September 26, 2007, 8:39 PM CT

'Re-plumbing' liver helps beat cancer

Temporarily diverting blood leaving the liver during chemotherapy could prolong the lives of people with primary or secondary liver tumours. The hour-long procedure allows massive doses of chemotherapy drugs to reach the liver and kill the cancer cells without poisoning the rest of the body.

The regime involves injecting the drug straight into the liver, while using catheters and balloons to divert the blood leaving it. This blood is then filtered to remove most of the drug.

The amount of drug getting to the tumour is hundreds of times more than usual, says Richard Taney, president of Delcath Systems, the New York-based company developing the procedure. Patients are given seven times the normal dose of the chemotherapy drug melphalan, but because the drug is prevented from spreading throughout the body its concentration in the liver is far greater than if it had been injected into the circulation.

This increases the chances that tumours will be killed, even if they are too small to be detected individually.

In an early trial on 13 patients, tumours disappeared or shrank by more than half in 10 of the patients within five weeks of their being given the new therapy. They survived for an average of two years. Normally around 90 per cent of people with inoperable secondary liver tumours die within eight months of being diagnosed......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source

September 25, 2007, 9:44 PM CT

PET scan breast cancer and chemotherapy

Scientists in Australia have shown that positron emission tomography (PET) that uses a radioactive sugar molecule is more useful than mammography and ultrasound in predicting a breast tumour's response to chemotherapy and, therefore, the patient's ultimate likelihood of survival.

In research presented today (Tuesday) at the European Cancer Conference (ECCO 14) in Barcelona, Dr Vinod Ganju reported that when the scanning procedure was used to measure the accumulation of radioactive glucose fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) in tumour tissue from patients with locally-advanced breast cancer before and after preoperative chemotherapy, women who had the highest accumulation at the beginning and who then had the highest percentage drop in accumulation after four cycles of chemotherapy were more likely to have a complete response to their therapy i.e. no tumour cells remaining in the final tumour resection specimen. However, measurements taken using mammography or ultrasound were not able to predict a pathological response accurately.

FDG-PET works by injecting a sugar molecule (FDG), tagged with a radioactive tracer, into the patient. The molecule is metabolically active and concentrates in tumour tissues where it emits energy that PET scanning can detect. PET measures the "standard uptake values" (SUVs), in other words, how much FDG has accumulated in the tumour. If the SUVs drop after chemotherapy, this shows that there are fewer, or no, cancer cells available where the FDG can accumulate. This study suggests that tumours with high initial SUVs seem to be more sensitive to chemotherapy, thereby giving a better chance of achieving a reduction or complete removal of the cancer......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source

September 25, 2007, 5:15 AM CT

Internal radiotherapy better than external

Quality of life after therapy for endometrial cancer can be significantly improved by the use of vaginal brachytherapy, where radiotherapy is delivered internally using a vaginal cylinder, the European Cancer Conference (ECCO 14) heard today (Monday September 24). Dr. Remi Nout, from the clinical oncology department of the Leiden University Medical Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands, said that this quality of life benefit would be an important factor to take into account when balancing the risks and benefits of using vaginal brachytherapy or external beam pelvic radiotherapy after surgery.

Up till now we have known very little about the quality of life of women with endometrial cancer, he said, and how radiotherapy impacts on it. This is the first analysis of data from a randomised trial on the subject.

Dr. Nout and the PORTEC (post operative radiation treatment for endometrial cancer) team set out to investigate whether vaginal brachytherapy could be as effective as external beam radiotherapy in local control of endometrial cancer, but with fewer side effects and better quality of life. It is too early for us to know whether the two therapy methods are equally effective, he said, but in about a year from now we will be able to tell. When there is little or no difference in effectiveness, we would definitely suggest that vaginal brachytherapy provides the optimal therapy for these patients, because the quality of life benefit is significant......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source

September 18, 2007, 10:11 PM CT

Most Children With Cancer Are Well-adjusted

Children under therapy for cancer are generally emotionally well-adjusted and no more depressed or anxious than other children their age, as per scientists at St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital. In studies of depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress and quality of life, children with cancer do as well as, and often better than their healthy peers.

We see them as a flourishing population that has adapted to the stress of having cancer and undergoing therapy, said Sean Phipps, Ph.D., a member of the St. Jude Division of Behavioral Medicine. They become quite resilient to the long-and short-term emotional and physical effects of their disease and the therapys.

The unexpected finding that children with cancer are emotionally resilient is important because of the dramatic improvement in survival rates of pediatric cancers. There has been a shift in research toward the concerns of long-term survivors of pediatric cancers, Phipps said. The ability of these children to cope with the after-effects of cancer is the major issue now. What we are learning from this population might help us learn how to improve the quality of life of children who are not doing so well.

Phipps is the author of an article on adaptive styles in children with cancer that appears in the advanced online issue of Journal of Pediatric Psychology. The article, based on research done by his group and other research teams around the country, was presented at the conference Psychosocial and Neurocognitive Consequences of Childhood Cancer: A Symposium in Tribute to Raymond K. Mulhern, held at St. Jude in September 2006, in honor of the late Raymond K. Mulhern, Ph.D., a pioneer in psychological research in pediatric oncology at the hospital. The symposiums presentations will also appear in a special recent issue of the journal......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source

September 14, 2007, 5:22 AM CT

Brain tumors need treatment with multiple 'targeted' drugs

Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have shown that several, rather than just one, cell-growth switches are simultaneously overactive in a number of brain tumors and other solid tumors, explaining why therapy with just a single "targeted" switch-blocking drug often yields disappointing results.

The laboratory finding argues for quickly moving to clinical trials that combine three or more such targeted drugs for such cancers to shut down all the malfunctioning growth switches, as per the team led by Ronald DePinho, MD, director of the Center for Applied Cancer Science at the Dana-Farber. Their report is being posted online on Sept. 13 by the journal Science and will appear in a forthcoming print issue.

The switches are formed by molecules called receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) that often are mutated and hyperactive in cancer cells. Since many kinase-blocking drugs are already available -- Gleevec and Tarceva are two of the best-known -- the scientists said clinical trials of combinations of the compounds should be planned quickly.

"This is a transformative finding that will motivate clinicians and our pharmaceutical colleagues to design clinical trials with regimens using several inhibitors," said DePinho. He noted that in the laboratory study using cancer cell lines and fresh specimens of brain tumors, three or more kinase inhibitors were needed to quell the abnormal cell-growth signals......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source

September 11, 2007, 11:38 PM CT

Generic prostate drug finds high-risk cancers early

Men now have another good reason to consider taking finasteride, a well-known generic drug that shrinks an enlarged prostate and reduces the risk of getting prostate cancer by 25 percent. A new study from the Southwest Oncology Group strongly suggests that for men at risk of the disease which strikes one in six men finasteride also raises the odds that physicians will find fast-growing prostate cancers early, when they are most easily treatable.

It appears that a man concerned about prostate-cancer risk, who is having a PSA test on a regular basis, will not only reduce his risk of prostate cancer if he takes finasteride, but will help find the cancers that pose the highest risk, says Ian M. Thompson, M.D., the studys senior author and a urologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.

The new results, embargoed until 4 p.m. Sept. 11, appear online ahead of print publication Sept. 18 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

"This report provides an important interpretation of results that confounded an overall favorable interpretation of the Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial initially, and should help lessen fears that finasteride somehow causes more aggressive prostate cancer, says Frank L. Meyskens, Jr., M.D., Southwest Oncology Group associate chair for cancer control and prevention......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source

September 6, 2007, 10:08 PM CT

Targeting nerve growth factor to cure liver cancer

Nerve growth factor (NGF), as the name says, is an essential peptide factor for the growth and differentiation of neuronal cells. Therefore we can imagine that this growth factor is important for the nervous system including brain. But a recent scientific report reported in the October 7 issue of the World Journal of Gastroenterology tells us another surprising and exciting discovery about this growth factor: NGF is positively related with liver cancer, the No.2 killer among all kinds of cancers in the world.

This research was collaboration among researchers from National Research Council of Italy, Marino Hospital in Rome, Regina Elena Cancer Institute in Rome, and University of Rome. This fruitful collaboration was under the leadership of Dr Annalucia Serafino, a talented biologist who has made her well-recognized reputation in cancer research and hepatitis C virus research. She is holding a senior researcher position in the national research council in Rome, which plays a similar role as the National Institutes of Health in the United States.

With a number of beautiful pictures of immunohistology, these researchers showed that NGF and its receptor trkANGF were expressed in the liver of the patients troubled with liver cirrhosis and/or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) while these two molecules are not detected in the liver of healthy people. For a growth factor to affect a cell, there should be its specific receptor expressed on the surface of the target cell. Since both NGF and its specific receptor are abnormally expressed in the liver of patients, NGF seems to be expressed by liver cells to affect themselves (so called autocrine) or to affect adjacent cells (so called paracrine) in patients with liver cirrhosis and/or HCC......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source

September 6, 2007, 4:57 AM CT

Regulation Of Gene P53

So vital is the p53 tumor suppressor gene in controlling cancer that its dysfunction is associated with more than half of human cancers. At the same time, the genes capacity for shutting down cell growth, even causing cells to commit suicide if necessary, is so absolute that it must be tightly regulated to maintain the optimal balance between protecting against cancer and permitting normal growth.

Now, a study by researchers at The Wistar Institute reveals new levels of subtlety in the bodys management of this all-important tumor suppressor gene and the protein it produces. The experiments show that, while the addition of a specific molecule at a particular site on the p53 protein prevents it from acting, the addition of a second copy of the same molecule at the same site reverses the effect, sending p53 into action. Further, removal of the second copy returns the protein to its repressed state.

In addition to the implications for understanding the activity of the p53 gene, the findings also outline an important new cycle of gene-regulating modifications involving the addition and removal of the molecules, called methyl groups, that may be widespread in the genome. A report on the study appears in the September 6 issue of Nature.

The p53 tumor suppressor is extremely potent in halting cell growth, says Shelley L. Berger, Ph.D., the Hilary Koprowski Professor at The Wistar Institute and senior author on the study. So, as critical as p53 is in protecting against the unchecked growth of cancer, you dont want it constantly on. If it were always on, your cells wouldnt be able to grow normally. Yet it needs to be constantly on call for activation against cancer and other aberrant cellular developments. Our study shows one way that the cell, working at one particular location on the p53 protein, maintains a nuanced but firm control over the genes activity......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source

September 4, 2007, 7:19 PM CT

Detect Cancer By Scanning Surface Veins

A new technology for cancer detection that eliminates the need for drawing blood has been developed by Purdue University researchers.

Scientists from Purdue's Cancer Center, Department of Chemistry and Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering collaborated with cancer and biotechnology experts from the Mayo Clinic to develop technology to detect tumor cells within the human body. By shining a laser on surface veins, such as those on the wrist and inside the cheek, scientists are able to reveal and count circulating tumor cells.

In addition to being less invasive, the new detection method is able to evaluate a much larger volume of blood than what can be drawn from a patient for analysis, said Philip Low, Purdue's Ralph C. Corley Distinguished Professor of Chemistry.

"In the initial stages of cancer, there are very few circulating tumor cells - cells that indicate the spread of cancer and initiate secondary tumor formation," Low said. "By increasing the volume of blood analyzed, we improve the sensitivity of the test and allow for earlier diagnosis. If there are two cancer cells in every 50 milliliters of blood, odds are the cells would not be found in a 10-milliliter blood sample. However, the cells would be found in the 100 milliliters of blood that flow through large veins each minute"......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source

September 3, 2007, 12:55 AM CT

molecular pathway to predict chemotherapy effectiveness

A common molecular pathway could help physicians predict which patients with lung cancer will benefit from chemotherapy drugs, as per new research from a multidisciplinary team at the University of Cincinnati (UC).

Known as the retinoblastoma (RB) tumor suppressor, this fundamental molecule regulates cell proliferation in the body. Research has shown that the RB pathway is either entirely inactive or altered in most human cancers. Researchers are beginning to use its actions as a biomarker for how tumors will respond to different therapies.

Michael Reed, MD, and his UC colleagues observed that turning off the RB pathway in lung cancer cells resulted in an altered response to chemotherapy agents and more cancer cell death. They report their findings in the September 2007 issue of the journal Cancer Research.

Dissecting the RB pathway will help us better understand how chemotherapy works and predict which patients might benefit from treatment and which ones wont, explains Reed, assistant professor of surgery at UC and a thoracic surgeon at University Hospital.

As pathways are further defined, we could choose agents that are targeted to an individual tumors molecular characteristics, he adds.

A prior UC study, reported in the January 2007 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, showed that when this pathway is disrupted or shut off in breast cancer, the tumor resists anti-estrogen drugs and the cancer continues to grow in spite of the treatment......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source