are promising.
Adjuvant chemotherapy is used in order to destroy any microscopic cancer cells that might still be present in the body after surgery. Although it is effective, the side effects can be distressing. “Based on our data, the use of the genomic test could lead to a reduction of nearly 30% in the use of adjuvant chemotherapy without compromising patient outcomes,” Dr. Linn will say. “This percentage may vary somewhat due to different guidelines used in different countries. These findings are important both for quality of life and for cutting down unnecessary healthcare costs.”
The researchers studied follow-up data from 427 patients with early breast cancer who had taken part in a study called RASTER (MicroarRAy prognoSTics in breast cancER). Their cancers had not yet spread to the lymph nodes (node-negative). By looking for a particular selection of 70 genes in a tumour, the Mammaprint® test can predict which patients are at low and which at high risk of distant disease (metastasis); this enables doctors to select which patients could be spared the side effects of chemotherapy without adversely affecting their chances of disease-free survival. The study aimed to assess the feasibility of implementing the test in daily clinical practice in The Netherlands, as well as its effect on adjuvant systemic treatment decisions.
Students shave heads to find cure for cancer
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When freshman Kayla Gurganus got her head shaved, she received several cheers from the people involved at St. Baldrick’s.
The hall council in Brayton/Clevenger put on the event Saturday on the first floor. St. Baldrick’s is an organization that raises money to help find cures for children with cancer.
Students can either raise money to keep their hair cut or shave it. Gurganus said she received an email about the event last month, but did not know she was going to go through with it until today.
“You’d be surprised how much your hair weighs, I think, and how much you actually have,” she said. “It does definitely feel a lot different.”
Robotic Surgery Proves Successful, Less Invasive Way to Treat HPV-Related Oral Cancer
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Over the past few decades, doctors have noted a surprising trend in cancer of the tonsils and base of the tongue. Though oral cancer previously appeared predominantly in elderly patients with a history of tobacco and alcohol use, it’s increasing in younger patients: 30- to 50-year-old nonsmokers with the human papillomavirus (HPV). Fortunately, the newer form of cancer tends to be less aggressive, and the latest approach to treating the tumors can avoid the debilitating consequences of open neck surgery or extensive radiation. Robotic surgery conducted through patients’ mouths provides excellent results in removing squamous cell carcinoma at the back of the throat, especially in patients with HPV, a Mayo Clinic study published in the March issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings found.
VIDEO ALERT: Additional audio and video resources, including excerpts from an interview with Dr. Eric Moore are available on the Mayo Clinic News Blog. The password is robotic.
“We were surprised that the cancer cure results were even better than the traditional treatments that we have been doing, but that is probably almost as much of a matter that these cancers are HPV-mediated for the most part, and they respond much better to treatment,” says author Eric Moore, M.D., a head and neck surgeon at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. “Importantly, the treatment preserved patients’ ability to swallow and their speech performance was excellent.”
Breast Cancer In Black Women Is A Different Disease
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Black women have a higher risk of developing a certain type of breast cancer, one that is more aggressive and less amenable to targeted therapies such as anti-estrogen drugs (tamoxifen, aromatase inhibitors) and monoclonal antibodies like Herceptin. While the cause of this unfortunate epidemiologic disparity remains unclear, researchers have identified two risk factors that ought to be of interest to black women and the public health officials who help oversee their care.
First, some background information:
For white women, having several children at a young age protects against breast cancer, particularly if the pregnancies are completed before the age of twenty. Also, for white women, breast-feeding lowers the risk for breast cancer, but only very slightly.
Agent Shows Ability to Suppress Brain Metastasis and Related Damage
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Scientists are one step closer to repairing the damage caused by brain metastasis, a major challenge in cancer treatment, according to data published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
“We are making progress from the neck down in cancer treatment, but brain metastases are increasing and are often a primary reason patients with breast cancer do not survive,” said Patricia S. Steeg, Ph.D., head of the Women’s Cancers Section at the National Cancer Institute’s Center for Cancer Research.
Steeg, who is also a deputy editor of Clinical Cancer Research, another journal of the AACR, said very few drugs that are effective for the treatment of breast cancer break what scientists call the “blood–brain barrier” and treat disease established inside the brain.
Scientists are striving to understand the mechanisms and effects of brain cancer metastasis.
Combination of Everolimus and Exemestane Improves Progression-Free Survival for Women with Metastatic Breast Cancer
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San Antonio, TX - In an international Phase III randomized study, everolimus, when combined with the hormonal therapy exemestane, has been shown to dramatically improve progression-free survival, according to research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
The study, known as Breast Cancer Trials of Oral Everolimus (BOLERO-2), was presented today at the 2011 CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium by Gabriel Hortobagyi, M.D., professor and chair of MD Anderson’s Department of Breast Medical Oncology. Earlier findings were simultaneously reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Everolimus, an immunosuppressant agent first used to prevent rejection of organ transplants, also has anti-angiogenic properties. It inhibits the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) protein, a central regulator of tumor cell division and blood vessel growth in cancer cells; the mTOR pathway is activated in hormone-resistant breast cancer, explained Hortobagyi. Currently, the oral agent is approved for both the treatment of kidney cancer and pancreatic neuro-endocrine tumors, with MD Anderson’s research leading the way for the latter’s usage approval by the FDA.
Scientists Discover New Approach For Cancer Medication
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As the “recycling plant” of the cell, the proteasome regulates vitally important functions. When it is inhibited, the cell chokes on its own waste. Cancer cells, in particular, are very sensitive because they need the proteasome for their uncontrolled growth. Biochemists at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) have now identified the lead structure of a new class of drugs that attacks the proteasome in an unusual way. New medication could be developed on the basis of this previously unknown binding mechanism. The scientists report their results in the scientific journal Angewandte Chemie.
The proteasome, a large protein complex, carries out a vitally important function in the cells of the body. Similar to a recycling plant, it decomposes unneeded proteins into short pieces and recycles them. In this way it controls a number of functions in the cell. It regulates cell growth and division, decomposes damaged proteins and also acts as a key partner of the immune system in immune defense and inflammatory reactions. Because it is involved in so many important mechanisms within the cell, the proteasome is also associated with many diseases such as cancer, mucoviscidosis and a whole series of neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s disease.
Due to its significant role in the growth of cancer cells, in recent years the proteasome has taken center stage in pharmacological research as a starting point for cancer medication. When it becomes inhibited, the growth of cancer cells slows down. Bortezomib, the first drug to apply this strategy, generates revenues of over one billion US dollars per year in the meantime. It is used against multiple myeloma, a cancer disease of the bone marrow. Yet in spite of all its successes, the proteasome inhibitors currently in use often have severe disadvantages. As a result of their high reactivity they attack other proteins, too, thereby damaging not only cancer cells but also other healthy cells.
Breast Cancer and the Environment: IOM report release Dec. 7
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Although women have little or no control over some of the risk factors for breast cancer, such as those related to aging and genetics, they may be able to reduce their chances for developing the disease by avoiding certain environmental risks. BREAST CANCER AND THE ENVIRONMENT: A LIFE COURSE APPROACH, a new report from the Institute of Medicine, assesses the breast cancer risk posed by various environmental factors, identifies actions that offer potential to reduce women’s risk for the disease, and recommends targets for future research. The report, sponsored by Susan G. Komen for the Cure, will be released with a press briefing and presented at a plenary session at the 2011 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS).
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DETAILS:
The report will be released on Wednesday, Dec. 7, at a one-hour press briefing starting at 1:30 p.m. EST/12:30 p.m. CST in Room 217D of the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, 200 E. Market St., San Antonio. Reporters who cannot attend may participate through a live teleconference by dialing 888-647-7462 (U.S. and Canada) or 1-201-604-0169 (international). Participants from the committee that wrote the report are:
Irva Hertz-Picciotto (chair), professor and chief, division of environmental and occupational health, University of California, Davis
