The long-term follow-up of a phase II clinical trial showed encouraging survival in some patients with stage 3B/4 non-small cell lung cancer treated with belagenpumatucel-L, a therapeutic vaccine. The findings were presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), held in Chicago, March 31 - April 4, 2012.



“This is a novel immunotherapy that appears to show unusually…

Testing patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) for both mutations and amplifications of the KRAS gene prior to therapy may help to predict response to treatment with antifolates, according to the updated results of a preclinical study,funded by the Quintiles Translational Research and Development Group and presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2012, held in Chicago, March 31 - April 4.



Patients, especially those with lung cancer, who have KRAS…

Hispanic women in Puerto Rico who have triple-negative breast cancer share similar disease characteristics with Hispanic women in California, suggesting that race plays a significant role in the presentation of triple-negative breast cancer among Hispanic women.




Triple-negative breast cancer is breast cancer that does not express genes for estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) or Her2/neu. About 10-20% of all breast cancers, more than one out…

Research funded by the National Institutes of Health showed that the combined effects of exercise plus caffeine consumption may be able to ward off skin cancer and also prevent inflammation related to other obesity-linked cancers.




“We found that this combination treatment can decrease sunlight-caused skin cancer formation in a mouse model,” said Yao-Ping Lu, Ph.D., associate research professor of chemical biology and director of skin cancer prevention at…

Researchers have found an association between excess body weight and an increased risk for cancer recurrence in men with clinically localized prostate cancer.



“Men diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer and who have excess body weight as indicated by a higher-than-normal body mass index (BMI) have an increased risk for cancer recurrence after treatment,” said Vincent L. Freeman, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor in the division of…

Patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer treated with the androgen inhibitor abiraterone and who had high baseline hormone levels had longer overall survival compared with patients with low hormone levels, according to data presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), held in Chicago from March 31 - April 4, 2012.




If confirmed, these data mean that levels…