Treatment 'breakthrough' in man with advanced Skin Cancer

"Skin cancer cure hope for millions as major treatment breakthrough sees man's tumors disappear 'completely'."
The study was carried out by researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the University of Washington, and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, all in the US.
Funding was provided by the Cancer Research Institute and a "Stand Up To Cancer" Cancer Research Institute Cancer Immunology Dream Team Translational Research Grant.
The researchers aimed to transfuse melanoma-specific CTLs that were first "primed" by a signalling protein called interleukin-21 (IL-21), which would help boost the numbers of these T cells.
These enhanced CTLs were combined with anti-CTLA4 to see if this would help the skin cancer patient. "Combining CTLA4 blockade with the transfer of well-characterized, robust antitumor CTLs represents an encouraging strategy to enhance the activity of the adoptively transferred CTL and induce de novo antitumor responses.
"This strategy may hold broad promise for immune checkpoint blockade-resistant melanomas."
These seem to be extremely encouraging findings for metastatic melanoma, a cancer with notoriously poor prognosis.
However,it must be emphasized that this case report focuses on just one man.

French researchers develop new Skin Cancer drugs

Researchers from France's Inserm (Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale) have developed and synthesized new melanoma-fighting drugs that reduce the viability of cancer cells. An initial clinical trial should be launched soon to test the new compounds. As well as treating skin cancer, the drugs have been found effective in combating other types of tumor, such as breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer and pancreatic cancer.
Researchers based in Nice, France, have discovered a new family of drugs, called Thiazole Benzensulfonamides (TZB), which have useful anti-cancer properties.
This family of drugs was initially identified in research surrounding type 2 diabetes, as it increases cells' sensitivity insulin. "If we wanted to use it against cancer, we had to be able to eliminate this proinsulin activity," explains research director, Stéphane Rocchi, in an Inserm news release. "Thus we started to modify its structure."
One of the new drugs, called HA15, reduces the viability of melanoma cells with no toxic effect on normal cells.The new drug was also found to be effective on other types of tumor, such as breast cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer and pancreatic cancer, and in cases of leukemia.
A first clinical trial is expected to begin soon.

Quality of life meets cure for Prostate Cancer

The prostate is a tiny organ surrounded by critical structures. When radiation treatments deliver dose to any of these structures, it can sometimes lead to problems such as erectile dysfunction and bladder or rectal irritation.
"We always have to keep cure as our first priority, but quality of life is a major secondary concern for men with prostate cancer," says Patrick W. McLaughlin, M.D., professor of radiation oncology at the University of Michigan Medical School.
"In the past cure came at a steep price in lost quality of life, but with modern refinements it is increasingly possible to meet the new standard of successful prostate cancer treatment: cure with quality of life."
McLaughlin is the senior author of a paper published in Lancet Oncology that looks at how MRI and a clear understanding of the functional anatomy, and its variations from patient to patient, can allow radiation oncologists to plan a course of treatment that spares these critical structures.
The team started by defining the critical functions and structures that run through or near the prostate. These include the nerves, vessels and sphincters that control bladder function, erectile function and rectal function. They also found that MRI was a critical tool for accurately outlining the prostate anatomy and planning radiation therapy. They could easily and precisely see the borders of the prostate on MRI. Images from CT are much less clear, and it's common to overestimate the area that needs to be treated. With a clear outline of the prostate and other critical structures on MRI, radiation oncologists can precisely target treatment to the prostate while avoiding these critical erectile tissues. The technique is called vessel-sparing radiation.

Men with early Prostate Cancer are avoiding Treatment

The approach is called active surveillance. It means their cancers are left alone but regularly monitored to be sure they are not growing. Just 10 percent to 15 percent of early-stage prostate cancer patients were being treated by active surveillance several years ago. Now, national data from three independent sources consistently finds that 40 percent to 50 percent of them are making that choice.

In recent years, major research organizations have begun to recommend active surveillance, which for years had been promoted mostly by academic urologists in major medical centers, but not by urologists in private practice, who treat most men. In 2011, the National Institutes of Health held a consensus conference that concluded that it should be the preferred course for men with small and innocuous-looking tumors. Last year, the American Society of Clinical Oncology issued guidelines with the same advice. Preliminary 2016 data from the urology association indicates that the numbers are growing, with even more than 50 percent of patients choosing active surveillance.

Half of all men with newly diagnosed prostate cancer have low-risk tumors, which pathologists, using a scoring system that looks at the appearance of cells under a microscope, rate as Gleason 6 or less on a commonly used scale. Their risk of dying from prostate cancer in the next 10 years is less than 1 percent.

Sylvester researchers identify treatment for aggressive Breast Cancer

A recent study by researchers at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine revealed that triple-negative breast cancer(TNBC), which has generally been unresponsive to hormone receptor-targeted treatments, can indeed be treated using vitamin D and androgen receptor-targeted therapy. The discovery offers a new treatment option beyond chemotherapy for this aggressive type of breast cancer. They discovered that two-thirds of triple-negative breast cancers express vitamin D and androgen receptors, that then were able to treat the tumors using a hormone-receptor approach.
TNBC lacks the three receptors that fuel most breast cancers - estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2, it does express androgen receptors (AR) and vitamin D receptors (VDR). This provided the basis for the study. The researchers showed that co-targeting AP and VDR with agonist hormones turned out to be an effective strategy to reduce the sustainability of the cancer cells. This could lead to the use of targeted receptor therapy in the treatment of TNBC and, in turn, to better patient outcomes.

UK Cancer clinical trials to be streamlined

Set up and delivery of UK cancer multi-center clinical trials will become more efficient and easier to get off the ground, thanks to a new agreement between UK cancer clinical trial centers.
The Experimental Cancer Medicines Center (ECMC) Collaboration Agreement will improve the network’s ability to carry out early phase clinical cancer trials, boosting research and development in the UK and bringing innovative new treatments to patients sooner.
Clinical trials in the UK often face delays because of the variation in how they are set up in each center. But under the new agreement all 18 ECMC locations will do this in the same way and will work to the same standards, cutting paperwork and helping researchers work more collaboratively.
This will help speed up approval of early phase clinical trials, making the UK a more attractive location for international pharmaceutical and life sciences companies. This means UK patients get access to innovative treatments sooner.

Scottish Breast Cancer drug offers new treatment

A new breast cancer treatment which destroys tumors more effectively than existing medicines could be on the horizon, according to a “promising” study.Edinburgh University scientists have pinpointed a chemical compound called eCF506 that is highly effective at blocking the growth of breast cancer cells in the laboratory.The compound targets a molecule called Src tyrosine kinase, which is vital for the growth and spread of breast cancer cells.
Drugs that target the same molecule are already being tested in clinical trials but researchers claim this compound could be more effective and produce fewer side effects as it is more selective in the molecules it targets.
Dr Asier Unciti-Broceta, who led the study at the Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre, said: “eCF506 is the first drug candidate of a second generation of Src inhibitors that will not only help to understand the complexity of some cancers but also the development of safer combination therapies.”

Novocure enrolls last patient in PANOVA trial

Novocure announced today that the last patient has been enrolled in the PANOVA trial, a phase 2 pilot trial testing Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) plus chemotherapy in 40 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. The final data collection date will be six months after the last patient in.
The prospective, single-arm study includes two cohorts of 20 patients with advanced pancreatic cancer whose tumors could not be removed surgically and who had not received prior chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Novocure presented data from the first cohort of the trial at the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2016 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium in January 2016.
Data from the first cohort demonstrated the safety of the combined treatment, and also suggest improved survival and response rate among patients who received TTFields therapy with gemcitabine compared to a historical control of patients who received gemcitabine alone. PANOVA patients who received TTFields therapy plus first-line gemcitabine experienced a median progression free survival of 8.3 months compared to 3.7 months for a historical control of gemcitabine alone, and a median overall survival of 14.9 months compared to 6.7 months for a historical control. Median one-year survival was 55 percent compared to 22 percent for a historical control.
Novocure accelerated planning for a phase 3 clinical trial in pancreatic cancer after obtaining results for the first cohort of PANOVA. 

Proposal to reduce Medicare drug payments is widely criticized

Patients’ advocates have joined doctors and drug companies in warning that the federal plan could jeopardize access to important medications. Every member of the Senate Finance Committee,14 Republicans and 12 Democrats,

and more than 300 House members have expressed concern.

In a letter to Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the secretary of health and human services, the advocacy arm of the American Cancer Society said the proposal “does not protect cancer patients’ access to the lifesaving drugs needed to treat their disease.” The plan “focuses more on the potential for cost savings” than on how to preserve and enhance the quality of care, it said.

The administration says Medicare’s current payment formula rewards doctors for prescribing expensive drugs. Ms. Burwell has proposed a five-year nationwide test to encourage doctors to prescribe less expensive therapies under Part B of Medicare.

In its proposal, the administration said “we intend to achieve savings,” but did not estimate the amount.

The first phase of the new “payment model” could begin as early Aug. 1. In the second phase, which could start as soon as January 2017, Medicare would link payment to a drug’s value.

FDA gives breakthrough status to Poliovirus Cancer treatment

A poliovirus cancer treatment designed by Duke medical researchers was awarded rare "breakthrough therapy" status by the Food and Drug Administration to speed up its approval for market use.The FDA's recognition follows Phase 1 clinical trials of the therapy, which have been occurring since 2012 and are held at Duke's Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center. Medical researchers have found a 20 percent three-year survival rate in patients with glioblastoma, a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer, who received the poliovirus therapy, compared to a historical 4% survival rate. Dr. Darell Bigner, director of the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center, said that the team of researchers will meet with the FDA within 60 days to discuss the next steps for future trials, and that they hope to expand the trials to several hundred patients.

Reversing chemotherapy resistance in Ovarian Cancer

Inside each ovarian tumor, there are good cells and bad cells. A new paper explains their roles:

• The bad cells are fibroblasts. They work to block chemotherapy, which is why nearly every woman with ovarian cancer becomes resistant to treatment.
• The good cells are immune T cells. They can reverse that resistance.

These findings, reported in Cell, suggest a whole different way of thinking about chemotherapy resistance, and the potential to harness immunotherapy drugs to treat ovarian cancer.
"Ovarian cancer is often diagnosed at late stages, so chemotherapy is a key part of treatment. Most patients will respond to it at first, but everybody develops chemoresistance. And that's when ovarian cancer becomes deadly," says study author J. Rebecca Liu, M.D., associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan.
"In the past, we've thought the resistance was caused by genetic changes in tumor cells. But we found that's not the whole story," she says. Ovarian cancer is typically treated with cisplatin, a platinum-based chemotherapy. The researchers found that fibroblasts blocked platinum. These cells prevented platinum from accumulating in the tumor and protected tumor cells from being killed off by cisplatin. Immune T cells, on the other hand, overruled the protection of the fibroblasts. When researchers added the immune T cells to the fibroblasts, the tumor cells began to die off.
This approach requires additional clinical testing and is not currently available to patients. Patients seeking information about current ovarian cancer treatments can call the U-M Cancer AnswerLine at 800-865-1125.

FDA OKs immunotherapy drugs for Bladder, Blood Cancers

FDA has approved the first drug for bladder cancer that harnesses the body's immune system, the first major advance in three decades against the most common type of bladder cancer.
Tecentriq won accelerated approval Wednesday from the Food and Drug Administration for treating patients with advanced urothelial cancer after chemotherapy stops helping them, a point when most usually die within about six months.
Such conditional approval is granted based on promising initial test results for disorders where patients have few or no options. Testing on many more patients to confirm the early results, which is required to obtain full approval from the FDA, is in progress.
Tecentriq, developed by the Roche Group's Genentech unit, blocks a protein found on many tumor cells that deactivates T-cells, the key immune-system cells that hunt down and destroy cancer cells.
A similar drug from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., Opdivo, was approved by the FDA late Tuesday for treating Hodgkin lymphoma, the fourth cancer type for which it's been approved in the U.S.
Both drugs are part of a promising new class of injected cancer medicines that work with the patient's own immune system, helping it find and kill tumor cells that might otherwise multiply by using mechanisms to hide from immune-system sentinels.

Scientists have determined how to prevent half of all Cancer Deaths

In the age of $10,000-a-month cancer drugs that often extend life by the thinnest margins, a few precious months before the cancer rages back, the idea of such a potent effect sounds like a fantasy.
A new study published in the journal JAMA Oncology estimates that by applying insights we've had for decades, no smoking, drinking in moderation, maintaining a healthy body weight and exercising, more than half of cancer deaths could be prevented and new cases of cancer could drop by 40 percent to 60 percent. Even as science gains powerful insights into many types of cancer, there's still a lot that scientists don't yet fully understand about its sinister biology. Meanwhile, the new study drives home an important point: Scientists already know how to prevent a large swath of cancer deaths.
"There sort of are two worlds, one world focused on therapy and another world focused on prevention, and I do think those two worlds are coming together now," said Tyler Jacks, director of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"There's room for both. Let’s not ignore the power of therapy and its applications for people who have cancer. We simply cannot ignore that," Jacks said. "But why can’t we also include, as we think about cancer control more broadly, the lifestyle issues, the human behavior issues, that can lower overall risk."

How 'second skin' could help in prevention of Skin Cancer

Scientists have developed a “second skin” that can mimic the properties of youthful skin, according to a report in the journal Nature Materials. Better yet, the chemicals used to make this elastic, wearable crosslinked polymer layer (XPL) are considered safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The XPL may play a pivotal role in pharmaceutical, skin care and beauty products. The unique aspect of this product is that it forms 3-D crosslinking structure that can’t be washed away by sweat or water, and doesn’t transfer to clothing or sheets. XPL can be used for more than just cosmetic purposes. It has been shown to work better than current moisturizers available on the market, which are often used to treat conditions like psoriasis, ichthyosis and eczema. Many of these moisturizers must be used multiple times a day and can transfer onto surfaces like sheets and clothing. Research indicates that XPL would be able to provide moisture to the skin without the mess of transfer.
Another use of “second skin is to keep in place skin medications, like corticosteroids. These medications are used to treat many skin conditions, but again, because of transfer, the body only ends up absorbing about 10 percent of it. The thought is that XPL can be used to seal in skin medications so the body will absorb more.
Skin cancer is another area where XPL could potentially help.
While sunblock is the leading form of prevention against the sun’s damaging rays, it only lasts a short amount of time and can become even less effective if a person is sweating or swimming. According to the report, XPL has the potential to last 24 hours, sealing in sunblock, which could potentially help reduce the rate of skin cancer.

Colombia battles world's biggest drugmaker over Cancer drug

Colombia's government is giving pharmaceutical giant Novartis a few weeks to lower prices on a popular cancer drug or see its monopoly on production of the medicine broken and competition thrown open to generic rivals.
Health Minister Alejandro Gaviria's remarks in an interview Tuesday are the strongest yet in an increasingly public fight with the world's biggest drugmaker that could set a precedent for middle-income countries grappling to contain rising prices for complex drugs.
Memos leaked last week to a nonprofit group, written from the Colombian Embassy in Washington, describe intense lobbying pressure on Colombia, a staunch U.S. ally, from the pharmaceutical industry and its allies in the U.S. Congress.
In one memo, the embassy warns that breaking Novartis' patent for the leukemia drug Gleevec could hurt U.S. support for Colombia's bid to join the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade zone and even jeopardize $450 million in U.S. assistance for a peace deal with leftist rebels. The memos followed meetings between Colombian diplomats and officials from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and a Republican staffer on the Senate Finance Committee whose chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, has close ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
"They're very afraid that Colombia could become an example that spreads across the region."

Proton-Beam Therapy for Cancer gets renewed attention

Ion Beam Applications SA, the Belgian company that leads the global market for huge proton-beam machines, is selling so many systems lately that it needs to boost its 1,200-strong workforce by 400 workers. It launched a big recruitment drive across the country this year, featuring radio and newspaper spots along with dozens of billboards and posters. A breakthrough in 2012 by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania also helped spur demand for the technology, IBA’s Mr. Legrain said. The researchers used a technique known as pencil-beam scanning, which programs the proton so that it fills the three-dimensional shape of the tumor. Previously, radiation oncologists used a less precise method to direct the beam toward the roughly two-dimensional outline of the tumor.
A 2013 study estimated that for prostate cancer patients, proton therapy cost $32,428 per treatment, versus $18,575 for traditional radiotherapy. But advocates believe proton therapy could prove less expensive than traditional radiotherapy in the long term by cutting costs for treatment of side effects from traditional radiotherapy.

First Penis Transplant in the United States

A cancer patient received the first penis transplant in the United States, a Boston hospital said.
Massachusetts General Hospital confirmed Monday that the transplanted penis was done in a 15-hour procedure last week. The organ was transplanted from a deceased donor.
"We're cautiously optimistic," said Cetrulo, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, adding that "it's uncharted waters for us."
The surgery is experimental, part of a research program with the ultimate goal of helping combat veterans with severe pelvic injuries, as well as cancer patients and accident victims.
His team is working on ways to minimize or even eliminate the need for anti-rejection medicines, which transplant patients typically have to take. That research is especially important for veterans, he said, because many are young and will risk serious adverse effects, like cancer and kidney damage, if they have to take the drugs for decades.

UK Cancer charities in desperate plea to Cameron

Leading cancer experts have pleaded with the Prime Minister to prevent NHS plans which they say could deny life-extending drugs to thousands of dying patients.
Fifteen major charities have written to David Cameron, expressing "deep concern" and imploring him to order a review of changes to drugs rationing, which they say will set the country back almost two decades.
Under the plans, due to be introduced in July, only drugs authorized by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (Nice) will receive NHS funding.
A separate Cancer Drugs Fund, launched following a Tory 2010 manifesto pledge, has ensured treatment for thousands more patients whose treatments were rejected by Nice.
Charities say the new system will mean a return wholesale rationing, with patients “cruelly denied” treatment which is routinely funded in much of the Western world.
“Not a single breast cancer drug has been considered cost-effective by Nice in the last seven years!”

Oracle’s Larry Ellison gives $200M to USC for Cancer research

Oracle founder Larry Ellison has donated $200 million to fund a new center at the University of Southern California that will combine interdisciplinary research with the holistic prevention and treatment of cancer.

The gift, among the largest made to cancer research and treatment in recent years, will establish the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC. David B. Agus, professor at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and USC Viterbi School of Engineering, will lead the institute.

USC said institute will draw collaborators from across conventional health and wellness fields, as well as from a broad range of other disciplines such as physics, biology, math and engineering to study cancer and potential ways to prevent, detect and treat the disease. The institute will complement and integrate cancer research being conducted by faculty physicians and scientists across the university. Ellison’s gift will provide the lead investment for a state-of-the-art facility in west Los Angeles that will serve as the Ellison Institute’s home. The building will house interdisciplinary cancer research laboratories and an interactive care clinic. The institute will include a think tank, education and outreach, and a wellness program. “This investment by Larry Ellison in USC is as inspirational as it is momentous, and it will serve as a dynamic force for change in how we approach cancer treatment and prevention,” USC President C. L. Max Nikias said in a statement. “It is a concrete endorsement of USC’s vision to invest in the promise and potential of new technologies, and to support a bold push forward in how we achieve wellness.”

Polio virus to fight Brain Cancer

The Food and Drug Administration has given "breakthrough" status to a treatment that uses the once-feared polio virus to target aggressive forms of brain cancer, in the hope of speeding it to market.
The therapy, developed at Duke University, hopes to use the virus’ debilitating properties to help fight cancer instead of harming its host. The experimental treatment was the brainchild of molecular biologist Matthias Gromeier. By removing a certain genetic sequence and replacing it with material from the common cold virus, the polio would not be able to cause the incapacitating symptoms.
The altered version of polio could still reproduce in cancer cells, therefore making the cancer susceptible to Lipscomb’s and other patients’ immune systems.
“All human cancers develop a shield of protective measures that make them invisible to this immune system,”  “By infecting the tumor, we are actually removing this protective shield and enabling the immune system to attack."

Mitoxantrone linked to increased risk of Colorectal Cancer

The multiple sclerosis (MS) drug Mitoxantrone may be associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer.  Mitoxantrone suppresses the immune system. It was first developed as a chemotherapy drug for certain cancers.

Mitoxantrone is used for aggressive types of relapsing-remitting or progressive MS that do not respond to other MS drugs. But its use is limited because previous studies have shown an increased risk of leukemia and heart damage.
The current study examined whether the drug increases the risk of other types of cancer. For the study, German researchers looked at all people with MS who were treated with mitoxantrone from 1994 to 2007 and followed them until 2010.
Out of the 676 people, 37 people, or 5.5 percent, were diagnosed with cancer after taking the drug, including nine people with breast cancer, seven with colorectal cancer and four with acute myeloid leukemia, which has been associated with mitoxantrone.
The rate of leukemia was 10 times higher in the people treated with mitoxantrone than in the general population in Germany. The rate of colorectal cancer, which is cancer of the colon and rectum, was three times higher than that of the general population. For breast cancer and all other types of cancer, people who had taken mitoxantrone were no more likely to develop the diseases than those in the general population.

New look at Testosterone therapy

Testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) has surged in popularity over the past decade. Millions of older men have turned to TRT to restore hormone levels in hopes of refueling energy and reigniting their sex drive.
Dr. Frances Hayes, a reproductive endocrinologist with Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital, points out that some of these studies had limitations.
“For instance, in one study, TRT doses were much higher than what would usually be prescribed, and the subjects tended to be more frail, with other health problems,” she says. “Other studies showed no evidence of increased risk.” Recent research has supported this position. A study reported at the 2015 American Heart Association Scientific Sessions involved 1,472 men ages 52 to 63 with low testosterone levels and no history of heart disease. Researchers found that healthy men who received TRT did not have a higher risk of heart attack, stroke, or death.
The bottom line is that the long-term risks of TRT are still unknown, as many of these studies have limited follow-ups. That does not mean you should avoid TRT. For a selected subgroup of men, the therapy can be a viable option.
The No. 1 contributor to falling levels is weight gain. “Weight has a bigger impact on testosterone levels than aging. As weight goes up, testosterone levels go down,” she says. A five-point increase on the body mass index scale, for instance, going from 30 to 35, is equivalent to adding 10 years to your age in terms of testosterone levels.

Breast Cancer drug found to reduce seizures

A class of drug that inhibits estrogen production and is used to treat breast cancer has been found to quickly and effectively suppress dangerous brain seizures, according to a new Northwestern University study.
"The effect was profound and very clear," said Catherine S. Woolley, senior author of the study.
"This shows that clinically available drugs could be effective therapies for suppressing seizures in humans."
Woolley and postdoctoral fellow Satoru M. Sato also discovered, to their surprise, that seizures stimulate the production of estrogens in the brain of both males and females and that this plays a previously unknown role in the escalation of seizure activity. Estrogen synthesis during a seizure fuels the seizure, making it worse.

Testosterone therapy does not raise risk of aggressive Prostate Cancer

Men with low levels of the male sex hormone testosterone need not fear that testosterone replacement therapy will increase their risk of prostate cancer.

This is the finding of an analysis of more than a quarter-million medical records of mostly white men in Sweden, research led by investigators at NYU Langone Medical Center and its Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Cancer Center. The international team of study authors will present these results on May 9 at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association in San Diego, Calif.
In the study, researchers found that, as a group, men prescribed testosterone for longer than a year had no overall increase in risk of prostate cancer and, in fact, had their risk of aggressive disease reduced by 50 percent.
"Based on our findings, physicians should still be watching for prostate cancer risk factors, such as being over the age of 40, having African-American ancestry, or having a family history of the disease in men taking testosterone therapy, but should not hesitate to prescribe it to appropriate patients for fear of increasing prostate cancer risk," says lead study investigator and NYU Langone urologist Stacy Loeb, MD, MSc.

More Breast Cancer genes found leading way to New Treatments

In an exciting new discovery that could lead to new breast cancer treatments, scientists have identified five new genes linked to the disease, as well as 13 new “mutational signatures” that influence tumor development. The discovery, by a team of scientists led by Dr. Serena Nik-Zainal, with the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, was based on an analysis of 560 breast cancer genomes of 556 female and four male patients from around the world. The researchers found that breast cancer genomes are highly individual, noting that women who carry the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, known to increase the risk of developing breast or ovarian cancer, had completely different genomes.
This discovery could lead to a much more specific classification of patients, and more effective personalized treatments tailored to individuals with the disease, the researchers said.
"This huge study, examining in great detail the many thousands of mutations present in each of the genomes of 560 cases brings us much closer to a complete description of the changes in DNA in breast cancer and thus to a comprehensive understanding of the causes of the disease and the opportunities for new treatments.”

New discovery of precision medicine for treating Cancer

An international team of scientists, including those at the Translational Genomic Research Institute (TGen), have discovered new avenues of potential treatments for a rare and deadly cancer known as Adrenocortical Carcinoma, or ACC. "This is one of the most comprehensive genomic characterizations ever done of this rare tumor type," said Dr. Timothy Whitsett, an Assistant Professor in TGen's Cancer and Cell Biology Division, and one of the study's authors. "This study should provide rationale and validation for new therapeutic strategies and clinical studies, providing potentially better treatments for ACC patients." The study is part of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), a program overseen by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that aims to generate comprehensive, multi-dimensional maps of the key molecular changes in major types of cancer.
The ACC study examined 91 tumor samples from six countries across four continents, providing a global look at this disease.
One of the major findings of this study is the identification of a third class, or subtype, of ACC. The study showed that the three subtypes of ACC hold significantly different outcomes for patients, and, based on their distinct molecular biomarkers, could help determine the best course of treatment for each patient.
"Clinical implementation of this three-class grading system would represent a true advance for patient care."

New Cancer trial, triple-combination Cancer drug treatment

Pfizer plans to test a combination of three cancer drugs in humans next year. The trial will be one of the first to test three immunotherapies at the same time, and will involve giving a small group of patients a cocktail of drugs to determine whether the combination is safe, and whether it can shrink tumors in those suffering from solid cancers.

The Cancer therapy will add Avelumab, a checkpoint inhibitor to two other drugs, Utomilumab and another code-named OX40. These drugs cost roughly $150,000 per patient per year!

Scientists pioneer a breakthrough to Breast Cancer treatment

In a development that could lead to a new generation of drugs to precisely treat a range of diseases, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have for the first time designed a drug candidate that decreases the growth of tumor cells in animal models in one of the hardest to treat cancers, triple negative breast cancer.

"This is the first example of taking a genetic sequence and designing a drug candidate that works effectively in an animal model against triple negative breast cancer," said TSRI Professor Matthew Disney. "The study represents a clear breakthrough in precision medicine, as this molecule only kills the cancer cells that express the cancer-causing gene, not healthy cells. These studies may transform the way the lead drugs are identified, by using the genetic makeup of a disease." The lab's compound, known as Targaprimir-96, triggers breast cancer cells to kill themselves via programmed cell death by precisely targeting a specific RNA that ignites the cancer.
The drug candidate was tested in animal models over a 21-day course of treatment. Results showed decreased production of microRNA-96 and increased programmed cell death, significantly reducing tumor growth. Since targaprimir-96 was highly selective in its targeting, healthy cells were unaffected.

Cellect granted Canadian patent for its Stem Cell selection technology

TEL AVIV, Israel,  Cellect Biomed Ltd. a developer of innovative technology that enables the functional selection of stem cells, announced today that it has been granted a patent for its technology platform for cell selection from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office.

The patent protects the usage of apoptosis-inducing materials for the destruction of cells that inhibit the receipt of bone marrow grafts.  With patents already issued in the United States, Europe, India and Israel, this Canadian patent expands Cellect’s already formidable intellectual property estate.

Dr. Shai Yarkoni, the Company's CEO, noted: "Our business model is based not only on our internal development of new products for various medical needs, but also on collaborations and out-licenses of our technology to companies and research institutions in the field.  Accordingly, as awareness and acceptance of our ground-breaking technology platform continues to grow amongst physicians, patients, researchers and potential partners, it is vital this opportunity is well protected.”

Cellect is making final preparations for the planned launch of its first clinical trial in leukemia patients, following the receipt of IRB approval from the Rambam Hospital. The trial will be conducted in the bone marrow transplantation (“BMT”) unit and led by Clinical Assistant Professor Zila Zuckerman, the Director of the unit, subject to the approval of the Israeli Ministry of Health.

The trial is a first of its kind in leukemia patients in need of bone marrow transplantation. In the clinical trial, the BMT process will be performed at the Rambam Hospital in leukemia patients using Cellect's cell selection technology, "Cellect Inside".

Stand Up To Cancer offers nurse training for administering New Cancer Therapies

In recognition of Nurses Appreciation Week, Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) announces the development of a series of Certification for Nursing Education (CNE) training modules by experts from Boston College William F. Connell School of Nursing. The CNE modules will equip nurses with the skills and knowledge needed to manage the unique challenges and patient symptoms that accompany administration of emerging immunotherapies to treat cancer. The first of a series of the three web-based SU2C-Boston College Immunotherapy CNE modules will be available to nurses in July 2016.

"Nurses are essential collaborators in translational cancer research, bringing new and effective treatments from the research laboratory to the patient," stated SU2C President and CEO, Sung Poblete, RN, PhD who holds a PhD in Nursing from Rutgers University. "SU2C is at the forefront of immunoncology research and we recognize that an essential part of bringing these cutting-edge therapies to patients is the effective dissemination of information about the treatments. Nurses play an integral role in patient management and these modules will provide a new toolkit for patient care."

Experimental therapy halts treatment-resistant Brain Tumors

A multi-institutional team led by researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center publishes their results on May 9. Testing a multi-step therapeutic strategy, the scientists found a way to use a gene therapy to shut down a gene long-implicated in the formation of high-grade gliomas called Olig2. The protein encoded by Olig2 is expressed in the majority of gliomas. Removing the Olig2 gene halts tumor growth, while elimination of Olig2-producing cells blocks tumor formation.
"We find that elimination of dividing Olig2-expressing cells blocks initiation and progression of glioma in animal models and further show that Olig2 is the molecular arbiter of genetic adaptability that makes high-grade gliomas aggressive and treatment resistant," said Qing Richard Lu, PhD, lead investigator and scientific director of the Brain Tumor Center at Cincinnati Children's. "By finding a way to inhibit Olig2 in tumor forming cells, we were able to change the tumor cells' makeup and sensitize them to targeted molecular treatment. This suggests a proof of principle for stratified therapy in distinct subtypes of malignant gliomas." The current study may apply to high-grade brain gliomas and a fatal brainstem tumor called DIPG (Diffused Intrinsic Pontine Glioma), which expresses Olig2 and is inoperable because of its location in a brain region controlling vital functions. Even if these cancers do initially respond to a specific targeted treatment, they adapt by finding genetic/molecular workarounds, evade treatment and continue growing. Researchers caution the experimental therapeutic approach they describe requires extensive additional research and remains years away from possible clinical testing. Still, Dr. Lu said the data are a significant research breakthrough. The current study finds a potential chink in the molecular armor of these stubborn cancers.

Gender plays a role in determining Cancer Treatment choices

A study at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reviewed 13 cancer types and provided a molecular understanding of sex effects in diverse cancers. The research revealed two cancer-type groups associated with cancer incidence and mortality, suggesting a "pressing need" to develop sex-specific therapeutic strategies for some cancers.
Using data from The Cancer Genome Atlas, a team led by Han Liang, Ph.D., associate professor of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, found more than half of the genes studied that were related to clinical practice of cancer treatment showed sex-biased signatures in certain cancer types.
"Our study helps elucidate the molecular basis for sex disparities in cancer and lays a critical foundation for the future development of precision cancer medicine that is sex-specific," said Liang. "This is a crucial finding as currently, male and female patients with many cancer types often are treated in a similar way without explicitly considering their gender.""Special consideration should be given to those in the strong sex-effect group in terms of both drug development and practice," said Liang. "For a therapeutic target with a strong sex-biased signature, sex-specific clinical trials may be more likely to succeed. This new information is vital as the fundamental issue of sex differences for cancer prevention and therapy has not been investigated systematically."

Researchers develop new approach to assess Cancer drug sensitivity in cells

"More than 90 percent of candidate Cancer drugs fail in late stage clinical trials, costing hundreds of millions of dollars," said Vito Quaranta, M.D., director of the Quantitative Systems Biology Center at Vanderbilt. "The flawed in vitro drug discovery metric may not be the only responsible factor, but it may be worth pursuing an estimate of its impact."
Quaranta and his colleagues have developed a new metric to evaluate a compound's effect on cell proliferation, called the DIP (drug-induced proliferation) rate, that overcomes the flawed bias in the traditional method. For more than 30 years, scientists have evaluated the ability of a compound to kill cells by adding the compound to cells and counting how many cells are alive after 72 hours. But these "proliferation assays" that measure cell number at a single time point don't take into account the bias introduced by exponential cell proliferation, even in the presence of the drug. The findings have particular importance in light of recent international efforts to generate data sets that include the responses of "thousands of cell lines to hundreds of compounds," Quaranta said. The Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia (CCLE) and Genomics of Drug Sensitivity in Cancer (GDSC) databases include drug response data along with genomic and proteomic data that detail each cell line's molecular makeup. The researchers evaluated the responses of four different melanoma cell lines to the drug Vemurafenib, currently used to treat melanoma, with the standard metric, used for the CCLE and GDSC databases, and with the DIP rate. In one cell line, they found a stark disagreement between the two metrics. A software package that will be available to other researchers through a hyperlink in the Nature Methods paper. Quaranta is working with the Vanderbilt Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization to identify commercial entities that can further refine the software and make it widely available to the research community to inform drug discovery.

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Researchers develop human-derived antibody that destroys Cancer cells

Scientists at Duke University have developed an antibody that targets cancer cells and triggers an immune response to kill tumors while leaving other cells unharmed. The emerging approach to cancer treatment holds promise as an alternative to existing immunotherapies that pose unwanted side effects, researchers said. They observed that a human-derived, purified antibody kills tumor cells when bound to a specific target, a protein called complement factor H (CFH), which protects cells from an immune system attack. Researchers extracted the white blood cells from patients who made the antibody, sequenced the antibody genes, and cloned them to make mature antibodies. The antibody was then tested in multiple cancer cell lines, including lung, gastric and breast cancers in lab dishes and in tumors in living mice. Researchers observed that the antibodies inhibited tumor growth without obvious side effects.
“More important is what we’re finding is that it kills enough tumor cells to hold the tumor in check,” he said. “What we’re working on now is to show it allows more immune cells to come in and take over.”
The technique of human-derived antibodies was first designed to use with HIV patients, to find antibodies for infectious disease.
“We’re the first group to use it for cancer, Everybody told us we couldn’t do it.”

One Direction singer chops off hair, Donates locks to Cancer Charity

Harry Styles has chopped off his luscious locks for a good cause.

The 22-year-old One Direction singer took to Instagram on Friday to share a photo of his hand giving the thumbs up while holding a cut ponytail with the caption, “Whoops. #Littleprincesstrust.”

It seems the singer is using his time off during 1D’s current hiatus to do good for the Little Princess Trust organization, which is a cancer charity in the U.K. for kids.

“Our mission is to supply real hair wigs to children suffering with cancer, for the duration of their treatment,” the site reads.

While Styles' big change is clearly coming from the heart, some of his fans were disappointed to see his signature hair go.

Starving Cancer the key to new treatments

Researchers have identified a vital supply route that cancer cells use to obtain their nutrients, in a discovery that could lead to new treatments to stop the growth of tumours.

The research team blocked gateways through which the cancer cell was obtaining the amino acid glutamine and found the cells almost completely stopped growing.
"This is likely to work in a wide range of cancers, because it is a very common mechanism in cancer cells," said lead researcher Professor Stefan Bröer from The Australian National University (ANU).
"Better still, this should lead to chemotherapy with much less serious side-effects, as normal cells do not use glutamine as a building material.
"Crucial white blood cells, which current treatments damage, could be spared, and it could cut out the hair loss that chemotherapy causes."
There are 917 different types of cancer currently identified, and many cures work only for a single type of the disease or become ineffective as cancers develop resistance to chemotherapy.
However Professor Broer, a biochemist in the ANU Research School of Biology, said the new approach would be less prone to resistance because blocking the glutamine transport mechanism is an external process that would be hard for cancer cells to get around.

Research points to a new treatment for Pancreatic Cancer

Researchers have shown how controlling cholesterol metabolism in pancreatic cancer cells reduces metastasis, pointing to a potential new treatment using drugs previously developed for atherosclerosis.

"We show for the first time that if you control the cholesterol metabolism you could reduce pancreatic cancer spread to other organs," said Ji-Xin Cheng, a professor in Purdue University's Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Chemistry. "We chose pancreatic cancer to test this approach because it is the most aggressive disease of all the cancers."
The researchers found accumulations of the compound cholesteryl ester in human pancreatic cancer specimens and cell lines, demonstrating a link between cholesterol esterification and metastasis. Esterification is a biochemical process that allows cholesterol to be stored in cells. Excess quantities of cholesterol result in cholesteryl ester being stored in lipid droplets within cancer cells.
"The results of this study demonstrate a new strategy for treating metastatic pancreatic cancer by inhibiting cholesterol esterification," said Jingwu Xie, the Jonathan and Jennifer Simmons Professor at the Indiana University School of Medicine and a researcher at the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center.

Researchers identify cause for Prostate Cancer treatment resistance among African-American men

UK Researchers at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) recently demonstrated that mitochondrial dysfunction may help explain the greater incidence of prostate cancer and poorer responses to conventional therapies in African American men. Such findings suggest that restoring proper mitochondrial function may be a novel therapeutic avenue to reduce such disparities.
he most commonly diagnosed cancer among African American men is prostate cancer, accounting for 31% of all cancers. According to the Prostate Cancer Foundation, African American men are more likely than Caucasian men to develop the malignancy and 2.4 times more likely to die from it, as they respond poorly to current therapies. The underlying causal mechanisms are still undefined, but researchers suspect that it is due to a combination of genetic differences, medical care, and lifestyle. More recently, mitochondrial dysfunction has also been identified as a possible key factor. “In an earlier study, we provided the first evidence that African-American men possess reduced levels of mitochondrial genetic material in healthy prostate tissues, compared to Caucasian-American men. This new study highlights the importance of mitochondrial dysfunction as one of the main reasons for prostate cancer health disparities.”

Chemo combination kills Breast Cancer stem cells

Two chemotherapy drugs that are ineffective on their own killed breast cancer stem cells when combined to treat rodent and human cancer cells, researchers report in a new study.
The drugs, 5-azacytidine and Butyrate, are often used together with other cancer treatments to reduce recurrence, with researchers at Augusta University finding their efficacy is tied to normalizing gene expression in stem cells expected to turn cancerous and spread beyond the breast.
Researchers at Augusta University have previously shown 5-azacytidine's ability to inhibit DNMT1, which reduces levels of the ISL1 gene, a control mechanism for stem cells and natural tumor suppressor. In the previous study, when DNMT1 was blocked, 80 percent of breast tumors were eliminated.
Butyrate, which is present at high levels in breast milk, blocks the signaling molecules RAD51AP1 and SPC25. The two molecules ordinarily help repair DNA but are often over-expressed in cancer, as well as because of some cancer treatments, enabling and aiding the spread of cancer cells.
The new study suggests getting at stem cells may help doctors more effectively fight cancer, the researchers say. Tamoxifen, prevent recurrence of breast cancer, they said.
The researchers found the combination of drugs affected the ways stem cells make breast cancer, including by preventing the mutations that enable its spread away from the breast. The finding helps understand why the pair can, when used with the chemotherapy
"This combination might need to be considered for all breast cancer patients because their common denominator is cancer stem cells," Thangaraju said.

New Zealand's fight to drive down Cancer Drug pricing

A 'Mexican Stand-off ' has broken out between Merck and New Zealand over a pricey new cancer drug in the latest example of how the cost of medicines is a flashpoint between drug makers and governments.

At issue is Merck’s Keytruda, one of the new oncology treatments that harness the power of the body’s immune system to battle tumors. The medicine was approved in the United States two years ago to combat melanoma and, more recently, to tackle the most common form of lung cancer. Although priced at a hefty $150,000 a year, Keytruda is largely covered by public and private payers in the US.

In New Zealand, the drug was approved last fall to treat melanoma. But since then, Pharmac, the government agency that decides whether coverage will be funded, has so far refused to endorse Keytruda. The agency contends evidence is lacking to verify whether the drug helps melanoma patients live longer compared with other new melanoma treatments or standard chemotherapy.

Patient groups are upset with Pharmac. For instance, the Cancer Society of New Zealand, has expressed frustration that Pharmac has not released cost effectiveness data to justify its decision.

The struggle between Pharmac and Merck may intensify, though. Just last week, the government regulator, Medsafe, endorsed a rival treatment called Opdivo from Bristol-Myers Squibb for treating melanoma. And Pharmac has agreed to fund coverage.
“We can now expect Pharmac to lever one company off against each other in order to drive down the price for New Zealand taxpayers to get the best possible value for money,” Cancer Society medical director Chris Jackson, stated.

Breaking down the Brain Barrier to fight Brain Cancer

Neurosurgeons using lasers to treat brain cancer have discovered the technique breaks down the blood-brain barrier, a finding that could potentially lead to new treatment options for patients diagnosed with the deadly disease, Brain Cancer.
The blood-brain barrier is a sort of natural “security system” that filters out drugs and other substances in blood so they can’t reach the brain.
“We were able to show that this blood-brain barrier is broken down for about 4 weeks after you do this laser therapy,” said Dr. Eric Leuthardt, a professor of neurosurgery at Washington University in St. Louis.  
“So not only are you killing the tumor, you are actually opening up a window of opportunity to deliver various drugs and chemicals and therapies that could otherwise not get there,” he added.
Currently the research is in a second round clinical trial. The blood-brain barrier shields the brain from harmful toxins but also blocks potentially helpful drugs, such as chemotherapy.
The laser technology, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2009 as a surgical tool that can be used to treat brain tumors, involves a small laser tipped probe that heats up and kills tumors from the inside out.
As part of the trial, following the laser therapy, patients are dosed with Doxorubicin, a powerful chemotherapy drug known as one of the least likely to get through the blood-brain barrier.

Scientists hail 'milestone' genetic find in Breast Cancer

Scientists say they now have a near-perfect picture of the genetic events that cause breast cancer.

The study has been described as a "milestone" moment that could help unlock new ways of treating and preventing the disease.The largest study of its kind unpicked practically all the errors that cause healthy breast tissue to become cancerous. Cancer Research UK said the findings were an important stepping-stone to new drugs for treating cancer. To understand the causes of the disease, scientists have to understand what goes wrong in our DNA that makes healthy tissue turn cancerous.
The international team looked at all 3 billion letters of people's genetic code, their entire blueprint of life, in 560 breast cancers.
They uncovered 93 sets of instructions, or genes, that if mutated, can cause tumors. Some have been discovered before, but scientists expect this to be the definitive list, barring a few rare mutations.
"There are about 20,000 genes in the human genome. It turns out, now we have this complete view of breast cancer, there are 93 of those genes that if mutated will convert a normal breast cell into a breast cancer cell. That is an important piece of information.
"We hand that list over to the universities, the pharmaceuticals, the biotech companies to start developing new drugs because those mutated genes and their proteins are targets for new therapeutics."There are now many drugs that have been developed over the last 15 years against such targets which we know work."
There is also bad news in the data, 60% of the mutations driving cancer are found in just 10 genes.
There are mutations so rare they are in just a tiny fraction of cancers meaning it is unlikely there will be any financial incentive to develop therapies.

New drugs for aggressive Prostate Cancer 'promising'

Researchers found that the drugs, called Hsp90 inhibitors, specifically target and inactivate a mechanism commonly used by prostate cancer cells to evade the effects of standard treatment.
The findings provide vital information about the role of Hsp90 in drug-resistant prostate cancers, and open up potential new routes to cancer treatment based on blocking this or related proteins.
A team at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, found that Hsp90 inhibitors countered the effect of malfunctions in the androgen receptor, which often occur in resistance to hormone treatments.
The research suggests that Hsp90 inhibitors could be effective in prostate cancers that have become resistant to treatment and started spreading round the body.
Hsp90 inhibitors are among several innovative new types of treatment designed to attack cancer indirectly, by destabilising multiple different proteins required for the growth and survival of cancer cells. By destroying several cancer signals at once, they are designed to make it hard for cancers to escape the effects of treatment, giving them promise as potential 'resistance-busting' drugs.