Scientists predict cell changes that affect Breast Cancer growth

Using a broad spectrum of analytical tools, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have shown how sometimes small, often practically imperceptible, structural changes in a key breast cancer receptor are directly linked to regulating molecules and can produce predictable effects in curbing or accelerating cancer growth.
This predictive statistical approach, published recently in the journal Molecular Systems Biology, moves science one step closer to the development of more effective structure-based drug design to treat the disease.
"Our long-term goal," said team leader Kendall Nettles, an associate professor at TSRI, "is to be able to predict proliferative or anti-proliferative activity of receptor molecule complexes by identifying structural changes that lead to specific outcomes. In many cases, we can identify structural features that could help guide more effective drug development."
To identify the root of estrogen receptor (ERα) cell signaling that drives breast cancer cell proliferation, Nettles and his colleagues synthesized more than 240 estrogen receptor binding molecules ("ligands") that led the cancer to proliferate, using structural analysis to determine the basis for receptor activity.
Many current drugs target signaling proteins like the estrogen receptor. For example, the drug tamoxifen (Nolvadex®, AstraZeneca) blocks the estrogen receptor's proliferative effects of naturally occurring estrogen in breast cancer cells, but can increase the risk of uterine cancer.

Drugmakers place big bets on Cancer Medicines

Drugmakers are placing multibillion-dollar bets on new medicines they expect will command premium prices and generate big sales.
France’s Sanofi SA said Thursday it made an unsolicited, $9.3 billion offer to purchase San Francisco-based Medivation Inc., which sells a prostate-cancer drug that recently drew criticism from members of Congress over its price tag. It is Sanofi’s latest effort to expand its cancer-treatment business as sales of its older drugs decline. Medivation’s board was scheduled to meet Thursday to review the offer.
 AbbVie Inc. of North Chicago, Ill., agreed to pay $5.8 billion to acquire a privately held cancer-drug developer, Stemcentrx Inc., of South San Francisco, Calif., continuing AbbVie’s aggressive push to build an oncology business. Stemcentrx’s investors include a venture-capital fund founded by Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal Holdings Inc. and an early investor in Facebook Inc. The flurry of deal activity surrounding cancer drugs comes as politicians, doctors and health-insurance companies blast the pharmaceutical industry for its pricing, particularly for new cancer treatments with monthly costs that commonly exceed $10,000 a month patient.
Medivation’s Xtandi, a prostate-cancer drug introduced in 2012 that costs about $129,000 a patient annually in the U.S. and had sales of $1.9 billion last year. In March, several members of Congress sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, saying the drug’s “unreasonably high cost” was limiting patient access.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. said Thursday that sales of its new immune-stimulating drug Opdivo jumped to $704 million for the first quarter of 2016, from $40 million a year earlier. The drug, launched in late 2014, costs per $12,500 a month patient, on average.

Scientists find new way to grow Cord Blood Stem Cells

Researchers at McMaster University's Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute (Hamilton, ON) have made significant steps forward in understanding the stem cells of the human blood system after discovering how a key protein allows for better control and regeneration of these cells.
This discovery, published today in the scientific journal Nature, illustrates how a protein called Musashi-2 regulates the function and development of important blood stem cells.
The research team specifically looked at stem cells from umbilical cord blood, a proven but under-utilized source of stem cells for the treatment of adult blood cancers. These stem cells have the potential to become an important therapeutic for the thousands of people suffering from blood cancers who are awaiting the life-saving transplants.
Cells from umbilical cord blood have unique properties that make them easier to use for transplantation, including accessibility and adaptability. As a result, they allow for safer and more effective transplants. The problem, is that there are very few stem cells available in individual cord blood samples, only about five per cent of all samples actually contain enough cells for a transplant. The team's research into the importance of Musashi-2 and its role in expanding the number of stem cells in a given cord blood sample could help ease the current stem cell shortages.
"Most stem cell studies focus on proteins that bind DNA to control gene output. The prominent role we found for Musashi-2, a protein that instead binds to RNA, also underscores an urgency to study this second layer of gene regulation in stem cells."
Hope says: "Providing enhanced numbers of stem cells for transplantation could alleviate some of the current post-transplantation complications and allow for faster recoveries, in turn reducing overall health care costs and wait times for newly diagnosed patients seeking treatment."
"By expanding the stem cells as we have done, many more donated samples could now be used for transplants."

New Hepatocellular Carcinoma prognostic model improves prediction of patient survival

The ITA.LI.CA prognostic system, a model integrating tumor staging, liver function, functional status, and alpha-fetoprotein level, builds on previous models of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) prognosis and shows superior survival prediction in Italian and Taiwanese cohorts, according to a study published this week in PLOS Medicine by Alessandro Vitale of Azienda Ospedaliera Universitaria di Padova, Italy, and colleagues. Using the ITA.LI.CA dataset, prospectively collected from 5,290 consecutive patients with HCC from 19 institutions in Italy, Vitale and colleagues created an ITA.LI.CA staging system using tumor characteristics, and then developed a parametric multivariable survival model integrating ITA.LI.CA stage. It allows a simple but accurate clinical description of each HCC patient, with the potential to be used for deciding treatment or designing clinical trials. Prospective trials beyond the two populations studied are needed to validate the generalizability of the ITA.LI.CA prognostic score.
Strong performance in two distinct cohorts suggests that Vitale and colleagues have developed a promising tool. In a Perspective on the study, Neehar Parikh of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan (US) and Amit Singal of UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas  (both uninvolved in the study) discuss why ITA.LI.CA is timely and provides an advance, and propose next steps. On this study's impact, they say, "this system is an important iteration in the evolution of staging for HCC, and, while it enters a crowded field, the ITA.LI.CA staging system is a worthy entrant."

Nivolumab Monotherapy for long-term survival in Advanced Melanoma

After 5 years of follow-up, 34% of patients with advanced melanoma who participated in a phase 1 clinical trial are still alive after receiving Nivolumab treatment, a study presented at the American Academy for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2016 has shown. For the study, which was initiated in 2008, researchers enrolled 107 patients who had received up to 5 prior treatments, but not Ipilimumab. All participants received Nivolumab at 1 of 5 doses, including the subsequently recommended dose of 3 mg/kg every 2 weeks, for up to 2 years. Results published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in 2014 showed that some patients who achieved a response had durable responses that persisted after Nivolumab discontinuation.
Nivolumab is a human IgG4 anti-programmed death-1 monoclonal antibody approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of advanced melanoma, kidney cancer, and non-small cell lung cancer. It is also being studied in patients with glioblastoma, head and neck cancer, liver cancer, and a variety of hematologic malignancies.

When the most common Skin Cancer turns dangerous

A team of researchers who specialize in treating cancers of the eye wanted to identify a marker that would indicate aggressive basal cell skin cancer, and perhaps also provide a potential target for treatment. Recent research has revealed that the hedgehog signaling pathway, which is essential for tissue development and growth, is critical in all forms of basal cell carcinoma.
A clinical trial open at University of Michigan Health System is looking at whether one of two drugs intended to block hedgehog signaling can be an effective way of preserving eyesight in cases of advanced basal cell cancer near the eye. Trials of these drugs in basal cells not limited to the eye found that up to a third of patients had serious side effects.
"We found higher levels of both EZH2 and Ki67 in more aggressive tumors. This is the first fundamental step to show that EZH2 is abundant in histologically aggressive forms of these cancers," says Rajesh Rao, M.D.
 Several drugs targeting EZH2 in other types of cancer are in the pipeline. The researchers will next begin looking at whether these drugs could expand to basal cell cancers, alone or in combination with hedgehog inhibitors, in order to improve outcomes. In addition, they will look at whether EZH2 or Ki67 can serve as a marker to help identify patients with an increased risk of cancer recurrence or tumors that are more likely to respond to chemotherapy.

Childhood Cancer survivors face health-related challenges

Childhood cancer survivors in the United States continue to face health-related challenges as they grow older, according to a new study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Researchers also found that people who surpassed childhood cancer feel older than their years.
Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center studied the lifestyle of 7,105 childhood cancer survivors aged 18 to 49 years old. They also conducted an analysis on a previous research by the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey (MEPS) that involved 12,803 childhood cancer survivors. The researchers found that 80 percent of the childhood cancer survivors had chronic illnesses. They also discovered that this large percentage of childhood cancer survivors had chronic diseases that are hardly identical to the chronic illnesses of the general population.
MEPS's previous research found that childhood cancer survivors have more chances of developing chronic diseases such as kidney and heart problems, lung ailments and infertility. The researchers attributed these risks to chemotherapy, surgery, radiation sessions and other medical procedures that childhood cancer survivors underwent at early ages.
Aside from facing health related-challenges, the researchers also discovered that the aging of the cancer childhood survivors is accelerated. They found that the overall quality of life of childhood cancer survivors is akin to the middle-aged people of the general population.

Successful treatment for hepatitis C reduces risk of Liver Cancer

A new study by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine found that treatment and cure of chronic hepatitis C reduce the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), especially if given early, before cirrhosis develops, and while patients are still young. "With the advent of new highly effective medications for treating hepatitis C, we expect to see a lot of people cured of the disease," said Dr. Hashem El-Serag. "However, we did not have good information about what happens to these people in terms of their future risks of developing HCC after cure." This large and definitive study involved 33,005 individuals infected with the hepatitis C virus who received treatment in Veterans Health Administration hospitals throughout the United States, and of whom 10,817 patients achieved cure. Researchers tracked their risk of developing HCC liver cancer over several years of follow-up and examined the association between several demographic and clinical features at the time of the cure with the future risk of liver cancer.
Researchers found that successful antiviral treatment for hepatitis C is associated with a significant reduction in risk of cirrhosis, HCC and overall mortality, regardless of age. Therefore, delaying treatment should not be advised. Patients with hepatitis C aged 65 to 85 years who received less antiviral treatment than younger patients were more likely to develop cirrhosis and liver cancer than patients with hepatitis C aged 20 to 49 years.
"Patients with cirrhosis or diabetes or those who are older than 55 who get cured of hepatitis C need continued surveillance according to current guidelines," said El-Serag.

Key mechanism identified in Brain Cancer

A gene known as OSMR plays a key role in driving the growth of glioblastoma tumors, according to a new study led by a McGill University researcher.
The research team studied human brain tumor stem cells taken from glioblastoma patients. These cells are normally able to proliferate and form new tumors when injected into laboratory mice. To the researchers' surprise, however, they found that when they knock down the gene for OSMR in glioblastoma cells and inject these cells in mouse, they lose their ability to form tumors. "It means that this protein is a key piece of the puzzle," says Rudnicki, senior co-corresponding author of the study.
The researchers concluded that these two genes, OSMR and EGFRvIII, conspire to promote tumor growth by making what's known as a "feed forward" mechanism: when OSMR produces its protein, that signals EGFRvIII to rev up and produce its tumor-forming protein.
So disable OSMR and you disable EGFRvIII."The discovery has important clinical implications," says Bonni, senior co-corresponding author. "It provides a new therapeutic avenue for treating this devastating disease, though developing any effective therapy targeting human patients could be years of work."

First gene therapy successful against age related diseases

In September 2015, then 44 year-old CEO of BioViva USA Inc. Elizabeth Parrish received two of her own company's experimental gene therapies: one to protect against loss of muscle mass with age, another to battle stem cell depletion responsible for diverse age-related diseases and infirmities.
It is already the world's first successful example of telomere lengthening via gene therapy in a human individual. Gene therapy has been used to lengthen telomeres before in cultured cells and in mice, but never in a human patient.
Telomeres are short segments of DNA which cap the ends of every chromosome, acting as 'buffers' against wear and tear. They shorten with every cell division, eventually getting too short to protect the chromosome, causing the cell to malfunction and the body to age.
In September 2015, telomere data taken from Parrish's white blood cells by SpectraCell's specialised clinical testing laboratory in Houston, Texas, immediately before therapies were administered, revealed that Parrish's telomeres were unusually short for her age, leaving her vulnerable to age-associated diseases earlier in life.
In March 2016, the same tests taken again by SpectraCell revealed that her telomeres had lengthened by approximately 20 years, from 6.71kb to 7.33kb, implying that Parrish's white blood cells (leukocytes) have become biologically younger. These findings were independently verified by the Brussels-based non-profit HEALES (HEalthy Life Extension Company), and the Biogerontology Research Foundation, a UK-based charity committed to combating age-related diseases.
 BioViva will be testing new gene therapies and combination gene therapies to restore age related damage. It remains to be seen whether the success in leukocytes can expanded to other tissues and organs, and repeated in future patients.

Alcohol and Processed Meat can boost your Cancer Risk

Alcohol, processed meats, such as hot dogs, ham, and bacon, and excess weight all may raise a person’s risk of stomach cancer, a new review finds.
Further, the risk seems to increase as a person drinks more alcohol, or eats more processed meats or gains more weight, the review states.
The review concludes that in the United States, about one in seven stomach cancer cases could be prevented if people did not drink more than three alcoholic drinks a day, did not eat processed meat and maintained a healthy weight. That’s approximately 4,000 stomach cancer cases every year.
“This is the first report to find strong evidence of these links,” said Alice Bender, head of nutrition programs at the cancer institute. “There are things we can do to lower our risk for cancer. There are choices we make every day that can make a difference.”
• Three or more alcoholic drinks per day every day increases risk of stomach cancer. A standard drink is 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
• For every 1.8 ounces of processed meat eaten every day, the equivalent of one hot dog or two slices of bologna, the risk of cancer in the lower stomach rises by 18 percent.
• Every five-unit increase in body mass index, BMI, a ratio of weight to height, causes a 23 percent increased risk of cancer in the upper stomach.
Stomach cancer is the fifth most common cancer worldwide and the third most common cause of death by cancer, the report stated. Just last October, the World Health Organization determined that processed meat can cause cancer.

Drug shows promise against rare, aggressive Skin Cancer

The intravenous drug, marketed as Keytruda, is already used to treat some advanced cases of melanoma, another dangerous form of skin cancer. The new study tested it against a skin tumor called Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC).
Most people have probably never heard of the cancer, but MCC is deadlier than melanoma, said Dr. Paul Nghiem, a professor of medicine at the University of Washington, who led the new study.
When the disease reaches an advanced stage, chemotherapy is an option—but not a good one, Nghiem said.
"Chemotherapy will often shrink the cancer," he said. "But it comes back quickly, and even angrier."
Keytruda (pembrolizumab) is one of a new class of drugs that block a "pathway" called PD-1. That frees up the immune system to attack cancer cells. In the United States, the drug is approved for treating certain cases of lung cancer and advanced melanoma that no longer respond to other drugs.
In the new study, Nghiem's team gave the drug to 26 patients with advanced MCC. Most had metastatic cancer, meaning it had spread beyond lymph nodes near the original skin tumor.
Overall, out of 25 people who were evaluated, 14 patients,or 56 percent, saw their cancer shrink at least partially. In four patients, all signs of the cancer disappeared.

Uganda's only Cancer treatment machine is Broke

There are no term limits on Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, after he did away with those pesky obstacles in 2005. This year marks his 30th in office. In the 2016 national budget, 257 billion Ugandan shillings, or more than $77 million, was allocated for upkeep and other expenses related to his residence.
Meanwhile, the country's only radiotherapy machine for cancer treatment has broken after years of sputtering. The machine, once housed at Mulago Hospital, the country's largest, and recently moved to the Uganda Cancer Institute (UCI), has been scheduled for replacement for three years, but the health minister cited "funding challenges" that prevented progress, according to a local newspaper. A new machine, and bunkers to house it, would cost roughly 15 percent of Museveni's personal residence budget. China donated the machine to Uganda in 1995. It broke down regularly over the past five years, and an independent team measured its radiation levels and found that they were significantly below the required minimum for adequate treatment. In 2013, after an abnormally long 18 years of use, replacement equipment was bought. It seems that funding for the bunkers is the real holdup. While hospital officials continue to ask the government to expedite the process, patients have been told they may have to wait a year or longer before radiation treatment can resume.
Along with other African governments in the Abuja Declaration of 2001, Uganda pledged to spend 15 percent of its annual budget on health. In the past financial year, that number was only 7 percent.

Skin Cancer tumors destroyed by radical new therapy

A new combination therapy which destroys some of the most deadly cancer tumors has been found to be even more effective than was first thought.
Early trials on the drugs for skin cancer had already been hailed as showing “spectacular” results, with a significant reduction in more than half of tumors.
New findings show that more 60 per cent of patients, who could expect to live just nine months on standard treatment, were still alive two years later.
Also, in more than one in five cases, tumors had been destroyed.
A total of 142 patients were randomly allocated either to receive two drugs, Nivolumab and Ipilimumab, or Ipilimumab alone.
The therapies, consisting of lab-made antibodies, are designed to harness the body’s immune system, to fight cancer.
Findings from a Phase II US-led trial testing the effectiveness of the drug combination were presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in New Orleans.
"The overall survival rates observed using the regimen of Nivolumab plus Ipilimumab are very promising and provide further hope for patients and their families affected by this disease."

Low-fat diet reduces risk of Breast Cancer

Eating less fat and more fruits and vegetables reduces postmenopausal women’s chances of being diagnosed with breast cancer and then dying, from any cause, according to a new analysis of data from a Women’s Health Initiative study presented Monday at the American Association for Cancer Research conference.
In the mid-1990s, almost 50,000 postmenopausal women were enrolled in a study designed to look at the effect of a low-fat, high fruit and vegetable diet on breast cancer risk. When the researchers focused their analysis on breast cancer followed by death within the planned eight-year period during which study participants changed their diets, they saw that women on the low-fat diet were 35 percent less likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer and then die from any cause. They also found that consuming a low-fat diet boosted survival of women with breast cancer by 20 percent.
Tumors can grow for decades before producing symptoms, responding to cues from environmental and lifestyle factors, including nutrition and physical activity. The team saw that women who were diagnosed with breast cancer early and on the low-fat diet longest during treatment seemed to do better. 

Protein key in the spread of Pancreatic Cancer

Researchers from the University of Liverpool working with colleagues from around the globe have found an explanation for how pancreatic cancer spreads to the liver. These findings potentially hold the key to stopping this disease from spreading.

Metastatic pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a very aggressive type of pancreatic cancer that kills around 8000 people every year in the UK and 330,000 worldwide.
The study found that stromal partners are critical for efficient metastatic growth of pancreatic cancer cells, and identified a protein named 'granulin' as a key regulator of pancreatic cancer metastasis.
Dr Schmid, said: "A better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the metastatic spreading of pancreatic cancer is critical to improve treatment and patient outcome.
"Our work, which was a collaborative effort among several national and international research teams, provides evidence that pancreatic cancer metastasis critically depends on the support of stromal derived factors such as granulin and periostin, and that targeting these stromal factors may improve the outcome of this devastating disease."" We found that the expression of inflammatory white blood cells, or monocytes, from granulin plays a key role in pancreatic cancer metastasis. These findings suggest the management or disruption of the secretion of this protein holds the key to stop cancer from spreading from the pancreas to the liver."

98 percent cure rate for Prostate Cancer

The first trial to publish five-year results from SBRT treatment for prostate cancer, found a 98.6 percent cure rate with SBRT, a noninvasive form of radiation treatment that involves high-dose radiation beams entering the body through various angles and intersecting at the desired target. It is a state-of-the-art technology that allows for a concentrated dose to reach the tumor while limiting the radiation dose to surrounding healthy tissue.
"The high cure rate is striking when compared to the reported five-year cure rates from other approaches like surgery or conventional radiation, which range between 80 to 90 percent, while the side effects of this treatment are comparable to other types of treatment," said Dr. Raquibul Hannan, Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology and lead author for the study. "What we now have is a more potent and effective form of completely noninvasive treatment for prostate cancer, conveniently completed in five treatments.""The current form of radiation is 44 treatments given over nine weeks. In contrast, the SBRT therapy we used allows the delivery of highly focused radiation in only five treatments, allowing patients to return to their normal lives more quickly,"
Since 2009, UT Southwestern has trained more than 300 physicians and peers interested in implementing SBRT in their clinical practice. Simmons Cancer Center's arsenal of stereotactic radiotherapy technology includes the cutting-edge Gamma Knife, CyberKnife, Agility, Vero SBRT and TrueBeam technologies.

Doctors reclassify a Thyroid Tumor it's not Cancer

An international panel of doctors has decided that a type of tumor that was classified as a cancer is not a cancer at all.

As a result, they have officially downgraded the condition, and thousands of patients will be spared removal of their thyroid, treatment with radioactive iodine and regular checkups for the rest of their lives, all to protect against a tumor that was never a threat.

The reclassified tumor is a small lump in the thyroid that is completely surrounded by a capsule of fibrous tissue. Its nucleus looks like a cancer but the cells have not broken out of their capsule, and surgery to remove the entire thyroid followed by treatment with radioactive iodine is unnecessary and harmful, the panel said. They have now renamed the tumor. Instead of calling it “encapsulated follicular variant of papillary thyroid carcinoma,” they now call it “noninvasive follicular thyroid neoplasm with papillary-like nuclear features,” or NIFTP. The word “carcinoma” is gone.

Many cancer experts said the reclassification was long overdue. For years there have been calls to downgrade small lesions in the breast, lung and prostate, among others, and to eliminate the term “cancer” from their name.

Some Diabetes drugs may help Cancer spread

Researchers have known that reactive oxygen species, or free radicals, can do serious damage to cells and trigger cancer. Antioxidants can neutralize those effects, although clinical trials on cancer prevention have yielded mixed results. Several recent studies have also suggested that antioxidants have a dark side. If cancer is already present, for example, they may fuel its proliferation. That, suspects Martin Bergö, a cancer biologist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, is because although free radicals harm healthy cells, they can also be toxic to cells that are already cancerous. That means that the antioxidants that curb those free radicals can help cancer cells rather than hurting them. Last fall, Bergö’s group reported that ingestion of extra antioxidants drove the metastasis of melanoma in a mouse model, though they didn’t have any effect on the primary tumor.
A team led by molecular toxicologist Donna Zhang at the University of Arizona in Tucson has now taken a different tack. With colleagues in China, she focused on a protein called NRF2. It regulates a cellular defense response that helps protect cells from oxidative damage caused by environmental toxins or carcinogens. Although NRF2 has many benefits, loss of NRF2 regulation leads to high levels in certain cancer cells, such as some lung cancers, and it may help them migrate, Zhang says.
Some diabetes drugs just happen to activate NFR2. That’s an off-target effect, Zhang explains, that is secondary to the drugs’ ability to lower blood sugar. People with type 2 diabetes are already at a higher risk for cancer. So what to do with this information next “is a dilemma,” Zhang says, because so far there are no data suggesting that the drugs (saxagliptin and sitagliptin) promote metastasis in people with both diabetes and cancer. Zhang, for one, thinks that diabetes patients with cancer shouldn’t take medications that activate NRF2, just to be cautious.

IBM Watson, American Cancer Society to create Virtual Cancer Health Advisor

IBM and the American Cancer Society (ACS) are teaming up to create the first virtual cancer health advisor for people fighting cancer, powered by IBM Watson. The initiative aims to provide cancer patients, survivors, and caregivers with trusted ACS resources and guidance personalized to an individual’s unique journey against cancer. Once developed, the advisor will anticipate the needs of people with different types of cancers, at different stages of disease, and at various points in treatment. It will be dynamic and become increasingly personalized as individuals engage with it, effectively getting “smarter” each time it is used. ACS and IBM also plans to integrate Watson’s voice recognition and natural language processing technology, enabling users to ask questions and receive audible responses. ACS and IBM has long term plans to integrate the advisor with IBM’s existing Watson for Oncology offering for doctors. Watson for Oncology is a clinical decision support tool that helps doctors make personalized, evidence-based treatment decisions for their patients. By integrating the ACS advisor, clinicians could be prompted to share personalized guidance on resources, including educational materials and social services and programs such as ACS’s Road to Recovery transportation, Hope Lodge housing, and Look Good Feel Better.
IBM is currently working with researchers, clinicians, and cancer institutions to apply Watson technology to the data challenges of cancer treatment through partnerships with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and MD Anderson Cancer Center. At Mayo Clinic, Watson is helping doctors match patients to relevant clinical trials, and 16 leading cancer institutes are working with Watson to help doctors translate DNA insights into personalized treatment options for patients. 

Sean Parker gives $250 Million for Cancer Research

Billionaire Sean Parker, the former president of Facebook Inc., has given $250 million to create a research institute dedicated to developing treatments that harness the immune system to combat cancer.
The Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy will try to make it easier for more than 300 scientists from six top cancer centers around the U.S. to work together, and with drug companies, to develop treatments and bring them to market, according to a statement Wednesday from Parker’s foundation. Intended to be self-sustaining, the institute will centralize licensing deals for the participating organizations, redistributing gains back to them and the Parker Foundation.
The approach may help reduce the time and effort that many researchers spend on getting financial support, leaving more for actual research, said Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. Brawley said the society provides $150 million a year for investigations, and only 10 percent of the applications that merit funding actually get a grant.

Ketogenic diet could treat Cancer patients

Led by Adrienne C. Scheck, PhD, Principal Investigator in Neuro-Oncology and Neurosurgery Research at Barrow, the groundbreaking research studied the effects of the ketogenic diet in conjunction with radiation therapy for the treatment of malignant gliomas, an aggressive and deadly type of brain tumor. The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet that alters metabolism and is used in the treatment of pediatric epilepsy that does not respond to conventional therapies. The diet’s affects on brain homeostasis have potential for the treatment of other neurological diseases, as well.
One theory behind the success of the treatment is that the ketogenic diet may reduce growth factor stimulation, inhibiting tumor growth. Barrow scientists also believe that it may reduce inflammation and edema surrounding the tumors. This is believed to be the first study of its kind to look at the effects of the ketogenic diet with radiation.
Dr. Scheck believes that the study has promising implications in the treatment of human malignant gliomas. “We found that the ketogenic diet significantly enhances the anti-tumor effect of radiation, which suggests that it may be useful as an adjuvant to the current standard of care for the treatment of human malignant gliomas,” she says.
Dr. Scheck adds that the ketogenic diet could quickly and easily be added into current brain tumor treatment plans as an adjuvant therapy without the need for FDA approval. She is currently exploring options for clinical trials.

Susan G. Komen adds 16 Breast Cancer research leaders

Susan G. Komen, the world’s largest nonprofit breast cancer organization, welcomes 16 new leaders in breast cancer research and advocacy to their Komen Scholars international advisory group. Komen Scholars help guide breast cancer research and scientific programs, education, and advocacy work, as well as public health efforts in the U.S. and abroad. The Komen Scholars include the brightest, most creative, and most hardworking individuals in the field today.    The new members are:

• From the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Abenaa M. Brewster, M.D., MHS (Risk Reduction, Survivorship, Disparities);
• From the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute, Jason S. Carroll, Ph.D. (Biology, Endocrine Resistance);
• From the Columbia University Medical Center, Dawn L. Hershman, M.D., M.S. Center (Survivorship, Health Outcomes, Disparities);
• From Princeton University, Yibin Kang, Ph.D. (Biology, Metastasis);
• From the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Tari A. King, M.D. (Clinical Research, Treatment);
• From the Mayo Clinic, Keith L. Knutson, Ph.D. (Biology, Immunotherapy);
• From the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Mia A. Levy, M.D., Ph.D. (Big Data, Precision Medicine);
• From the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Jennifer A. Ligibel, M.D. (Treatment, Lifestyle Interventions);
• From the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Anna M. Napoles, Ph.D., MPH (Survivorship, Disparities);
• From the Henry Ford Health System, Lisa A. Newman, M.D., MPH (Risk Reduction, Disparities, Global Health);
• From the University of Pittsburgh, Steffi Oesterreich, Ph.D. (Biology, Endocrine Resistance);
• From the University of North Carolina, Charles M. Perou, Ph.D. (Genomics, Precision Medicine);
• From the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Kornelia Polyak, M.D., Ph.D. (Biology, Tumor Diversity, Risk, Prevention);
• From Yale University, Lajos Pusztai, M.D., D. Phil. (Clinical Research, Treatment, Big Data);
• From the Mayo Clinic, Deborah J. Rhodes, M.D. (Early Detection, Imaging, Breast Density);
• From the Huntsman Cancer Institute, Alana L. Welm, Ph.D. (Biology, Metastasis).

Clovis's Cancer drug denied approval by FDA

An independent panel of experts advising the U.S. FDA recommended that Clovis Oncology Inc's lung cancer drug not be approved based on existing trial data.
The panel voted 12-1 against giving the drug an accelerated approval, and recommended the FDA wait for the results from an ongoing late-stage trial that compares the drug's effect to that of chemotherapy.
An accelerated approval would allow Clovis to conditionally market the drug, Rociletinib, based on early evidence of its clinical benefit.
Rociletinib is designed to treat a subset of patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose condition has worsened despite treatment. It targets patients with a genetic mutation known as T790M that helps tumors evade current lung cancer pills.

Norway researching on gas bubbles for Cancer drug delivery

Norwegian researchers are now working to design stable micro-bubbles which, combined with ultrasound, can deliver cancer drugs straight to the target tumor.

The project recently started up in Trondheim is called 'BubbleCAN' and is based on SINTEF proprietary technology. Researchers are making stable micro-bubbles containing chemotherapeutic drugs. The bubbles can be used in combination with ultrasound and are highly suitable for inoperable cancers and brain tumors that are difficult to treat using current methods.
Yrr Mørch at SINTEF stated that in traditional chemotherapy approaches, as little as between 0.001 and 0.01% of the drug injected into the body will reach the target tumor.
"The rest damages healthy cells and tissue, resulting in terrible side-effects," says Mørch. "But when we combine bubbles with ultrasound we can increase the amount of drug delivered directly to the cancer by creating small pores in the walls of the vessels supplying blood to the tumor.
The challenge facing researchers is that the bubbles are delicate and only have a restricted lifetime in the bloodstream. The aim of the BubbleCAN project is to optimiz
e the micro-bubble concept and develop a commercial product.The project is planned to run over two and a half years and is funded by the Research Council of Norway via a joint announcement made by the FORNY and BIOTEK2021 research programs and the Norwegian Cancer Society.

Medicare plan on payment for Cancer drugs stirs battle

A Medicare proposal to test new ways of paying for chemotherapy and other drugs given in a doctor's office has sparked a furious battle, and cancer doctors are demanding that the Obama administration scrap the experiment. The question isn't whether those drugs are fairly priced, but whether Medicare's current payment policy encourages doctors to prescribe the costliest medications so they can make more money.
Injected and infused drugs for such conditions as macular degeneration, rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn's disease are also affected.
Medicare now pays doctors and hospital outpatient clinics the average sales price of a drug, plus a 6 percent add-on, somewhat reduced by federal budget cuts. Naturally, 6 percent of a $15,000 drug is more than 6 percent of a $3,000 drug. But does that influence doctors' decisions, raising costs for the government as well as those on Medicare?

Medicare officials seem to think so.

Hormone Therapy for Prostate Cancer tied to Depression

Older men who receive testosterone-suppressing therapy for prostate cancer may be at increased risk of developing depression, a new, large study suggests.
The findings are based on over 78,000 U.S. men treated for earlier-stage prostate cancer.
Researchers found that among those given hormone-suppressing therapy, 7 percent developed clinical depression in the next few years. That compared with 5 percent of men who did not have the treatment.
The findings do not prove that hormone therapy is to blame. But they do offer "pretty strong evidence" that might be the case, said senior researcher Dr. Paul Nguyen. He is director of prostate brachytherapy at Brigham and Women's Hospital, in Boston.
Men who were treated for six months or less, 6 percent developed depression within three years of their cancer diagnosis. That rose to 8 percent among men who were on hormone therapy for at least a year.

New weapon against Breast Cancer

Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and collaborators at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have identified a molecular marker in normal breast tissue that can predict a woman’s risk for developing breast cancer, the leading cause of death in women with cancer worldwide.In the latest study, Polyak, Tamimi, and their colleagues examined biopsies, some taken as many as four decades ago, from 302 participants in the Nurses’ Health Study and the Nurses’ Health Study II who had been diagnosed with benign breast disease. The researchers compared tissue from the 69 women who later developed cancer to the tissue from the 233 women who did not. They found that women were five times as likely to develop cancer if they had a higher percentage of Ki67, a molecular marker that identifies proliferating cells, in the cells that line the mammary ducts and milk-producing lobules. These cells, called the mammary epithelium, undergo drastic changes throughout a woman’s life, and the majority of breast cancers originate in these tissues.
Doctors already test breast tumors for Ki67 levels, which can inform decisions about treatment, but this is the first time scientists have been able to link Ki67 to precancerous tissue and use it as a predictive tool.

Higher levels of vitamin D lower Cancer risk

The study sought to determine what blood level of vitamin D was required to effectively reduce cancer risk. The marker of vitamin D was 25-hydroxyvitamin D, the main form in the blood. The researchers employed a non-traditional approach, pooling analyses of two previous studies of different types: a randomized clinical trial of 1,169 women and a prospective cohort study of 1,135 women. A clinical trial focuses upon whether a specific test or treatment is safe and effective. A prospective study looks for outcomes during the study period, in this case incidence of cancer among participants.
By combining the two studies, the researchers obtained a larger sample size and a greater range of blood serum levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D or 25(OH)D.
The only accurate measure of vitamin D levels in a person is a blood test.Recommended blood serum levels of vitamin D have been a source of vigorous debate in recent years. In 2010, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) concluded that levels lower than 12 ng/ml represented a vitamin D deficiency and recommended a target of 20 ng/ml, which could be met in most healthy adults (ages 19 to 70) with the equivalent of 600 International Units of vitamin D each day.
Subsequently, other groups have argued for higher blood serum levels: 50 ng/ml or more. Above 125 ng/ml, there may be side effects. Many vitamin D supporters now advocate 800 to 1,000 IUs daily; more for persons older than 70 and pregnant or lactating women.

This Cancer treatment could beat Cancer

Just five years ago, says institute director Dr. Drew Pardoll, this method of treating cancer was deemed too experimental to be taken seriously. Back in 2011, less than 1 percent of lung cancer patients in the United States received immunotherapy. That number is now 25 percent. Within one year, Pardoll predicts, it will exceed 50 percent.
By analyzing biopsies of each patient’s tumors, Pardoll and his team derive a customized formula for unlocking each patient’s immune system, allowing it to regain control and strike down cancer cells.
Treatment requires a two-hour IV infusion every two weeks for anywhere from six months to two years, plus a “treatment vaccine” that may be administered periodically to rev up the immune system. So far, Pardoll says, only 3 percent of his patients have experienced any side effects, such as inflammation of the lungs.
Since immunotherapy’s still relatively new, outcomes vary and long-term results are impossible to gauge, Pardoll says, but he believes patients respond best when immunotherapies are administered early on, before their bodies get too beaten up by chemo and radiation.
“In melanoma patients, when immunotherapy treatment is given upfront, tumor shrinkage of 50 percent or greater occurs in one-third to one-half of patients,” he says. “The survival rate of one year is 70 percent.” By comparison, when chemo is used for treating melanoma, he says, one-third of patients respond, but almost all relapse within six months.

Cancer Treatment costs aren't rising as fast as thought

Over the last decade, the cost to treat cancer patients has grown at roughly the same rate as all health care spending. Medicare patients who were actively treating their cancer, meaning they had one or more claims for chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or cancer surgery in a given year, saw their health care costs grow 36.4% over an 11 year period. Costs for the non-cancer group grew by 34.8%. The same was true for those with commercial insurance plans. Non-cancer patients saw a 60.8% jump in health care costs, while the actively-treated cancer population’s costs rose 62.5%. Health care spending has grown steadily over the past decade, jumping 5.5% in 2014 alone, and is now equal to about 19.6% of the U.S. economy. Drug spending accounted for one-fifth of the total costs in actively-treated cancer patients in 2014 and has seen the highest growth over the study period. A large part of that is due to better biologic drugs and breakthrough therapies that have entered the market in recent years.
The study also found that patients are receiving a greater share of chemotherapy infusions in a hospital setting rather than a physician’s office, which has a dramatic effect on costs. The proportion of chemotherapy infusions delivered in hospital outpatient departments nearly tripled for Medicare patients and grew almost eight-fold for those with private insurance. The additional cost per patient reached as high as $46,272 in 2014.

Shorter, intensive radiation for early Prostate Cancer

Giving early-stage prostate cancer patients a slightly higher daily dose of radiation can cut more than two weeks from the current treatment regimen without compromising cancer control, according to a national study led by a Duke Cancer Institute researcher. The research team compared the shortened radiation therapy schedule of about 5.5 weeks to the standard 8-week regimen to determine if rates of cure were similar. Both treatment schedules were similar in terms of controlling cancer, but doctors reported slightly more mild side effects in patients getting the shorter radiation schedule.
"Because the shorter regimen has advantages such as greater patient convenience and lower costs, it's important to establishing whether we can cure as many patients with the shorter regimen. Our study provides that information for the first time."

Controlling 'bad cholesterol' could prevent growth of Cancer

The "bad cholesterol" binds to LDL receptors in the liver, the organ in charge of degrading it and excreting it from the organism as bile. "Cancer cells need lipids to grow. They can make their own lipids or get more from the host because these cells grow so fast," explains Lehner. "The tumor signals to the liver: 'I need more cholesterol for growth' and the liver is reprogrammed to secrete those lipids."
One of the key factors for this process are proteins we all have that, in larger quantities, may cause a decrease in the amount of LDL receptors to excrete the cholesterol. The tumor affects these proteins to reduce clearance of cholesterol from the blood, leaving the LDL for cancer to feed off of it.
These findings led Lehner and Hoefler to an interesting hypothesis: minimizing the liver's production of LDL would deprive a tumor from its constant supply and therefore reduce its possibility of growth. Their experiments in pre-clinical models proved to be successful, confirming lower tumor development with the regulation of the proteins that affect production of VLDL (precursors of LDL) and uptake of LDL by receptors from the liver. The next step for Lehner and his team will be to test existing medications that would help in limiting the production of cholesterol on patients undergoing cancer treatment, adding them to their current therapies.
"There are medications approved that we can test", says Lehner. "They were not developed for cancer, they were manufactured for people with hypercholesterolemia (chronic condition where patients have very high level of cholesterol in their blood), but it will be interesting for us to test them with cancer patients and see if there is improvement."

Zebrafish help in the fight against Cancer

U of Toledo, researchers have been diligently studying a series of new anti-cancer drug candidates, which we hope will some day improve patient survival. Glioblastoma multiforme is a devastating cancer of the brain because these cancer cells invade rapidly, making surgical removal and further treatment difficult. Their research is focused on investigating a series of drugs that prevent glioblastoma cancer cell movement. By blocking the cancer cells from moving, treatment and surgical removal can be vastly improved.
The UT Department of Biochemistry and Cancer Biology have developed a different drug that can actually kill glioblastoma cells. This drug triggers the glioblastoma cells to fill up with fluid-filled bubbles called vacuoles. Over time, the cancer cells become overwhelmed by vacuoles and die.
Both of these drug candidates have shown great promise; however, before they can be approved for clinical trials in humans, they must first undergo rigorous screening in animal models. Historically, such screens have been performed in mouse and rat models. Unfortunately, these types of studies are laborious, expensive and take years to complete. The zebrafish model provides another option.
Zebrafish are small minnows, native to India and the surrounding region, which have been gaining popularity among scientists for biomedical research. These small fish are ideal for biomedical studies, because the young fish are transparent, allowing researchers to easily observe organ development and function. The cancer cells that are stained with special dyes can be implanted into young zebrafish in order to visually track how cancer cells grow and spread.

By using the zebrafish model, they can compress years of work into a few months and spend a fraction of the cost to more quickly identify safe and efficient cancer treatments, allowing us to speed up the process of saving lives.

Pitt star Conner nearing end of Cancer treatment

Less than five months after being diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma, the Pittsburgh running back can see the finish line. The cancer is retreating. His strength is returning. The relentless optimism that has fueled his fight never in doubt.
"Things are falling into place now like before I even knew I had cancer," Conner said on Sunday after throwing out the ceremonial first pitch before the Pittsburgh Pirates hosted the St. Louis Cardinals the 2016 Major League opener.
Conner was rehabbing from a torn ligament in his right knee sustained in the 2015 opener against Youngstown State when his sluggishness turned into a stunning diagnosis in late-November. A series of draining chemotherapy treatments followed, though they are down to a precious few. Conner said he has three more to go, the last coming on May 9, just four days past his 21st birthday. If the ensuing PET scan comes up clean, Conner believes he'll be plenty ready by the time the Panthers host Villanova on Sept. 3.

Prostate Cancer treatment options

After being diagnosed with prostate cancer, the wide variety of treatment options can be confusing for even the most educated of patients.   Advice comes from all angles: Your doctor, friends and family, reports in the news, and even advertisements.  All of which make it difficult to know which treatment is best for you.  Should you be considering Cyberknife, hormones, radiation, surgery, or some combination of these?
If detected early, the cure rate for prostate cancer is almost 100 percent.  This means that most men who are diagnosed at an early stage will be disease-free after five years.  These shocking statistics reiterate the importance of getting screened and staying one step ahead of this “silent killer.” Additionally, patients should know they are not alone; more than 2.5 million men are living with prostate cancer in America. Fortunately, there are many viable treatment options available for prostate cancer and a cure is possible.
Although there are various options, the truth is that in the case of prostate cancer treatment, one size does not fit all.  Consulting with experts in the field is often the best way to go when trying to figure out the best treatment option for you. Your doctor will take into consideration your age, risk, medical history and your expectations. 

Latinas who eat processed meat more likely to get Breast Cancer

The study found that Latinas who ate more than 20 milligrams of processed meats such as bacon, chorizo, sausage, ham, hot dogs and deli meats are 42 percent more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than white women who ate that much processed meat and Latinas who ate less. 
Mariana Stern, a USC associate professor and director of graduate programs in molecular epidemiology at the Keck School of Medicine, authored the paper.
“All these processed meats should be consumed like a treat, not the staple of your diet. The more we can understand, the better we can do to reduce our cancer risk.”
The cause of the higher numbers for Hispanic women will be the focus of future studies, Stern said, but the researchers suspect that Latinas ate more processed meat during adolescence, which could increase their risk later on in life.
She pointed out that most women do not get breast cancer due to genetics, only 5 to 10 percent of women carry the breast cancer gene.
“Diet and lifestyle play an important role. Things such as smoking, UV radiation, alcohol and
processed meats can activate cells to become malignant,” Stern said.

EU issues a positive opinion on Janssen’s Single-Agent

Janssen-Cilag International NV ("Janssen") announced today that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has issued a Positive Opinion recommending a conditional marketing authorization for first-in-class CD38 immunotherapy DARZALEX (daratumumab) in the European Union. The recommended indication is for monotherapy of adult patients with relapsed and refractory multiple myeloma (MM), whose prior therapy included a proteasome inhibitor (PI) and an immunomodulatory agent and who have demonstrated disease progression on the last therapy. This application was reviewed under an accelerated assessment by the CHMP, a process reserved for medicinal products expected to be of major public health interest, particularly from the point of view of therapeutic innovation.

Johns Hopkins launches Cancer research center with $125 million

Johns Hopkins will launch an institute devoted to the study of a new and promising approach to cancer treatment, embracing the Obama administration's "moonshot" initiative to cure cancer, an effort led by Vice President Joe Biden.
The Bloomberg, Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy was founded with two $50 million gifts, one from Michael R. Bloomberg, philanthropist, entrepreneur, and three-term mayor of New York City; the other from philanthropist Sidney Kimmel, founder of Jones Apparel Group. An additional $25 million for the center was contributed by more than a dozen additional supporters.
Immunotherapy has the potential to cure and end all forms of cancer, researchers say, making it the most rapidly advancing approach to cancer treatment and one of the most promising avenues of cancer research today. Immunotherapy seeks to redirect patients' highly individual immune systems to target, detect, and destroy cancer cells.
"We are at the forefront of an emerging and promising field of cancer research and treatment," said Paul Rothman, dean and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine. "We are grateful for these tremendous gifts, which will help us accelerate the already rapid pace of discoveries in immunotherapy."