Hormone therapy safe during Ovarian Cancer

Women with the commonest type of ovarian cancer can safely take hormone replacement therapy (HRT), and it could have a beneficial effect on their survival, a long-term clinical trial reports.

The 24-year, phase III international trial provides the strongest evidence yet that women with epithelial ovarian cancer, which accounts for 80-90 per cent of cases, can safely take HRT during or after their treatment.

Several major studies have found that HRT can increase the risk of developing some cancers, which is why there has been such interest in whether it is safe to take during cancer treatment.
The new study, was led by researchers at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, and is the largest to investigate HRT's effects on ovarian cancer survival.The study suggests that women with ovarian cancer can receive the known benefits of HRT on the side-effects of the menopause, without it reducing their survival chances. In fact, the results indicate that HRT might improve chances for overall survival. The trial looked at women who already had ovarian cancer. Years of research have already shown that when healthy women take HRT their risk of developing breast, ovarian and possibly womb cancer can increase.
"Our results not only suggest HRT is safe for women with this type of ovarian cancer, but that it may actually improve their chances of long-term survival. We hope our study will inform treatment for women with ovarian cancer, and the findings could have a big impact on their quality of life."

New drug shows benefits in Lung, Bladder Cancer tests

In its Phase II trial targeting advanced or metastatic bladder cancer, Roche said its Atezolizumab immunotherapy drug shrank tumors in 27 percent of people who expressed medium and high levels of PD-L1, a protein that appears to help cancers evade the immune system.
In two separate Phase II trials targeting advanced non-small cell lung cancer, Roche said patients getting atezolizumab lived 7.7 months longer than those who got chemotherapy. The drug also shrank tumors in up to 27 percent of lung cancer sufferers whose disease had progressed with other treatments and who expressed the highest PD-L1 levels, the Swiss company said.

"We plan to submit these results to global health authorities to bring this potential new option to people as soon as possible," said Sandra Hornung, Roche's chief medical officer, in a statement.
Roche won 'breakthrough therapy status' for atezolizumab in February from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is now calling it the "first new therapy for bladder cancer in 30 years."
"Durable responses are not something you currently see in bladder cancer with chemotherapy," said Thomas Buechele, Roche's head of global medical affairs in hematology and oncology, in an interview.

UK launch for Perjeta in early Breast Cancer

Around 2,000 women in the UK with an aggressive form of breast cancer could now benefit from Roche’s Perjeta earlier in the treatment pathway after regulators expanded the drug’s license.

Perjeta is a first-in-class HER2 dimerisation inhibitor that works synergistically with Herceptin (trastuzumab) to block cancer cell survival and growth signals.The drug was initially licensed for previously-untreated advanced HER2-positive breast cancer, but can now also be used pre-surgery for locally advanced, inflammatory or early-stage disease at high risk of recurrence. “There is a need to bring effective medicines to patients with cancer earlier. Perjeta has already shown the longest survival benefit in patients with previously untreated advanced HER2-positive breast cancer, so it is very encouraging to see its authorisation in an earlier setting in order to further improve the long-term outcomes for patients with this aggressive disease,” noted Andrew Wardley, consultant in Medical Oncology at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust who was also involved in trials of the drug.

Daily Aspirin may fight Colon Cancer

A new study suggests the same inexpensive pill might extend survival for patients battling cancers of the gastrointestinal tract, including tumors of the colon and esophagus. "Given that aspirin is a cheap, off-patent drug with relatively few side effects, this will have a great impact on health care systems as well as patients," study lead author Dr. Martine Frouws, of Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands.
One U.S. expert said the findings aren't surprising.
"For many years, gastroenterologists and oncologists have known that aspirin can improve survival in certain types of hereditary colon cancer," said Dr. Arun Swaminath, director of the inflammatory bowel disease program at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
He also noted that earlier this year, the influential U.S. Preventive Services Task Force "suggested that certain populations at average risk of colon cancer may benefit from taking low-dose aspirin."
People who took daily low-dose aspirin after their diagnosis were twice as likely to survive as those who did not. This benefit of taking aspirin was seen after the researchers adjusted for other factors such as sex, age, cancer state, type of treatment, and other health conditions.
"It's not clear in this study if using aspirin prevents these cancers, only that those taking aspirin is tied to better survival."

Two drugs more effective than standard Kidney Cancer Treatment

A new drug has been found superior to current treatments in slowing the growth of advanced kidney cancer in patients who became resistant to the first-line therapies that had kept it in check, according to results from a clinical trial led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Such patients are currently treated with Everolimus (Affinitor), a second-line therapy, which can halt the cancer's growth for a time. But the new drug, Cabozantinib, largely outperformed everolimus in the trial, according to a report published online in the New England Journal of Medicine and showed signs that it may prolong survival as well. Cabozantinib controlled the cancer in the drug-resistant patients more effectively than everolimus. Moreover, the early results show a "strong trend indicating that survival may be improved in patients receiving cabozantinib compared to standard therapy," said Toni K. Choueiri, MD, clinical director of the Genitourinary Cancer Treatment Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the first author of the report. He said the drug has received breakthrough therapy designation by the Food and Drug Administration, and may become available soon for patients if it is approved.

Cancer Treatment should not be delayed during Pregnancy

Should a pregnant woman who has received a cancer diagnosis begin treatment before her child is born? Some hesitant doctors counsel women to deliver preterm or even terminate the pregnancy first.

But a new study of more than 100 children who were exposed to cancer treatment during the last two trimesters of their mother’s pregnancy showed they had normal cognitive and cardiac function, researchers reported on Monday.

“The main message of this study is that termination of pregnancy is not necessarily warranted, and that early preterm delivery to be able to do cancer treatment isn’t warranted, either,” said Dr. Elyce H. Cardonick, a maternal-fetal specialist at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University in Camden, N.J., who was not involved in the new research.

The study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, was to be presented Monday at the European Cancer Congress in Vienna.

“We didn’t find any difference in cardiac functioning or cognitive function between children exposed to cancer treatment in utero and the control group,” said Dr. Frédéric Amant, the lead author of the study and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium.

“To some extent, it’s surprising because cancer treatment is quite toxic,” he said, “and we know most chemotherapy drugs cross the placenta.”

None of the women underwent chemotherapy in the first trimester, because the risk of causing serious birth defects is greatest during that period.

Enzyme found to be key role in Breast Cancer

Led by scientists from the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London, the team has discovered that an enzyme called APOBEC3B (A3B) plays a key role in enabling the most common form of breast cancer to grow.
The research, funded by Cancer Research UK and Breast Cancer Now, is published today in Cell Reports.
Although it will be some years before a treatment based on the new findings could be ready, it could provide an alternative therapy for patients who have developed resistance to existing breast cancer drugs.Lead author Professor Simak Ali, from Imperial’s Department of Surgery and Cancer said: “Current treatments for ER+ breast cancer, which affects over 70 percent of patients, are very effective. But a considerable proportion of patients will develop resistance and each time that happens, their remission period is shorter. A treatment based on A3B would provide another route for patients resistant to either ER or aromatase inhibitors.”

COPD heightens deadly Lung Cancer risk in smokers

Smokers who have chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) may face nearly twice the risk of getting small cell lung cancer (SCLC),the deadliest form of lung cancer,than smokers who don't have COPD, according to a large worldwide study led by researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. "This work suggests that we need to tease out the mechanisms by which COPD may increase lung cancer risk in smokers, and to conduct clinical trials to determine whether treating COPD in former and current smokers lessens that risk," said David Christiani, Elkan Blout Professor of Environmental Genetics at Harvard Chan School and senior author of the study.
SCLC accounts for 15-18% of lung cancers worldwide. Although patients often respond well to initial treatment, they often relapse within a year. Those with limited SCLC live, on average, 14-20 months after diagnosis; those with extensive disease live only 9-11 months after being diagnosed.

New drug targets the source of Cancer renewal

A new class of drug that reduces cancer recurrence and spread may soon be available, with South Australian biopharmaceutical company Bionomics having passed review by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with their product BNC101.
The drug targets hard-to-treat colorectal and pancreatic cancers, but may also prove suitable to treat breast, lung and other tumors.
Bionomics CEO Dr Deborah Rathjen said the drug has the potential to be a breakthrough therapy because of the way it stops cancers growing.
"BNC101 targets a molecule called LGR5 on cancer stem cells, and prevents cell proliferation," said Dr Rathjen.
"No other drugs currently in the market or in development work through this mechanism."
Cancer stem cells are the primary source of the many cell types that constitute each type of cancer. They are also the cells responsible for cancers spreading via metastasis.
"Cancer stem cells are very difficult to kill – they don't respond to chemotherapy to the same degree as other cancer cells, and they're resistant to radiation treatment as well," explained Dr Rathjen.
"Our studies show that treatment with BNC101 depletes stem cells from cancer cell populations, and can prevent tumors from re-establishing."

Exercise changes the body's response to Cancer

Those people diagnosed with cancer, the risk of cancer death falls as physical activity rises, according to a new analysis of more than 70 existing studies. Researchers found the same holds true for everyone, supporting the current World Health Organization recommendation of moderate physical activity to combat the risk of chronic disease, they write in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
The WHO recommends two and a half hours of moderate exercise per week for some health benefit and five hours of moderate exercise per week for additional benefit. Half as much time per week of vigorous physical activity, like running, may confer the same benefits.
There are no specific recommendations for physical activity levels to combat cancer risk, although more activity has been tied to lower risk of death from breast, colorectal and prostate cancers.
They also looked at data in terms of MET-hours, a measure of the relative amounts of energy expended in given activities and time spent doing them. Resting represents 1 MET, while a 4-MET activity like brisk walking uses four times as much energy, according to the U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Doing a 4-MET activity for 30 minutes equals 2 MET-hours.
Cancer survivors who completed at least 15 MET hours per week of physical activity were 27 percent less likely to die from cancer.

Cheaper anti-cancer drugs for humans might ultimately stem from a new study by University of Guelph scientists into a kind of microbial "bandage" that protects yew trees from disease-causing fungi.

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-09-fungi-cheaper-cancer-treatment.html#jCp

Prescription medicine reaching Highest rate in 13 Years

In 2015, government actuaries project drug spending will reach $305 billion, and it will likely get even worse because of trends in the industry. Pharmaceutical companies recently have invested more in specialty medicines called biologics, which are complex, injected drugs rather than conventional medicines like pills. Though these specialty drugs offer promise of treatment for serious chronic diseases, some even offering cures, the list price can be difficult to afford.
PhRMA says the list prices take into account research costs for all drugs. The drug industry group points out that more than 800 medicines and vaccines are currently in development to treat cancer. In addition, specialty drugs for the treatment of high cholesterol, Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis are in development. Few, however, will be approved for release, which is one of the factors that the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries say influences prices: They represent not only the cost of the drug that has been manufactured, but those that will be, and the cost to cover promising research that ultimately could end in failed attempts.
But even the costs of generic medications are rising. From July 2013 to July 2014, the prices of more than 1,200 generic drugs increased by an average 448 %, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

New Cancer genes identified

In a discovery that could lead to more targeted and effective treatments for certain lung and prostate cancers, researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have identified two new cancer-causing gene mutations, mutations that may be particularly susceptible to cancer-fighting drugs already approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration. One of the gene mutations also may play a key role in early menopause.The discovery suggests that cancers with the newly discovered mutations in the MCM8 and MCM9 genes likely will respond extremely favorably to the same chemotherapy drugs that have already proven effective against breast cancers with the well-known BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutations.
Dutta's new research shows that the MCM8 and MCM9 genes produce proteins that play a critical role in homologous recombination, a method cells use to repair double-strand breaks in our DNA. Such breaks are thought to occur commonly, perhaps thousands of times in each cell's life -- but the vital repair proteins appear to be missing in cancers with MCM8 and MCM9 mutations. That defect could be the cancer cells' downfall, theoretically making them "superbly sensitive" to Cisplatin and other drugs already developed to battle BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, said Dutta, chairman of UVA's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics.

ADT Prostate therapy has increased risk for fatal heart attack

Long term follow up indicates that men with comorbidity, predominately a prior heart attack, who received androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) died earlier, due to a fatal heart attack. Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT) and radiation therapy (RT) is known to prolong survival in men with unfavorable-risk prostate cancer and is considered a standard of care. However, in 2008, the FDA implemented a black box warning about ADT use for prostate cancer due to evidence that suggested an increased risk in non-fatal cardiovascular events. The association of ADT use and fatal heart attacks has remained uncertain until now. Specifically, long term follow up of a randomized clinical trial that compared ADT and radiation therapy (RT) to RT alone finds that men with significant comorbidity; most commonly prior heart attack, who received ADT died earlier, due to a fatal heart attack, compared to men who did not receive ADT.
"These findings give us reason to rethink how we manage prostate cancer in men with known heart disease," said Anthony D'Amico, MD, lead author of the research paper and chief of genitourinary radiation oncology at Brigham and Women's Hospital.. "Specifically, we should be cautious in prescribing ADT in all men who have had a prior heart attack. Men with significant heart disease that is not amenable to medical or surgical correction may be best served with RT alone."
Researchers compared overall survival and death due to prostate cancer, fatal heart attack and all other causes in a group of 206 men with unfavorable risk prostate cancer who were randomized to receive RT alone or RT and six months of ADT. They also categorized the men into subgroups based on extent of prior comorbidity, including prior heart attack. After a median follow up exceeding 16 years, researchers found that overall, survival did not differ between the two groups of men. When analyzing the subgroups of men by differing extent of comorbidity, researchers found that among men whose comorbidity included prior heart attack, treatment with RT and ADT shortened survival due to higher rates of fatal heart attacks, while prolonging survival in men with no or minimal comorbidity.

Aspirin to treat Breast Cancer Trial

Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) have received a $10 million Breakthrough Award from the Department of Defense's Office of the Congressional Directed Medical Research Program to test whether aspirin helps women with breast cancer avoid recurrence and live longer. This is the first ever randomized trial in the United States testing aspirin in the disease, which impacts more than 3 million American women who are living with a breast cancer diagnosis.
The Aspirin for Breast Cancer (ABC) Trial will recruit 3,000 women with Stages II and III breast cancer through The Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology (Alliance) which is a national clinical trials network sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) headquartered at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Half of the women participating in the trial will be randomly assigned to receive aspirin and half to receive a placebo pill.
Previous observational research, where scientists observe peoples' behavior, and correlate that behavior with their health, has found that breast cancer survivors who were regular aspirin users had a 50 percent lower risk of breast cancer recurrence and death compared to those who did not use aspirin.

Mediterranean diet reduces Breast Cancer Risk

“Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT)” or hormone corrective therapy, is often prescribed with the best of intentions. Whether a woman is reportedly suffering with hot flashes, weight gain, low libido, or sleep disturbances, hormone therapy can vastly improve a woman’s quality of life. But these same therapies also increase the risk of developing breast tumors in postmenopausal women. Very recent research shows that women can actually reduce the odds of developing breast cancer by consuming a Mediterranean-style diet as well as a diet high in luteolin, which is a natural plant-based flavone found in broccoli, celery, thyme, parsley, green pepper, chamomile tea, and olive oil.
In a recent study coming out of Spain, researchers assigned study participants to either one of three groups to test out the effects of the Mediterranean diet on prevention of heart disease. Over 4000 women participated and were randomly assigned to either the group advised to consume a Mediterranean diet supplemented with extra virgin olive oil (1 liter per week), a group advised to consume Mediterranean diet plus mixed nuts (30 grams per day) or a control group with no specific dietary recommendations. In addition to lowering the risk for cardiovascular disease with both dietary strategies, the group assigned to Mediterranean diet plus olive oil had a 68 percent lower risk of malignant breast cancer compared to those in the control group and those in the Mediterranean Diet plus nuts group experienced a non-significant decrease in breast cancer risk.

New smart robot accelerates Cancer treatment research

A new smart research robot accelerates research on cancer treatments. The new robot system finds optimal treatment combinations.
'We have built a robot system that plans and conducts experiments with many substances, and draws its own conclusions from the results. The idea is to gradually refine combinations of substances so that they kill cancer cells without harming healthy cells', says Dr Claes Andersson, also a leading scientist in the project.
Instead of just combining a couple of substances at a time, the new lab robot has the ability to handle on the order of a dozen drugs simultaneously. The aim for the future is to be able to handle many more, preferably hundreds.
'We are now one among the few laboratories in the world with this type of lab robot. However, so far researchers have only used the systems to look for combinations that kills the cancer cells, not taking the side effects into account', says Mats Gustafsson.
The next step in the development is to make the robot system more automated and smarter. The current version still involves a few manual steps that could be automated. The scientists also want to build more prior knowledge into the guiding algorithm of the robot, for example, prior knowledge about drug targets and disease pathways.

Norway launches regional Cancer Care

The South-Eastern Norway Regional Health Authority, Helse Sør-Øst RHF, have signed a deal to roll out JAC's Chemotherapy Management System (CMS) across its 17 health Trusts, satellite clinics and seven chemotherapy production pharmacies in order to help improve the quality of cancer care and patient safety across the whole region. 

The contract award directly to JAC underpins Helse Sør-Øst RHF's 'Digital Modernisation Initiative - for Improved Patient Safety and Quality of Care'. It also spearheads a new regional shared-services programme for the standardisation and consolidation of technologies with the aim of improving accessibility to healthcare for the 2.8 million population living in the region.

Norway's mountainous landscape and snowy winters make travelling and accessing health services difficult all year round. After world-wide research, JAC's CMS solution was identified by Helse Sør-Øst RHF as offering a unique set of capabilities, including meeting their key requirement of a truly regional solution capable of supporting the delivery of cancer care to patients irrespective of where they reside.

By taking a regional approach, Helse Sør-Øst RHF aims to improve the cancer patients' experience by eliminating the need to travel regularly to a main treatment facility for their weekly chemotherapy treatments and for follow up assessments. Their medication can be prepared in any of one of the region's seven pharmacy production units for local delivery. In addition, the regional solution enables multi-disciplinary teams of professionals to remotely monitor the progress of patients' treatment and make adjustments to their medication.

UK's NHS failed to collect data on cancer treatment outcome

The NHS has spent almost £1bn giving 74,000 cancer patients drugs rejected by the medicines regulator but does not know if they have extended their lives, the National Audit Office has said.
In a new report released, the NAO castigated the NHS and Department of Health’s failure to collect data on the outcomes experienced by patients helped by the Cancer Drugs Fund as a major weakness.
Meg Hillier, the Labour MP who chairs the public accounts committee, said the NHS and the Department of Health’s failure to ensure data collation “makes no sense” and made it impossible to judge if the scheme had succeeded in extending patients’ survival.
The budgets of other NHS services have also suffered as a result of spending sums as large as £416m a year on the fund, the public spending watchdog found.While some patients have received drugs costing less than £10,000, others got medication costing more than £100,000. Initially the fund underspent its budget by 28%. But recently it has overshot it and is likely to spend £70m more than planned in 2015-16, the NAO said.Heidi Alexander, the shadow health secretary, said the scaling back of the fund represented a broken promise by the Conservatives, who had pledged to continue investing if re-elected in May.
She said: “The Tories promised to fix the broken system for funding cancer medicines in the last parliament, but failed to do so. Now they are having to remove drugs from the Cancer Drugs Fund, breaking one of David Cameron’s key election pledges to cancer patients.”
The Department of Health said it remained committed to the fund.

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62-year-old drug just got 5,000% more expensive

Daraprim, a treatment for malaria and toxoplasmosis, is now 5,455% more expensive than it was only two months ago. The drug’s price jumped from $13.50 to $750 a pill, bringing the annual cost of treatment into the hundreds of thousands for some patients, and possibly out of reach for many.
The price bump was put in place by Turing Pharmaceuticals, a privately held biotech company, shortly after it acquired the drug from Impax Laboratories in August for $55 million. The hike has since faced intense pushback from medical professionals, politicians, and patient-protection groups.
Overall, brand-name drug prices have been on the rise, increasing by 14.8% in 2014, according to research firm Truveris. While price gains can be partially attributed to more effective new treatments as well as shortages for certain drugs, a portion of the increases are a credit to business strategies like Turing’s, which aim to buy low-profile, neglected drugs and re-market them as higher-value specialty medicines.
Daraprim is not the only fairly old drug that’s seen astronomical price increases recently. The price for Cycloserine, a medicine used to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis, increased to $10,800 for 30 pills from $500 in August. Two heart drugs owned by Valeant Pharmaceuticals, Isuprel and Nitropress, saw their prices increase by 525% and 212% respectively this year. Even everyday drugs like antibiotic doxycycline have been affected, with its price rising to $1,849 a bottle in April 2014 from $20 a bottle in October 2013.

UK Cancer patients to get faster diagnosis

NHS patients with suspected cancer will be diagnosed faster under new measures for treating the disease, Jeremy Hunt has announced.
The “more patient-centered” plans will mean that from 2020 patients will be given a definitive cancer diagnosis leading to treatment, within 28 days of being referred by a GP.
The measure amends the previous target, which meant that patients with suspected cancer must see a specialist within 14 days of being referred by their GP. The investigation period that followed had no limit. Health experts believe the changes could save up to 11,000 lives a year. Officials said the new standard will make sure that cancer services are delivered more effectively around the needs of patients and their families, by limiting the period of uncertainty and fear that arises when people think they may have cancer. They said the target will be underpinned by an expected £300m more to be spent on diagnostics a year by 2020. Hunt, the health secretary, said: “For people who are worried they may have cancer, waiting for that all-important test result is a nerve-wracking time. We have a duty to make sure this period of uncertainty is as short as possible. For those who get the all-clear, they will have peace of mind sooner.“Those who sadly have cancer will get treatment much quicker and we will save thousands of lives as a result.”
The action follows a recommendation from the independent cancer taskforce report, set up as part of the NHS’s five year forward view, to examine how to improve cancer care and survival rates.

Cancer treatment outcomes are influenced by genetics and race

Researchers used lymphoblastoid cell lines from 589 patients to identify associations between genetic variants and differential drug response, as well as the role of ethnicity in drug potency and efficacy for 28 chemotherapeutic compounds. Patients self-reported their ethnicity as Hispanic or non-Hispanic/Caucasian.
For many drugs, the variability in drug response appears to correlate with genetic ancestry and self-reported race. Hispanic and Caucasian samples exhibited unique results, indicating a complex relationship between genome and drug response and treatment outcomes. Notable associations were found for the drug temozolomide, which is used to treat brain tumors. Other drugs with results that suggest an association include etoposide and mitomycin, but the authors note that these results should be viewed as hypothesis generation.
"Based on the cell lines of hundreds of individuals, our research suggests that the genetic ancestry of a person is strongly related to a person's response to anticancer drug treatment," said John Jack, PhD, lead author and research scientist at North Carolina State University. "The developing field of "Personalized" or "precision medicine" will leverage these types of data to help inform a doctor's decision on selecting the optimal drug and dose for each patient."
"This elegant study addresses questions on the role of ethnicity in drug response and the part played by individual genes in drug response."

New Cancer center is one-stop shop for treatment

Kevin Bradford, the CEO of the new Fox Valley Hematology and Oncology Wellness Center, says, “Patients sometimes would have four of five visits at different clinics in the same day.”
The new, independent wellness center in Appleton is the first of its kind in Wisconsin. It’s a sort-of one-stop shop for cancer and blood disorder patients. It includes everything from chemotherapy, strength training, counseling, even holistic care, like acupuncture.
“This way we can really collaborate so the patient has an entire team of providers looking out for their care,” says Bradford.
There’s a reason the center is opening up now. Healthcare professionals say they’re seeing a shift toward more independent care over the last year in Wisconsin.
Physicians at an urgent care facility in Appleton say people appreciate the immediacy.
Bobby Yun, Urgent Care Physicians President, says, “Now the patients are looking more for: okay where can I go to see somebody qualified and take care of my problems for the day, or find an answer for me, instead of shipping me to some other specialist?”
Yun says the quality of care is the same.
The wellness center opens September 21, but its specialists have been practicing in the community for 20-plus years. Now, just in a new home-like environment and seven days a week.
“Where they can come into a living-room type setting and actually have a home base,” says Bradford.

Lung Cancer rates rising in Nonsmokers

Nonsmokers account for a growing percentage of aggressive lung cancer cases in the United States and the United Kingdom, new research finds.

In one study, British researchers found that over seven years the proportion of U.K. never-smokers with non-small cell lung cancer jumped from 13 percent to 28 percent. A study of lung cancer patients at three U.S. hospitals reported that never-smokers accounted for a growing percentage of non-small cell lung cancer patients between 1990 and 2013. These nonsmokers with lung cancer were more likely to be women, the researchers said.

The increased proportion of nonsmokers with lung cancer doesn't seem to be due to better diagnostic methods, she said. However, Pelosof acknowledged her team's findings need to be confirmed in other studies, noting that one limitation of her research is that participants' smoking status was self-reported. Reckamp said other studies are looking at genetic risk and family history to zero in on who might be at risk for these cancers, despite no tobacco exposure.

Most lung cancers don't cause noticeable symptoms until the disease is advanced, says the American Cancer Society. However, if you have a persistent cough or bronchitis or hoarseness, the society recommends seeing your doctor for a checkup.

Experts said they can't explain why nonsmokers are a growing proportion of lung cancer diagnoses, or why women seem especially vulnerable.

Cancer Treatment Centers of America aims to reclassify

Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) at Southeastern Regional Medical Center wants to reclassify itself as a general acute care hospital. This move follows CTCA’s efforts to amend DCH’s Certificate of Need (CON) process during the last legislative session so it could adjust its payer mix to accept more patients from Georgia. Under current CON ruling, CTCA is not allowed to accept more than 35 percent of its patients from in-state."These proposed rule changes are clearly outside current law as, once again, CTCA seeks special treatment for themselves. While we will continue to gather input from the entire Georgia hospital community, expect GHA to vigorously oppose this proposal at each step," said Georgia Hospital Association President and CEO Earl Rogers.

The DCH rejected CTCA’s application amid concerns the facility would siphon paying patients from Emory University, Piedmont Hospital and WellStar Kennestone Hospital, which all have large cancer programs. CTCA’s CON application was later approved with the condition that 65 percent of its patients come from out-of-state to address other hospitals’ concerns about competition. But now the center seeks to do away with that stipulation.

A public hearing will be held concerning CTCA’s attempt to reclassify itself as a general acute care hospital in October, and a final board vote will be held in November, said Community Health Commissioner Clyde Reese.

Genetic engineering turns a plant into a Cancer Drug

Researchers report today that they’ve engineered a common laboratory plant to produce the starting material for a potent chemotherapy drug originally harvested from an endangered Himalayan plant. The new work could ensure an abundant supply of the anticancer drug and make it easier for chemists to tweak the compound to come up with safer and more effective versions. The Himalayan Mayapple (Podophyllum hexandrum). The short, leafy plant was the original source of podophyllotoxin, a cytotoxic compound that’s the starting point for an anticancer drug called Etoposide. The drug has been on the U.S. market since 1983 and is used to treat dozens of different cancers, from lymphoma to lung cancer. Today, podophyllotoxin is mainly harvested from the more common American Mayapple. Researchers did know was that podophyllotoxin isn’t always present in the plant. “It’s only when the leaf is wounded that the molecule is made,” says Elizabeth Sattely, a chemical engineer at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who led the current research effort.
The researchers then narrowed the likely candidates for enzymes in podophyllotoxin production by focusing on members of four classes known to carry out the right types of chemical reactions. They then spliced genes for each of these enzymes into bacteria known to infect Nicotiana benthamiana, a fast-growing relative of tobacco. Tthey eventually hit on a group of 10 enzymes that allowed the plant to make a molecule called desmethyl-epipodophyllotoxin, a direct precursor to Etoposide and a potent cancer drug.  Eventually, the new work will give drug companies a stable, abundant supply of their cancer-fighting drug, and it may give rise to similar compounds that could work even better. 

Cell-surface discovery could alter Cancer Treatment

University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have discovered a new strategy for attacking cancer cells that could fundamentally alter the way doctors treat and prevent the deadly disease. By more selectively targeting cancer cells, this method offers a strategy to reduce the length of and physical toll associated with current treatments.
"We think we have a way not only to more specifically target cancer cells, but a way that could become a frontline treatment for women who have cancers of many types and want to preserve fertility," said reproduction researcher John Herr, PhD, of UVA's Department of Cell Biology.
"The research opens a new field of enquiry, termed cancer-oocyte neoantigens, and reveals a previously little know fundamental aspect of cancer - that many types of cancer, when they dysregulate or go awry, revert back and take on features of the egg, the original cell from which all the tissues in the body derive," Herr said.
He and Pires have found a way to exploit this fundamental insight by developing a method for delivering medication using the SAS1B protein as a target.
"You add a SAS1B-targeted antibody with a drug on it, and within 15 minutes of contacting the cancer cells, the antibody binds at the cell surface and the antibody-SAS1B complexes begin the internalization process," Herr said.
After about an hour, the antibody-SAS1B complexes reach compartments inside the cell and release their toxic drug payload, triggering changes leading to cell death within a few days.

Summit Urology offers advances in treating Prostate Cancer

September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month and Ashish Behari, M.D. of Summit Urology Group discussed who is at the most risk for developing prostate cancer and options for those who are diagnosed with prostate cancer, including robotic surgery available at Chambersburg Hospital.
According to Behari, the American Cancer Society estimates that in the United States for 2015 there will be about 220,800 new cases of prostate cancer and about 27,540 deaths from prostate cancer. Approximately one man in seven will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime.
Prostate cancer occurs mainly in older men with about six cases in ten diagnosed in men aged 65 or older. Bahari explained that it is the second leading cause of cancer death in American men, behind only Lung Cancer.
Dr. Behari is an expert at robotic surgery and explained how at Chambersburg Hospital, he can remove the prostate using robotic surgery, through use of the DaVinci robot. He has performed more than 500 of these types of procedures in his career.
For more information, please contact the Summit Urology Group at (717) 217-6803 or visit SummitHealth.org/Urology.

FDA approves drug for nausea and vomiting from Chemo

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Varubi (rolapitant) to prevent delayed phase chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (emesis). Varubi is approved in adults in combination with other drugs (antiemetic agents) that prevent nausea and vomiting associated with initial and repeat courses of vomit-inducing (emetogenic and highly emetogenic) cancer chemotherapy.
Nausea and vomiting are common side effects experienced by cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Symptoms can persist for days after the chemotherapy drugs are administered. Nausea and vomiting that occurs from 24 hours to up to 120 hours after the start of chemotherapy is referred to as delayed phase nausea and vomiting, and it can result in serious health complications. Prolonged nausea and vomiting can lead to weight loss, dehydration and malnutrition in cancer patients leading to hospitalization.
“Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting remains a major issue that can disrupt patients' lives and sometimes their therapy,” said Amy Egan, M.D., M.P.H., deputy director of the Office of Drug Evaluation III in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

The FDA approved rolapitant (Varubi, Tesaro) to prevent delayed chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in adults. The new medication can be provided to patients in tablet form along with other drugs that prevent nausea and vomiting associated with initial and repeat courses of vomit-inducing cancer chemotherapy. - See more at: http://www.pharmacypracticenews.com/ViewArticle.aspx?d=Web%2BExclusives&d_id=239&i=September+2015&i_id=1221&a_id=33592#sthash.X5OBcvze.dpuf

Radiotherapy may do more harm than good

A team of U.S. researchers has found that in some instances, using radiotherapy to treat skin cancers may be causing more harm than good.As the researchers note, radiotherapy (ionizing radiation) is generally used in half of all skin cancer treatments, despite the fact that it very often does not work out as planned, quite often tumors shrink initially, but then come back even stronger. They suggest their new research offers an explanation of why that is, one aspect of radiotherapy may actually be making it easier for some skin cancer tumors to return and prosper.
The applied radiation causes a suppression of the immune system in the area being targeted. Then, a certain kind of immune cells that are located in the skin, known as Langerhans cells, along with some of the debris brought on by the treatment, migrate to draining lymph nodes, where they cause certain types of T cells to activate. Those T cells, unfortunately, are the kind that tell the immune system to stop attacking, which allows the tumor to grow without having to deal with an immune response.

Roche CEO lashes out at U.K.'s 'stupid' move on Cancer drugs

The U.K.'s special cancer drugs fund gave the heave-ho to a slate of treatments, including Roche's  cutting-edge breast cancer treatment Kadcyla and Celgene's Abraxane for pancreatic cancer. Drugmakers are hopping mad, cancer treatment charities are despairing, and the fund and some public officials are on the defensive.
Roche CEO Severin Schwan called the decision "stupid" and "completely arbitrary." The decision to stop funding the products shows a short-sighted focus on the drugs' prices, rather than on their overall value to the health system, he said during a Tuesday briefing with reporters. Effective drugs can save the healthcare system money, and they can also get patients back to work faster, which helps the economy, he said.
"It's stupid from a cost point of view," Schwan said. "How the hell can you ignore all these benefits?"

‘American Nobels’ awarded for Cancer therapy

James Allison, an immunologist at the University of Texas, took the Clinical Medical Research Award this year for discovering a new way to restore the body's natural capacity to attack tumor cells. His work led to the development of Bristol Myers-Squibb’s Yervoy, which treats the skin cancer melanoma by blocking a protein that normally limits people's ability to fight cancer cells. About 20 percent of the 5,000 people who’d been treated with the antibody were still alive a decade after treatment, impressive, given that the illness typically kills 50 percent of patients within a year.
Allison told reporters today about a meeting he had with one of the patients who received the treatment. "Everybody started crying, I started crying; it was very humbling to see," he said. "Up until that point it was just numbers, you know, mice. I'm not a physician, I very rarely see the patients, and it really moved me. That's why we all should do this."

Rare Melanoma carries unprecedented burden of mutations

A rare, deadly form of skin cancer known as desmoplasmic melanoma (DM) may possess the highest burden of gene mutations of any cancer, suggesting that immunotherapy may be a promising approach for treatment, according to an international team led by UC San Francisco scientists. One of these mutations, never before observed in any cancer, may shield nascent DM tumors from destruction by the immune system and allow further mutations to develop. "The focus of our lab has been to show that there's not just one 'melanoma' but many different types," said senior author Boris Bastian, MD, PhD, the Gerson and Barbara Bass Bakar Distinguished Professor in Cancer Research at UCSF. "We've already discovered genetic profiles that let us begin to separate them into groups and study them individually. But this is one type that has so far been left behind."Two findings suggested an intriguing portrait of how DM develops, and how it might be treated.
First was the discovery that DM tumors carry a surprisingly high number of mutations. Most solid tumors carry about two mutations per million base pairs, the genetic "letters" that make up genomes. More common melanomas, which often are caused by exposure to the ultraviolet component of sunlight, have more mutations: about 15 per million base pairs. In the current study, however, DM tumors carried about 62 mutations per million base pairs."This is the highest number of mutations we've ever seen in an untreated tumor without any apparent defect in DNA repair," Bastian said.
A second key finding was that one of the most common DM mutations, never before seen in cancer cells, occurred in a promoter region that regulates expression of the NFKBIE gene, which plays an important role in turning down immune responses."This is the first time this gene has popped up in any cancer," Bastian said. "What's more, it's rare among known cancer mutations in that it resides in the regulatory 'dark matter' of the genome, and not within the part of a gene that codes for a protein."

New Cancer Treatment proven to turn Cancer cells healthy

US researchers have made an incredible discovery about the process of cell division that has moved medicine closer to finding a cure for cancer.
In a paper published by Nature Cell Biology, the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota said the key to switching off cancerous cells lies with a small molecule known as miRNA, which effectively works like a red traffic light. Its main function is to enable cells form a type of protein, PLEKHA7, that sends a message to stop cell division, a perfectly normal process that becomes dangerous and forms tumors in the absence of a miRNA stop sign. While the breakthrough provides a useful window into how tumors form, scientists warn that it could be a long time before we see the research translate into clinical treatment.
"But it's a significant step forward in understanding how certain cells in our body know when to grow, and when to stop.
"Understanding these key concepts is crucial to help continue the encouraging progress against cancer we've seen in recent years."

Electrical treatment doubles Pancreatic Cancer survival

Using tiny but powerful bursts of electricity to make holes in pancreatic cancer cells may improve survival rates for some patients, new research suggests.

Using zaps of electricity in certain patients can "nearly double the survival rate with the best new chemotherapy and chemo-radiotherapy," said study author Dr. Robert Martin II, director of surgical oncology at the University of Louisville.

Surgeons can use the short electrical bursts to kill cancerous cells in delicate areas without destroying noncancerous tissue nearby, such as nerves. The electrical bursts make permanent holes, or pores, in the cells, eventually killing them, the researchers said.

The procedure is called irreversible electroporation, or IRE.

However, Martin said the next step for his team is to test the treatment in a clinical trial with a larger group of patients.

The people in the current study all had a pancreatic tumor that had extended into nearby organs, making complete surgical removal impossible. The zapping technique is intended to corral the cancer cells and extend the patient's survival.

Breast Cancer relapse could be predicted with new blood test

A simple blood test may in future provide breast cancer patients with an early warning of the disease returning after chemotherapy and surgery.
The test uncovers small numbers of residual tumour cells that have evaded treatment by detecting cancer DNA in the blood stream.
It is so sensitive that relapses can be predicted several months before new tumours show up on hospital scans. Scientists hope the test will also make it possible to identify genetic mutations likely to prove lethal to some patients, so therapy can be tailored accordingly.
Dr Nicholas Turner, from the Institute of Cancer Research in London, said: “We have shown how a simple blood test has the potential to accurately predict which patients will relapse from breast cancer, much earlier than we can currently.
“We also used blood tests to build a picture of how the cancer was evolving over time, and this information could be invaluable to help doctors select the correct drugs to treat the cancer.
“Ours is the first study to show that these blood tests could be used to predict relapse.
Blood tests carried out at six monthly intervals showed very accurately which patients were likely to suffer a relapse. Women who tested positive for circulating tumor DNA were 12 times more at risk of cancer recurrence than those who tested negative. The return of their disease could be predicted an average of 7.9 months before any visible signs emerged.

England's Cancer drug fund cuts treatments

The Cancer Drugs Fund in England will no longer pay for 16 medicines, used in 23 separate cancer treatments.

It has now more than halved the number of treatments it covers since the beginning of the year after being repeatedly overspent.
The latest drugs being axed include those for breast, pancreatic and blood cancers.
The Rarer Cancers Foundation said the news was a "hammer blow" and estimated that 5,500 patients would miss out.
All the drugs on the Cancer Drugs Fund list have been rejected by the NHS as a whole because they do not provide enough benefit for the amount they cost.
The fund was set up by Prime Minister David Cameron to provide access to such medication.
However, NHS England announced that the fund was due to go £100m over budget in 2014-15.
At the beginning of 2015, there were 84 funded therapies, but after a series of culls there are now just 41.
In the latest reduction, 23 course of treatment have been removed.

Blood cells modified in the lab to kill Cancer

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia is a type of cancer of the blood and bone marrow that's "essentially incurable today," says Michel Sadelain, an immunologist at Memorial Sloan-Kettering who didn't work on the study. This year, an estimated 14,620 people will be diagnosed with CLL, and 4,650 people will die of the disease. Some patients can become disease-free thanks to stem cell transplant treatments, but these treatments are complicated and often don’t work, Sadelain says. So for the most part, common treatments like chemotherapy only serve to prolong a patient's life. That's why something like this blood cell-based treatment is such a big deal. The overall response rate in the study was 57 percent, a huge achievement for a form of cancer that used to kill most people in a median time of 8 to 12 years. The therapy works like this: first, doctors take a patient’s blood and spin out the T cells, white blood cells that hunt down invaders as part of the immune system. Then, in the lab, the T cells undergo gene therapy that trains them to hunt a protein expressed only on the surface of B cells, the type of blood cell that’s affected in leukemia. Then, the retrained cells are infused back into the patient’s bloodstream, where they hunt all B cells, even if they aren’t cancerous. People who respond to therapy have to live without a part of their immune systems; not ideal, but better than death.
"This is a whole new approach to treating cancer," says David Porter, a leukemia researcher at the University of Pennsylvania and a co-author of the study. By modifying T cells, scientists have found a way to harness the human immune system so it can hunt down and kill cancerous cells.

UK researchers find Aspirin could help boost Cancer treatment

Giving cancer patients aspirin at the same time as immunotherapy could dramatically boost the effectiveness of the treatment, according to new research published in the journal Cell.
Francis Crick Institute researchers, funded by Cancer Research UK, have shown that skin, breast and bowel cancer cells often produce large amounts of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2). This molecule dampens down the immune system's normal response to attack faulty cells, which helps cancer to hide. It is a trick that allows the tumour to thrive and may explain why some immunotherapy treatments have not been as effective as hoped.
Aspirin is part of a group of molecules called COX inhibitors, which stop the production of PGE2 and help reawaken the immune system. Combining immunotherapy with aspirin or other COX inhibitors substantially slowed bowel and melanoma skin cancer growth in mice, compared to immunotherapy alone*.
Study author Professor Caetano Reis e Sousa, senior group leader at the Francis Crick Institute, said: "We've added to the growing evidence that some cancers produce PGE2 as a way of escaping the immune system. If you can take away cancer cells' ability to make PGE2 you effectively lift this protective barrier and unleash the full power of the immune system.
"Giving patients COX inhibitors like aspirin at the same time as immunotherapy could potentially make a huge difference to the benefit they get from treatment. It's still early work but this could help make cancer immunotherapy even more effective, delivering life-changing results for patients."

Brain Cancer has potential for new therapy

In the research appearing in Neuro-Oncology, Drs. Robert Prins and Linda Liau, both from the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of California-Los Angeles, decitabine and genetically modified immune cells were tested as a combination in a continuation of previous research, which focused on decitabine against glioblastoma human cell cultures.
Their new work involved extracting and growing immune cells in culture, then reprogramming them with a gene known as New York Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma, or NY-ESO-1.
The T cells were then injected back into tumor-bearing mice used as models of human brain cancer. This would produce an immune response to target the tumor.
Dr. Prins explains: "The lymphocytes will seek out and find the glioblastoma cells in the brain." The associate professor in the departments of neurosurgery and molecular and medical pharmacology adds:"While surgery to remove the main tumor mass can be done," continues Dr. Prins, "it is not possible to then locate the tumor cells that get away and this ultimately leads to a nearly universal tumor regrowth."
The new method proved about 50% effective against glioblastoma in the early-stage study. The next stage for the researchers will be to verify their findings in other brain tumor models.
If results from that were also promising, the researchers would proceed with clinical trials in people.

Bankrupted by Cancer treatment costs

Discussion of cost is one of the criteria that was authored by no fewer than 116 of the country’s leading oncologists related to cost of care that deserves some additional attention from the news media.The authors, who are from some of the most prestigious cancer centers, speak to what is all too familiar to cancer patients and their families: Cancer Treatment can Bankrupt a Family Quickly.  The cost of cancer treatment has escalated to the point that it exceeds the average American’s ability to pay, even with insurance coverage. Out-of-pocket expenses, even with good insurance, can exceed $25,000 to $30,000 annually.  The commentary is entitled, “In Support of a Patient-Driven Initiative and Petition to Lower the High Price of Cancer Drugs.”
Here are some of the rather sobering points made in the commentary:

1. Cancer will impact just about every person in the US either directly or indirectly. It is not disease mongering to point out that 1 out of every 3 will experience cancer in their lifetime
2. Insurance deductibles and co-pays are increasing with subscriber contributions to care commonly in the 20-25% range
3. All of the drugs used to treat cancer approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2014 were priced in excess of $120,000 per year of use
4. Mean family income in the US is $52,000.                                                                                     The good news is that newer drugs can prolong lifespan and improve the quality of life of cancer patients.  The bad news is that these drugs are rapidly becoming un-affordable to the average American.

Surgical risk more significant than timing for Colon Cancer patients

Researchers found in a new study that treatment of primary and secondary tumors in colon cancer patients must be highly individualized. They developed a list of assessments for doctors to consider when creating treatment plans for patients. About 20 percent of patients' cancer has spread by the time they are diagnosed, and secondary tumors are most often found in the liver. The option is whether to perform both surgeries at once, or do them one at a time. "Our primary aim was to establish the magnitude of risk that each component operation, both liver and colon, contributed to synchronous resections in order to determine which combination of colon and liver operations were most safe to be performed at the same time," Dr. David Nagorney stated.
Researchers identified 43,408 patients who underwent colorectal and liver resections for stage IV colon cancer using data from the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program.
Risk categories were assigned for each of the operations based on difficulty, seriousness and number of secondary tumors, and individual patient potentials, comparing them to 30-day post-surgical outcomes. Within these groups, the researchers also compared patients who'd had surgery in each risk category depending on whether colorectal and liver surgeries were done at the same time or sequentially.
The researchers found that, overall, syncronous surgery to remove primary colorectal tumors and secondary liver tumors is safe and effective in patients who need only minor liver resection to remove cancer. However, the potential for poor outcomes increases with the level of high-risk surgery for either primary or secondary tumors, the type of either surgery, and the number or size of secondary tumors. "Our findings also show that performing pre-operative risk assessments on patients who require both liver and colorectal resections could allow surgeons to more accurately predict patient outcomes and assist in pre-operative planning and counseling these patients," Nagorney said.

Cancer Drugs face cuts in England's NHS cost-cutting

NHS England is meeting pharmaceutical companies this week to tell them whether their medicines will remain on the Cancer Drugs Fund.

The fund currently allows patients to access 37 drugs that are not routinely available on the NHS in England. More than 20 treatments were removed or restricted in January in an attempt to rein in an overspend of almost £100m. But manufacturers will now be told whether the remaining drugs pass a new, tougher assessment of benefit, and whether they offer value for money.

Cancer charities warn further cuts will deny patients access to life-extending treatment.
A spokesperson for NHS England stated: "The Cancer Drugs Fund has a finite pot of money and the re-evaluation is part of a process to ensure the best drugs are on it."

From April next year the fund will be completely overhauled, with drugs only allowed to remain on the list if they are proven to be effective in the "real-world" of the NHS, not just clinical trials.

A public consultation on the changes is due to start in September.

But Karl Claxton, a health economist at York University, said the fund should be scrapped altogether.
His calculations show 21,000 patients a year are losing out on life-saving or life-enhancing treatments for heart, lung and gastro-intestinal diseases because NHS money is diverted into the Cancer Fund.
"The Cancer Drugs Fund has been a scandalous use of public money and an unethical use of NHS resources," he said. "It has put the interests of manufacturers ahead of patients and it is time for the political will to be found to address the underlying problem of the price being charged for drugs."

Wasp venom a weapon against Cancer

A toxin in the sting kills cancer cells without harming normal cells, lab studies suggest.
The University of Brazil team say the experimental therapy latches to tumour cells and makes them leak vital molecules. The work is at an early stage and more studies are needed to check the method will work safely in humans. Polybia paulista is an aggressive social wasp endemic in south-east Brazil. Though its sting is largely seen as unwelcome, scientists increasingly believe it could be put to good use. It contains an important toxin called MP1 which the insect uses to attack prey or defend itself. Recent studies in mice suggest it may target and destroy cancer cells.
Prof Joao Ruggiero Netto and colleagues set out to discover how, by putting it under the microscope.
They found MP1 interacts with fat molecules that are abnormally distributed on the surface of cancer cells, creating gaping holes that allow molecules crucial for cell function to leak out.
In healthy cells, the same molecules are hidden on the inside. This means healthy tissue should avoid MP1's attack, the scientists say in Biophysical Journal.
Co-researcher Dr Paul Beales, from the University of Leeds, said cancer therapies that attacked the lipid composition of the cell membrane would be an entirely new class of anti-cancer drugs.
"This could be useful in developing new combination therapies, where multiple drugs are used simultaneously to treat a cancer by attacking different parts of the cancer cells at the same time," he said. Dr Aine McCarthy, science information officer for Cancer Research UK said: "This early stage research increases our understanding of how the venom of the Brazilian wasp can kill cancer cells in the laboratory. "But while these findings are exciting, much more work is needed in the lab and in clinical trials before we will know if drugs based on this research could benefit cancer patients."

Genetics help guide kids' Cancer Treatment

Using information from a patient's entire genome helped suggest personalized treatment options for nearly half of children with cancer, and led to specific treatment changes in a quarter of these patients, according to researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center and C.S. Mott Children's Hospital.
The study is based on a program implemented at Mott in 2012 called Peds-MiOncoSeq, which includes sequencing the tumor's DNA and RNA as well as normal DNA from children and young adults with cancer that has relapsed or that is rare. Results from the first 102 patients enrolled are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"We found that for some children with rare, difficult-to-treat and aggressive cancers, this technology can dramatically change the course of their treatment," says lead author Rajen Mody, M.D., M.S., pediatric oncologist at U-M's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital.
"We have made significant strides in cancer treatment but for some kids, especially those with metastatic or relapsed disease, even the most advanced, proven therapies have not been able to improve their outcome. Our approach in precision oncology showed its greatest promise in these difficult to treat patients, 80 % of our study patients had relapsed or refractory disease, and those are the ones who benefited most from our study."