New approach to Brain Cancer radiation

A new approach to brain radiation may spare critical thinking skills in thousands of patients with brain cancer.
Doctors often treat patients with brain lesions or metastases with whole brain radiation.
It can be effective, but can also lead to troubling short-term memory deficits.
Now doctors at Carolinas HealthCare System in Charlotte have found patients who got targeted radiation, pinpointing those brain lesions, have fewer memory problems and better quality of life.
Dr. Anthony Asher compared the outcomes of treating advanced cancer patients with whole brain radiation plus focused radiation versus only focused therapy.
The addition of whole brain radiation did not extend patient survival and actually had greater toxic effects on the brain.
“If we cannot extend survival, then we have to make sure that we are not worsening patients’ quality of life,” Dr. Asher says.

New gene therapy prevents muscle wasting associated with Cancer

Australian researchers have demonstrated a new gene therapy-based strategy that could be used to prevent the loss of muscle mass and physical strength associated with advanced cancer. Up to 80 per cent of patients with advanced cancer suffer from "cachexia", a condition of pronounced weight loss, frailty and fatigue, associated with severe wasting of muscle and fat. For these individuals, muscle wasting is a predictor of poor outcomes and reduced survival, as debilitating frailty leads to loss of independent movement, impaired respiratory function, and reduced tolerance for aggressive chemotherapy regimens.
By targeting the processes that take place inside the muscle cells themselves, researchers from Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Monash University, and The University of Melbourne have identified a way to treat the frailty of cachexia in a pre-clinical model without side-effect risks.
Taking advantage of the processes by which viruses introduce genetic material into cells, the team developed purpose-built "viral vectors"; tiny particles that deliver a therapeutic gene to muscles and the heart. Once inside the muscle and heart cells, the therapeutic gene produces a protein that prevents cachexia-causing factors in the blood stream from switching on the signalling responsible for muscle wasting. 

BRCA1 mutations in Breast, Ovarian Cancer can predict treatment resistance

This month, two studies in the JCI investigated the mechanisms underlying the treatment resistance associated with some BRCA1 mutations, and the findings provide information that may help predict which treatments will be effective in women with breast and ovarian cancer.
Neil Johnson's lab at the Fox Chase Cancer Center examined treatment resistance in breast cancer cells expressing the same BRCA1185delAG mutation and determined that the RING-deficient BRCA1 protein was also responsible for loss of sensitivity to certain types of cancer treatments.
These findings identify specific BRCA1 mutations that are more likely to develop therapy resistance, which may lead to more accurate predictions and personalized treatments for breast and ovarian cancers.