UK researchers find Aspirin could help boost Cancer treatment

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

Brain Cancer has potential for new therapy

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

Bankrupted by Cancer treatment costs

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

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

Surgical risk more significant than timing for Colon Cancer patients

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wasp venom a weapon against Cancer

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

Genetics help guide kids' Cancer Treatment

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