June 25, 2009, 6:49 PM CT

Big Tobacco dead by 2047

President Barack Obama's signature on a bill this week to grant the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory authority over tobacco was historic, and represents a step in the march to eliminate tobacco use in this country by 2047, two national tobacco experts said today (June 25).

The pair published "Stealing a March in the 21st Century: Accelerating Progress in the 100-Year War Against Tobacco Addiction in the United States" in the recent issue of the American Journal of Public Health Michael Fiore and Timothy Baker, director and associate director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention (UW-CTRI), respectively, chart milestones in beating tobacco addiction and map a battle plan to eradicate tobacco use in the next few decades. The scientists analyzed data from the 1960s, when the first systemic tracking of smoking rates began, until the present.

"Numerous observers have claimed over time that tobacco use has plateaued and progress against its use has stalled," the authors write. "However, the remarkable decline in rates of tobacco use since the 1960s belies this claim and underscores the remarkable success of tobacco control efforts to date."

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show adults smoking between 1965 and 2007 dropped by an average of one half of one percentage point per year, from 42 percent to the current rate of about 20 percent rate. While this rate of decline hasn't occurred each year, the overall decrease has been quite steady......... Posted by: Scott      Read more         Source

June 25, 2009, 6:06 PM CT

Selenium intake may worsen prostate cancer

Higher selenium levels in the blood may worsen prostate cancer in some men who already have the disease, as per a research studyby scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute the University of California, San Francisco.

A higher risk of more-aggressive prostate cancer was seen in men with a certain genetic variant found in about 75 percent of the patients with prostate cancer in the study. In those subjects, having a high level of selenium in the blood was linked to a two hundred percent greater risk of poorer outcomes than men with the lowest amounts of selenium. By contrast, the 25 percent of men with a different variant of the same gene and who had high selenium levels were at 40 percent lower risk of aggressive disease. The variants are slightly different forms of a gene that instructs cells to make manganese superoxide dismutase (SOD2), an enzyme that protects the body against harmful oxygen compounds.

The research findings suggest that "if you already have prostate cancer, it appears to be a bad thing to take selenium," says Philip Kantoff, MD, director of Dana-Farber's Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology and senior author of the study that is published by the Journal of Clinical Oncology on its website now and later will be in a print journal. The main author is June Chan, ScD, of the University of California, San Francisco......... Posted by: Mark      Read more         Source

June 25, 2009, 5:54 PM CT

MRI for imaging breast cancer?

Reviewing the records of 577 patients with breast cancer, Fox Chase Cancer Center scientists observed that women with newly diagnosed breast cancer who receive a breast MRI are more likely to receive a mastectomy after their diagnosis and may face delays in starting therapy. The study demonstrates that, despite the lack of evidence of their benefit, routine use of MRI scans in women newly diagnosed with breast cancer increased significantly between 2004 and 2005, and again in 2006.

The study is online now and will be appearing in the August edition of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons

"We have yet to see any evidence that MRI improves outcomes when used routinely to evaluate breast cancer, and yet more and more women are getting these scans with almost no discernable pattern," said Richard J. Bleicher, M.D., F.A.C.S., a specialist in breast cancer surgery at Fox Chase. "For most women, a breast MRI previous to therapy is unnecessary. MRI can be of benefit because it's more sensitive, but with the high number of false positives and costs linked to the test, more research is needed to determine whether MRI can improve outcomes in women who have already been diagnosed with breast cancer".

Bleicher and colleagues evaluated the records of 577 patients with breast cancer seen in a multidisciplinary breast clinic where they were reviewed by a radiologist, pathologist, and a surgical, radiation, and medical oncologist. Of these patients, 130 had MRIs previous to therapy......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 21, 2009, 9:28 PM CT

Dramatic outcomes in prostate cancer study

Two Mayo Clinic patients whose prostate cancer had been considered inoperable are now cancer free thanks in part to an experimental drug treatment that was used in combination with standardized hormone therapy and radiation treatment. The men were participating in a clinical trial of an immunotherapeutic agent called MDX-010 or ipilimumab. In these two cases, physicians say the approach initiated the death of a majority of cancer cells and caused the tumors to shrink dramatically, allowing surgery. In both cases, the aggressive tumors had grown well beyond the prostate into the abdominal areas.

"The goal of the study was to see if we could modestly improve upon current therapys for advanced prostate cancer," says Eugene Kwon, M.D., Mayo Clinic urologist and leader of the clinical trial. "The candidates for this study were people who didn't have a lot of other options. However, we were startled to see responses that far exceeded any of our expectations".

The patients first received a type of hormone treatment called androgen ablation, which removes testosterone and commonly causes some initial reduction in tumor size. Scientists then introduced a single dose of ipilimumab, an antibody, which builds on the anti-tumor action of the hormone and causes a much larger immune response, resulting in massive death of the tumor cells. Both men experienced consistent drops in their prostate specific antigen (PSA) counts over the following weeks until both were deemed eligible for surgery. Then, during surgery, came a greater surprise......... Posted by: Mark      Read more         Source

June 16, 2009, 5:03 AM CT

RNA snippet suppresses spread of aggressive breast cancer

A low cellular level of a tiny fragment of RNA appears to increase the spread of breast cancer in mouse models of the disease, as per scientists at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

Measuring levels of this so-called microRNA, which is also linked to metastatic breast cancer in humans, may more accurately predict the likelihood of metastasis (which accounts for 90% of cancer-related deaths) and ultimately help determine patient prognoses.

In the study, whose results are published in the June 12 issue of Cell, Scott Valastyan, a graduate student in Whitehead Member Robert Weinberg's laboratory, screened patient breast cancer samples for microRNAs with potential roles in metastasis. MicroRNAs are single strands of RNA about 21-23 nucleotides long. Within a cell, a single microRNA can fine-tune the expression of dozens of genes simultaneously. This capability could be especially important in metastasis, a multi-step process that could be influenced by a single microRNA at several points.

The screened samples were classified as either metastatic cancer or non-metastatic cancer. After analysis, the microRNA miR-31 stood out because of its inverse correlation with metastasis. In samples where a patient's original tumor had not metastasized, the cancer cells retained high levels of the microRNA. But where the tumor had metastasized, the cancer cells came to possess lower levels of miR-31......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 12, 2009, 5:22 AM CT

Gene therapy technique for cancer by cutting off blood supply

University of Florida scientists have come up with a new gene treatment method to disrupt cancer growth by using a synthetic protein to induce blood clotting that cuts off a tumor's blood and nutrient supply.

In mice implanted with human colorectal cancer cells, tumor volume decreased 53 percent and cancer cell growth slowed by 49 percent in those treated with a gene that encodes for the artificial protein, compared with those that were untreated.

The research team, led by Dr. Bradley S. Fletcher, an assistant professor of pharmacology and therapeutics in the College of Medicine, created the so-called fusion protein to target another protein called tumor endothelial marker 8, or TEM8, which was recently found to be preferentially expressed in the inner lining of tumor vessels. Such differences in protein expression enable delivery of drug molecules to the cells that harbor these proteins.

"The protein we created did a very good job of homing to the tumor and binding," said Stephen Fernando, who recently completed his doctoral studies. "By targeting TEM8, we can potentially create a treatment against cancer".

The Fletcher group is the first to target cancer cells through protein binding to TEM8. The findings, now available online, are featured on the cover of the June 15 edition of Cancer Research........ Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 10, 2009, 9:46 PM CT

Four new targets for breast cancer

Four suspects often found at the scene of the crime in cancer are guilty of the initiation and progression of breast cancer in mice that are resistant to the disease, a team led by researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reports in the June edition of Cancer Cell

"We have a smoking gun" that shows it's no coincidence the three protein receptors and the enzyme that makes them are abnormally expressed in a number of types of cancer, said Gordon Mills, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of M. D. Anderson's Department of Systems Biology and senior author of the paper.

"We've compiled lots of evidence that they are linked to cancer, what's been missing is proof that they could cause cancer," Mills said. "There are no questions left, they should be targeted."

The four are three lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) receptors (LPA1, LPA2, and LPA3) and the LPA-producing enzyme, autotaxin. "Lysophosphatidic acid", Mills said, "is the single most potent known cellular survival factor." LPA binds to a series of G protein-coupled receptors to spark normal cell proliferation, viability, production of growth factors and survival. The Cancer Cell paper shows this powerful network is hijacked to initiate breast cancer and fuel tumor growth, invasion and metastasis......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 10, 2009, 9:02 PM CT

Now you can buy a kit to test for prostate cancer

An over-the-counter prostate cancer test kit could be coming to a pharmacy near you, thanks to the collaborative work of a University of Central Florida chemist and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Orlando researchers.

UCF's Qun "Treen" Huo and M.D. Anderson-Orlando's Dr. Cheryl Baker and Jimmie Colon teamed up about 18 months ago with a very ambitious plan. Huo wanted to develop an effective, inexpensive test to screen for prostate cancer that would be easy enough to use at home or a local pharmacy.

"Now cancer tests are so inconvenient and expensive, and a lot of people don't have insurance, so they are not likely to test if they have no symptoms," Huo said. "Cancer is really scary because there aren't a lot of symptoms in the early stages. So I said, 'Why not create a test that is easy and inexpensive? Then more people can test and catch cancer early so it can be treated early.'".

Prostate cancer affects one of every six men and is the second-most common cancer among men in the United States, as per the American Cancer Society. It is estimated that more than 2 million American men are currently living with prostate cancer and that one new case occurs every 2.7 minutes. More than 27,000 men die from the disease each year, as per the American Cancer Society......... Posted by: Mark      Read more         Source

June 10, 2009, 8:44 PM CT

Tamoxifen resistance

Tamoxifen is a widely used and highly successful drug in the treatment of breast cancer, though resistance to tamoxifen is still a concern in recurrent disease (affecting 25-35% of patients), since therapy resistant metastatic tumor cells are a major cause of death. In a study in this month's Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, researchers have uncovered a protein profile that may accurately predict whether a cancer will be tamoxifen resistant.

Arzu Umar and colleagues in the Netherlands and Washington examined thousands of tumor cells taken from 51 tamoxifen therapy-sensitive and therapy-resistant tumors using a combination of proteomic and mass-spectrometry approaches. Their analysis revealed a set of 100 proteins that were expressed at different abundance levels in the two tumor groups, highlighting a potential profile for tamoxifen resistance.

In addition, they analyzed the most significantly altered protein, called extracellular matrix metalloproteinase inducer, or EMMPRIN, in a separate set 156 breast tumor tissue samples. EMMPRIN levels were higher in tamoxifen-resistant tumors and significantly associated with an earlier tumor progression following first line tamoxifen treatment and poor clinical outcome, suggesting EMMPRIN may be a reliable marker for highly aggressive breast cancer......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 9, 2009, 5:00 AM CT

Dynamic stroma microenvironment in prostate cancer

As stroma the supportive framework of the prostate gland react to prostate cancer, changes in the expression of genes occur that induce the formation of new structures such as blood vessels, nerves and parts of nerves, said scientists at Baylor College of Medicine in a report that appears in the current issue of the journal Clinical Cancer Research

In this study, using special techniques and gene chips that allowed them to sample the entire genome, the scientists found changes in 1,141 genes. They were either upregulated meaning that there was more of the protein with which they were associated than expected or downregulated, which meant the opposite, said Dr. Michael Ittmann, professor of pathology at BCM and a senior author of the report. These gene changes may explain why men with reactive stroma face a more aggressive disease, said Ittmann and Dr. Gustavo Ayala, professor in the departments of pathology and urology at BCM and another senior author.

"Often in prostate cancer, you don't see much change in the stromal cells," said Ittmann. "However, in this subgroup of patients (in which the stroma become visibly reactive), you see a histologically recognizable change in the appearance of the stroma. Dr. Ayala has shown previously that this correlates with a bad prognosis. We know the stroma are doing something to promote bad behavior in cancer cells"......... Posted by: Mark      Read more         Source

June 3, 2009, 5:06 AM CT

Skin Lesion Leads To More Cancer Types

Actinic keratoses are sun-damaged rough patches or lesions on the skin - often pink and scaly - that doctors have long believed can turn into a form of skin cancer known as squamous cell carcinoma.

Now scientists at Brown University, the Veterans Administration Medical Centers in Providence and Oklahoma City, and others have determined that actinic keratoses appear responsible for a larger spectrum of skin cancers than previously thought. Their research is highlighted in the current edition of Cancer.

"We found some interesting things," said Dr. Martin Weinstock, the paper's main author. Weinstock, chief of dermatology at the VA Medical Center in Providence, is professor of dermatology and community health at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development funded the study.

Vincent Criscione, a fourth-year Alpert Medical School student, served as the paper's first author. Beyond Brown and the VA, scientists from Rhode Island Hospital and Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit also contributed.

To conduct the study, Weinstock and the other scientists looked at 169 patients from the VA Medical Center in Oklahoma City who had a high risk for skin cancers. They, in turn, were among 1,131 patients from multiple cites who took part in a chemotherapy prevention trial conducted previously. Most had at least one actinic keratosis on their body. Combined, they had about 7,784 of the lesions on their faces and ears. There were up to six years of follow-up to quantify the risk of progression of actinic keratoses to cancer......... Posted by: George      Read more         Source

June 3, 2009, 4:58 AM CT

Oxygen plus MRI to determine cancer therapy success

A simple magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test involving breathing oxygen might help oncologists determine the best therapy for some cancer patients, report scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Previous research has shown that the amount of oxygen present in a tumor can be a predictor of how well a patient will respond to therapy. Tumors with little oxygen tend to grow stronger and resist both radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Until now, however, the only way to gauge the oxygen level in a tumor, and thus determine which therapy might be more effective, was to insert a huge needle directly into the malignant tumor.

The new technique, known as BOLD (blood oxygen level dependent) MRI, can detect oxygen levels in tumors without the need for an invasive procedure. The patient need only be able to breathe in oxygen when undergoing an MRI.

"The patient simply inhales pure oxygen, which then circulates through the bloodstream, including to the tumors," said Dr. Ralph Mason, professor of radiology, director of the UT Southwestern Cancer Imaging Center and senior author of a study appearing online and in a future edition of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. "Using MRI, we can then go in and estimate how much oxygen a particular tumor is taking up, providing us some insight into how the tumor is behaving and what sort of therapy might be effective"......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 1, 2009, 5:22 AM CT

Drug combination improves outcome for advanced non-small cell lung cancer

A new, international study observed that the combination of two drugs delays disease progression for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Results from the Phase III "ATLAS" trial were presented today by Dr. Vincent Miller of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting.

The goal of the study was to determine whether adding erlotinib (Tarceva), a targeted agent, to maintenance treatment with bevacizumab (Avastin), an agent usually used as a component of therapy for advanced NSCLC would delay disease progression. Maintenance treatment involves using one or more agents of a chemotherapy regimen, but not the entire regimen, to delay disease progression and possibly improve survival after patients have previously received stronger standard chemotherapy, which can have significant side effects.

"This is the first study to show the addition of erlotinib to maintenance treatment prolongs progression-free survival in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer," said Dr. Miller, a thoracic oncologist at MSKCC and one of the study's main authors. "Knowing which patients will get the greatest benefit from this combination, based on the identification of biomarkers, will be an important next step in this research," Dr. Miller added......... Posted by: Scott      Read more         Source

June 1, 2009, 5:18 AM CT

Surgery for late-stage colon cancer

A newly released study shows that a great majority of patients who present with advanced colorectal cancer that has spread to other organs (stage IV) don't require immediate surgery to remove the primary tumor in the colon. Scientists from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) presented their data today at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting.

"For this population with metastatic disease that cannot be cured by surgery, undergoing colon surgery is not always necessary," said Philip Paty, a surgical oncologist at MSKCC and one of the study's main authors. "If the colon tumor is not causing obstruction, perforation, or bleeding we've found these patients are best treated with chemotherapy. By moving straight to chemotherapy, patients can avoid the risk of surgical complications and can start therapy for all sites of disease without delay".

For this retrospective study, a multidisciplinary team looked at 233 metastatic colorectal cancer cases treated at MSKCC from 2000 to 2006. Their analysis showed that 217 of the 233 patients, or 93 percent, did not have complications that mandatory resection of the primary tumor. Only 16 patients mandatory colon surgery for symptom management.

Previously, in the conventional approach to treating stage IV disease, patients underwent colon surgery immediately following their diagnosis and would typically start chemotherapy therapys three to six weeks later. The rationale for immediate colon resection was to prevent future symptoms and complications from the primary tumor. It was assumed that the majority of colorectal cancers would have little response to chemotherapy......... Posted by: Sue      Read more         Source

June 1, 2009, 5:05 AM CT

Genetic risk factor for testicular cancer

(PHILADELPHIA) Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have uncovered variation around two genes that are linked to an increased risk of testicular cancer. Testicular cancer is the most common cancer among young men, and its incidence among non-Hispanic Caucasian men has doubled in the last 40 years -- it now affects seven out of 100,000 white men in the United States each year. The discovery, reported in the May 31, 2009 online issue of Nature Genetics, is the first step toward understanding which men are at high risk of disease.

"Despite being quite heritable, there really have not been any clear genetic risk factor that can account for most cases of testicular cancer," says Katherine L. Nathanson, MD, an assistant professor of Medicine and a specialist in medical genetics at the Abramson Cancer Center. "These variants are the first striking genetic risk factors found for this disease to date."

Nathanson and co-author Peter A. Kanetsky, PhD, MPH, an assistant professor of Epidemiology, observed that men who have two copies of the common version of the c-KIT ligand (KITLG) gene have a 4.5-fold higher risk of testicular cancer than men who have two copies of the less common or minor version of the gene. Additionally, men with two copies of the common version of variants next to another gene, sprouty 4 (SPRY4), have a 1.48-fold higher risk than men with two copies of the less common version of the gene......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 1, 2009, 5:04 AM CT

drug combination safe and active in kidney cancer

Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers report that a two-drug blockade of mTOR signaling appears safe in metastatic kidney cancer in a phase I trial. Early data suggests that a combination of temsirolimus and bryostatin appears to be active in patients with rare forms of renal cell cancer, which are less likely to respond to other targeted therapies.

Elizabeth Plimack, M.D., M.S., a medical oncologist and attending doctor at Fox Chase will report the trial results on Sunday, May 31 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

"We have certainly seen sustained responses with this combination which are encouraging," Plimack says.

One of the patients with an extended response has papillary renal cell cancer, which is a rare form of the disease that does not respond well to standard therapies. "Patients with non-clear cell renal cell cancer, including papillary renal cancer, don't respond as well to tyrosine kinase inhibitors, such as sunitinib and sorafenib, as patients with clear cell renal cell. So there is an unmet need for treatment for these patients. We've seen that this combination appears to be active to some degree for them".

mTOR signaling promotes tumor cell proliferation and blood vessel development. Temsirolimus (Torisel), blocks signaling through one portion of the mTOR signaling complex, called TORC1, and slows tumor progression in patients with advanced kidney cancer. However, a second portion of the complex, called TORC2, is unaffected by temsirolimus and continues to promote cell proliferation. Therefore, Plimack and his colleagues suspect that blocking TORC2 signaling activity could improve patient outcomes. Bryostatin blocks a downstream effector of TORC2, called protein kinase C......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 26, 2009, 6:50 PM CT

Can we afford the cancer care of the future?

When a cancer patient and his or her doctor discuss the value of a therapy option, the conversation commonly centers on a consideration of the therapy's medical benefits versus its possible side effects for the patient. Increasingly, however, as the already high costs of cancer care continue to rise, a full view of the patient's welfare must also take into account the economic impact of the therapy on the patient and his or her family.

Additionally, beyond its clear impact on patients, the increasing cost of cancer care also presents challenges to other stakeholders involved in the development and delivery of care.

"Cancer care is one of the most expensive areas of health care today, and the cost of that care is increasing steadily, for patients and for society as a whole," says Neal J. Meropol, M.D., director of the gastrointestinal cancer and gastrointestinal tumor risk evaluation programs at Fox Chase Cancer Center. Meropol, who is also a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Cost of Care Task Force and main author on the upcoming ASCO Guidance Statement on the Cost of Cancer Care, offered his analysis of the problem in a talk presented at the ASCO annual meeting in Orlando today.

"As physicians, we have a responsibility to understand the impact that the increasing cost of cancer care has on everyone involved," Meropol notes. "In particular, we need to be able to discuss with our patients the impact that high out-of-pocket expenses might have on them and their families, however difficult that conversation might be. More and more, cost considerations have an appropriate role in the evaluation of therapy options"......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 22, 2009, 5:03 AM CT

African-American women with advanced breast cancer

A newly released study finds that nearly one in four African American women with late stage breast cancer refused chemotherapy and radiation treatment, potentially life saving therapies. Reported in the July 1, 2009 issue of CANCER, a peer-evaluated journal of the American Cancer Society, the study indicates that more efforts are needed to ensure that all women with breast cancer receive appropriate care.

In the United States, African American women have almost twice the rate of advanced (stage III) breast cancer than white women. To get a better sense of the tumor characteristics and medical care of these patients, scientists led by Monica Rizzo, M.D., of the Emory University School of Medicine and Emory University's Avon Comprehensive Breast Cancer Center at Grady evaluated stage III breast cancer data from 2000 to 2006 from an inner city hospital in Atlanta that serves a large African American population.

The researchers identified 107 cases of stage III breast cancers diagnosed and/or treated at this hospital over the six years of study. Approximately 87 percent of these cases were in African American women. Triple negative tumors accounted for 29 percent of the cases. These cancers do not express the estrogen receptor, the progesterone receptor or the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) and therefore do not respond well to therapies that target these proteins (such as trastuzumab, or Herceptin, which blocks HER2)......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 22, 2009, 5:02 AM CT

Low vitamin D cancer link

In studying the preventive effects of vitamin D, scientists at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego, have proposed a new model of cancer development that hinges on a loss of cancer cells' ability to stick together. The model, dubbed DINOMIT, differs substantially from the current model of cancer development, which suggests genetic mutations as the earliest driving forces behind cancer.

"The first event in cancer is loss of communication among cells due to, among other things, low vitamin D and calcium levels," said epidemiologist Cedric Garland, DrPH, professor of family and preventive medicine at the UC San Diego School of Medicine, who led the work. "In this new model, we propose that this loss may play a key role in cancer by disrupting the communication between cells that is essential to healthy cell turnover, allowing more aggressive cancer cells to take over".

Reporting online May 22, 2009 in the Annals of Epidemiology, Garland suggests that such cellular disruption could account for the earliest stages of a number of cancers. He said that prior theories linking vitamin D to certain cancers have been tested and confirmed in more than 200 epidemiological studies, and understanding of its physiological basis stems from more than 2,500 laboratory studies......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 20, 2009, 5:22 AM CT

Post menopausal hormone replacement and breast cancer

The risk of developing breast cancer due to taking hormone replacement treatment may be the same for women with a family history of the disease and without a family history, a University of Rochester Medical Center study concluded.

The study, published online this week in the journal Epidemiology, adds to the evolving picture of what factors, either alone or in combination, boost breast cancer risk among postmenopausal women. It also refutes the notion, held by a number of in the medical community, that a familial predisposition to breast cancer enhances the carcinogenic effects of estrogen.

"Eventhough we know that family history is a risk factor, we don't know yet what it is about family history that conveys the risk," said Robert E. Gramling, M.D., D.Sc., assistant professor of Family Medicine and of Community and Preventive Medicine at URMC. "Some have proposed that it might be an increased sensitivity to estrogen, but our data did not support that notion. In fact, this study suggests the causal pathway based on family history is probably not estrogen sensitivity".

Scientists analyzed data from the Women's Health Initiative randomized trial, which followed 16,608 postmenopausal women, ages 50 to 79, who took hormone replacement treatment (HRT) or a placebo pill between 1993 and 2002. Among the participants, 349 cases of invasive breast cancer occurred during a mean follow-up period of 5.6 years......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 20, 2009, 5:11 AM CT

Predicting breast cancer outcome

Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center scientists have uncovered a gene signature that may help predict clinical outcomes in certain types of breast cancer.

In the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Harold (Hal) Moses, M.D., and his colleagues report that this gene signature which is linked to the transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) signaling pathway correlates with reduced relapse-free survival in breast cancer patients, particularly in those with estrogen receptor (ER) positive tumors.

The results suggest that assessing TGF-β signaling appears to be a useful aid in determining breast cancer prognosis and in guiding therapy. The work also sheds light on how TGF-β affects tumor growth and progression.

TGF-β is a well-known regulator of tumor growth and metastasis. In the early stages of cancer, TGF-β signaling inhibits tumor growth. But for unclear reasons, most tumors eventually lose their sensitivity to TGF-β, and the once-beneficial protein begins promoting tumor growth and metastasis during later cancer stages. Loss of TGF-β signaling has been associated with tumor progression in human breast cancer.

To identify mechanisms by which TGF-β regulates tumor progression and metastasis, Brian Bierie, Ph.D., a former graduate student in the Moses lab, developed mammary cancer cell lines from mice lacking the TGF-β type II receptor (TβRII), an important component of the TGF-β signaling pathway......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 19, 2009, 5:25 AM CT

Computer Model Predicts Brain Tumor Growth

Scientists from Brown University and other institutions have developed a computational computer model of how brain tumors grow and evolve.

The model is the product mathematical formulas based on the first principals of physics, such as conservation of mass, and it has allowed scientists to recreate tumor growth in a computer. Through subsequent repetitive testing against real tumors, they have also linked their computerized tumors to real-world brain tumors, or "gliomas," and can now watch tumor growth on a computer screen.

Creating such a model is significant because it could help design specific, targeted therapys for individualized treatment. There is no cure for gliomas, which can kill quickly, often within 15 months of diagnosis. Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy announced a year ago that he was suffering from this type of tumor, a cancerous glioma of the brain.

Details of the research were highlighted at an April meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research. The full article is included in the May 15 edition of the journal Cancer Research.

"This helps us design a therapy," said Elaine Bearer, the main author and professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Brown. "By testing potential therapies in the computer, we can get our new drugs much faster to patients"......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 19, 2009, 5:02 AM CT

DNA patterns of cancer and genetic disorders

A new tool will help scientists identify the minute changes in DNA patterns that lead to cancer, Huntington's disease and a host of other inherited disorders. The tool was developed at North Carolina State University and translates DNA sequences into graphic images, which allows scientists to distinguish genetic patterns more quickly and efficiently than was historically possible using computers.

David Cox, a Ph.D. student in computer science at NC State, devised the "symbolic scatter plot" tool to provide a visual representation of a DNA sequence. Cox explains, "The human visual system is more adept at identifying patterns, and differentiating between patterns, than existing computer programs such as those that try to identify repetitions of DNA sequences." In other words, the naked eye sees patterns better than computers can.

Identifying patterns in a sequence of DNA is important because it can help scientists identify the minute genetic variations between subjects that suffer from a disease, such as cancer, and subjects that do not. "Improved identification of relevant DNA sequences will hopefully expedite the development of successful therapy for a range of diseases," Cox says, "by allowing scientists to focus on the components of DNA that are correlation to the disease and improving our understanding of the genetic mechanisms of these diseases. For example, what turns specific genes on and off?"......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 18, 2009, 5:25 AM CT

The future of personalized cancer treatment

In technology that promises to one day allow drug delivery to be tailored to an individual patient and a particular cancer tumor, scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, have developed an efficient system for delivering siRNA into primary cells. The work would be reported in the May 17 in the advance on-line edition of Nature Biotechnology

"RNAi has an unbelievable potential to manage cancer and treat it," said Steven Dowdy, PhD, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and professor of cellular and molecular medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine. "While there's still a long way to go, we have successfully developed a technology that allows for siRNA drug delivery into the entire population of cells, both primary and tumor-causing, without being toxic to the cells".

For a number of years, Dowdy has studied the cancer treatment potential of RNA inhibition which can be used to silence genes through short interfering, double-stranded RNA fragments called siRNAs. But delivery of siRNAs has proven difficult due to their size and negative electrical charge which prohibits them from readily entering cells.

A small section of protein called a peptide transduction domain (PTD) has the ability to permeate cell membranes. Dowdy and his colleagues saw the potential for PTDs as a delivery mechanism for getting siRNAs into cancer cells. He and his team had previously generated more than 50 "fusion proteins" using PTDs associated with tumor-suppressor proteins......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 15, 2009, 5:02 PM CT

Possible breakthrough drug in lung cancer

Interim Phase II data from the LUX-Lung 2 study suggest BIBW 2992 has anti-tumor activity in advanced, second-line, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who have epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations.

"Lung cancer kills more people than any other cancer.3 The LUX-Lung 1 and 2 studies represent an opportunity to investigate BIBW 2992 across a range of different patient populations," said Dr. Manfred Haehl, corporate senior vice president, Medicine, Boehringer Ingelheim. "The preliminary data from the LUX-Lung 2 study suggests that BIBW 2992 may have activity in the second-line setting among NSCLC patients with EGFR mutations, which is encouraging news".

BIBW 2992 is an orally-administered, irreversible dual inhibitor of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and human epithelial receptor 2 (HER2) tyrosine kinases.1 It is the first irreversible EGFR-TKI (tyrosine kinase inhibitor) to reach Phase III for third/fourth-line NSCLC.

In the emerging era of personalized cancer medicine, Boehringer Ingelheim is one of the first companies to prospectively identify appropriate patients for clinical trials based on biomarkers. As part of the LUX-Lung clinical development program, Boehringer Ingelheim is evaluating BIBW 2992 in NSCLC patients who test positive for EGFR activating mutations......... Posted by: Scott      Read more         Source

May 14, 2009, 5:22 AM CT

Implantable device for cancer monitoring

Surgical removal of a tissue sample is now the standard for diagnosing cancer. Such procedures, known as biopsies, are accurate but only offer a snapshot of the tumor at a single moment in time.

Monitoring a tumor for weeks or months after the biopsy, tracking its growth and how it responds to therapy, would be much more valuable, says Michael Cima, MIT professor of materials science and engineering, who has developed the first implantable device that can do just that.

Cima and colleagues recently reported that their device successfully tracked a tumor marker in mice for one month. The work is described in a paper published online in the journal Biosensors & Bioelectronics in April.

Such implants could one day provide up-to-the-minute information about what a tumor is doing -- whether it is growing or shrinking, how it's responding to therapy, and whether it has metastasized or is about to do so.

"What this does is basically take the lab and put it in the patient," said Cima, who is also an investigator at the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT.

The devices, which could be implanted at the time of biopsy, could also be tailored to monitor chemotherapy agents, allowing doctors to determine whether cancer drugs are reaching the tumors. They can also be designed to measure pH (acidity) or oxygen levels, which reveal tumor metabolism and how it is responding to treatment......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 14, 2009, 5:19 AM CT

Novel therapy for cancer?

A ground-breaking Canada-wide clinical trial led by Dr. Katherine Borden, at the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC) of the Universit de Montral, has shown that a common anti-viral drug, ribavirin, can be beneficial in the treatment of cancer patients. Published in the journal Blood (First Edition), the study demonstrates that ribavirin suppresses the activities of the eIF4E gene in patients. This gene is dysregulated in 30 percent of cancers including breast, prostate, head and neck, colon and stomach cancer.

The study, inspired by the exciting discoveries made by Dr. Borden at IRIC, was a joint project between her research group, who monitored molecular events in trial patients, and Dr. Sarit Assouline of the Segal Cancer Centre, Jewish General Hospital, who led the clinical part of the trial.

The integration of these two teams made it possible to rapidly move from a research lab to patient tests. The study team targeted the gene by giving trial participants a mimic of its natural target, ribavirin. "Our results are the first to show that targeting eIF4E in humans is clinically beneficial," explains Dr. Borden. "We also found that ribavirin not only blocks eIF4E, it has no side effect on patients".

The trial studied patients with M4/M5 acute myeloid leukemia who had undergone several other treatments that had previously failed. "We had striking clinical improvements with even partial and complete remissions," indicated Assouline......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 11, 2009, 5:09 AM CT

City-dwellers more likely to develop late-stage cancer

People who live in urban areas are more likely to develop late-stage cancer than those who live in suburban and rural areas. That is the conclusion of a newly released study reported in the June 15, 2009 issue of CANCER, a peer-evaluated journal of the American Cancer Society. The study's results indicate a need for more effective urban-based cancer screening and awareness programs.

Diagnosing cancer at an early stage can improve outcomes. Studies show certain groups, such as low income populations, are more likely to be diagnosed with cancer at later stages. While some studies have also observed that geography can affect the timing of cancer diagnoses, research on rural-urban disparities has produced mixed and conflicting findings.

To investigate the rural and urban differences in late-stage cancer diagnoses, Sara L. McLafferty, Ph.D., of the University of Illinois and Fahui Wang, Ph.D., of Louisiana Sate University analyzed data from the Illinois State Cancer Registry from 1998 to 2002. The researchers noted that Illinois is an appropriate area to study because it encompasses a diverse range of geographic regions from the densely populated Chicago metropolitan area to low-density, remote rural areas. They assessed late-stage cancer diagnoses of the four major types of cancer (breast, colorectal, lung, and prostate) throughout the state, comparing data from cities with those from less-populated regions......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source