International Oncology Network - Cancer & Hematology News

November 2010 Blog Posts (45)

New Study Supports 'Active Surveillance' For Low-risk Prostate Cancer

Retirement-age men with slow-growing prostate cancer may wish to consider monitoring their disease rather than being treated immediately, according to a new study led by investigators at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).

The study results, to be published in the Dec. 1 issue of the… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 30, 2010 at 5:30pm — No Comments

Industry Funded Clinical Drug Trials Are More Likely to Publish Favorable Results; Researchers Call For More Disclosure To Reduce Possibility Of Bias

When published results are systematically tracked for drug trials registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, those from industry-funded trials are the likeliest to be favourable to the drug in question, report researchers in the August 3, 2010 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The authors of the article reviewed 546 drug trials conducted between 2000 and 2006 and listed with… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 29, 2010 at 4:30pm — No Comments

Turning On Telomerase Gene Rejuvenates Cells, Tissues And Organs - Results in Partial Reversal Of Age-related Degeneration In Mice

Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute say they have for the first time partially reversed age-related degeneration in mice, resulting in new growth of the brain and testes, improved fertility, and the return of a lost cognitive function.

In a report posted online by the journal Nature in advance of print publication, researchers led by… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 29, 2010 at 11:30am — No Comments

Should Women With Personal History of Breast Cancer be Screened With MRI?

Women with a personal history of breast cancer should consider annual screening with MRI in addition to mammography, according to a study presented today at 96th Scientific Assembly and Annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (November 28 - December 3, 2010, McCormick Place, Chicago).

The American Cancer Society (ACS) guidelines currently recommend annual screening with breast MRI in women with a known gene mutation or with a strong family… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 29, 2010 at 10:30am — No Comments

New Discovery May Offer Cure for Human Papillomavirus (HPV)

Researchers at Tamir Biotechnology Inc, (formerly Alfacell Corporation), supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), reported test results confirming two of the company's lead compounds showed excellent in vitro antiviral activity and no cellular toxicity at dose levels tested for Human Papillomavirus (HPV). Testing was performed… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 29, 2010 at 7:30am — No Comments

New Discovery Halts Breast Cancer Stem Cells – Suggesting A New Drug Therapy Target

Breast cancer stem cells (CSCs), the aggressive cells thought to be resistant to current anti-cancer therapies and which promote metastasis, are stimulated by estrogen via a pathway that mirrors normal stem cell development. Disrupting the pathway, researchers at Tufts University School of Medicineand the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts University, were… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 26, 2010 at 6:30am — No Comments

Researchers at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Identify a Molecular Switch that Controls Neuronal Migration in the Developing Brain

Investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have identified key components of a signaling pathway that controls the departure of neurons from the brain niche where they form and allows these cells to start migrating to their final destination. Defects in this system affect the architecture of the brain and are associated with epilepsy, mental retardation and perhaps malignant brain tumors.

The… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 25, 2010 at 11:00am — No Comments

Personalized Cancer Therapy Requires New Strategies for Cancer Drug Development

Millions of cancer patients worldwide may soon be able to receive more effective, personalized treatments for their disease thanks to developments in the understanding of cancer biology, experts will say at the Cancer Biology for Clinicians Symposium organized by the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) in Nice, France on 26-27 November.

To make the most of this coming transformation, governments, pharmaceutical companies and doctors urgently… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 25, 2010 at 10:30am — No Comments

New Finding Pinpoints a Critical Gene Involved in Melanoma Growth and Provides a Framework for Discovering Ways to Tackle Cancer Drug Resistance

The past year has brought to light both the promise and the frustration of developing new drugs to treat melanoma , the most deadly form of skin cancer. Early clinical tests of a candidate drug aimed at a crucial cancer-causing gene revealed impressive results in patients whose cancers resisted all currently available… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 24, 2010 at 11:30am — No Comments

Landmark Study Confirms Accuracy of HPV Test for the Detection of Cervical Pre-Cancer Missed by Existing Screening Methods - Saving Lives of Women All Over the UK

The largest ever registrational study for a diagnostic product, involving more than 47,000 women shows that the Cobas® 4800 Human Papillomavirus (HPV) test from Roche Diagnostics, a leader in research-focused healthcare, is able to improve the detection of pre-cancerous cells in women whose cervical smears tested normal.

Persistent infection with human papillomavirus is the principal cause of cervical cancer in women, with HPV implicated in greater than 99% of… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 23, 2010 at 4:30pm — No Comments

A Growing Number of Health Plans Will Implement Additional Cost-Sharing Measures to Cover Orally-Administered Oncology Drugs

A new report from HealthLeaders-InterStudy and Fingertip Formulary , leading provider of access to and insight into formulary data, says that drugs that offer better survival data compared with other drugs are well suited for reimbursement. The authors of the report find that over the next five years, a growing number of health plans will shift more of the cost of… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 23, 2010 at 9:00am — No Comments

Largest Genomic Study of Human Medulloblastomas To Date Improves Ability to Direct Treatment; New Strategy for Childhood Brain Cancer

Medulloblastomas are the most common malignant brain tumors of childhood, with 40 to 50 percent overall mortality. One of the greatest challenges in treating them is that they vary substantially from patient to patient. In the largest genomic study of human medulloblastomas to date, researchers from Children's Hospital Boston, together with collaborators, have identified six subtypes with distinct molecular "fingerprints" that will improve doctors' ability to direct and… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 22, 2010 at 1:00pm — No Comments

Cetuximab Research Recognized For Scientific Contributions To Personalized Medicine

For the third year in a row, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) has included cetuximab (Erbitux®, Merck Serono/Merk KGaA in its annual report , Clinical Cancer Advances 2010: ASCO’s Annual Report on Progress Against Cancer… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 22, 2010 at 12:30pm — No Comments

New Study Finds High-Risk Neuroblastoma More Likely in Blacks and Native Americans

A study published online November 22, 2010, in the Journal of Clinical Oncology finds that black and Native Americans children with neuroblastoma were more likely to have high-risk, aggressive disease than white children.

The analysis included more than 3,500 children with neuroblastoma. Both groups also had worse survival – both overall and living disease-free without recurrence. In addition, neuroblastoma recurred at a higher rate in blacks compared to… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 22, 2010 at 11:30am — No Comments

Researchers Turn Normal Skin Cells Into Three-dimensional Cancers To Evaluate Increasing Numbers of Potential Targets for Cancer Therapeutics

Advanced cancer models are required if researchers are to evaluate the rapidly increasing number of potential targets for cancer therapeutics in a clinically relevant context.

For the first time, researchers of the Department of Dermatology at the Stanford University School of Medicine have successfully transformed primary human epithelial cells from… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 21, 2010 at 8:00pm — No Comments

Denosumab (Xgeva®) Approved To Help Prevent Cancer-Related Bone Injury

On Thursday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved denosumab (Xgeva® , Amgen) to help prevent skeletal-related events (SREs) in patients with cancer that has spread and damaged the bone. Skeletal-related events include bone fractures from cancer and bone pain requiring radiation.

Denosumab is a monoclonal antibody that targets a protein involved in cancer-related bone destruction called human… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 19, 2010 at 11:30am — No Comments

Phase III Recurrent Glioblastoma Survival and Quality of Life Data From The First Pivotal Study Of The NovoTTF-100A Presented At The 15th Annual Society For Neuro-Oncology (SNO) Scientific Meeting

Data presented today from a pivotal, phase III randomized clinical trial for patients with recurrent glioblastoma tumors suggest that Tumor Treating Fields (TTF) therapy may increase median survival time and improve quality of life scores compared to best standard of care chemotherapy. Professor Zvi Ram, chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, presented the data at the Society for… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 19, 2010 at 10:00am — No Comments

Positive Phase III Trial Results Reported For Axitinib (AG013736) In Patients With Previously-Treated Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma (mRCC)

Earlier today Pfizer announced that the Phase III AXIS 1032 trial (A4061032), studying axitinib, also known as AG013736 [1], in previously treated patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC), has met its primary endpoint, demonstrating that axitinib significantly extended progression-free survival (PFS) when compared to sorafenib (… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 19, 2010 at 5:00am — No Comments

Lung Cancer Patients Centerpiece For Northwestern Medicine Quality Of Care Study

Chicago's Northwestern Memorial Hospital, an 854-bed academic medical center and one of the country's premier academic medical centers, is the primary teaching hospital of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The hospital is one of six national participants in a pilot study that will test whether operable lung cancer patients and their families have a smoother care experience and better outcomes by hardwiring data… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 18, 2010 at 10:00am — No Comments

Simple Blood Test May Make Detecting Colon Cancer In Earliest Stages Easier

The future of colon cancer screening may be surprisingly simple. ColoMarker™ (EDP Biotech, Knoxville, TN) an innovative blood test to detect the early stages of colon cancer is generating plenty of attention from a wide audience, including from some of the world’s leading researchers in cancer biomarkers and gastrointestinal medicine.

ColoMarker, is developed by EDP Biotech, a US-based medical research… Continue

Added by Peter Hofland, PhD on November 17, 2010 at 5:00pm — No Comments