Articles
Breast cancer survivors who are able to let go of old goals and set new ones experience an improvement in overall well-being, according to a new collaborative study published in Psycho-Oncology.
Details of a novel protein purifier that could help pharmaceutical companies save time and money appear in a recent issue of the journal Langmuir. The high-performance membranes, developed by Michigan State University chemists Merlin Bruening and Greg Baker, are appropriate for protein purification, a central step in the development of various new drugs.
Last week, Votrient (pazopanib), a drug used to treat patients with advanced soft tissue sarcoma who have previously received chemotherapy, was approved by the FDA. Pazopanib is a pill that works by interfering with angiogenesis.
Soft tissue sarcoma is a rare cancer with many subtypes; it occurs in about 10,000 cases annually in the United States. More than 20 subtypes of sarcoma were included in the clinical trial leading to approval of pazopanib, however, the drug is not approved for patients with adipocytic soft tissue sarcoma and gastrointestinal stromal tumors.
The American Cancer Society recently reported that maintaining a healthy weight, getting adequate physical activity, and eating a healthy diet can decrease the chance of recurrence and increase the chance of disease-free survival after a cancer diagnosis. The new recommendations are published early online in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.
Increasing evidence shows that for many cancers, excess weight, lack of exercise, and poor nutrition increase the risk of cancer recurrence and reduce the likelihood of disease-free and overall survival for cancer patients.
In a survey of 1500 people, participants were asked to list the potential warning signs of lung cancer, the most common cause of cancer death. Poor survey results left the study authors astonished.
Results included the following statistics:
Researchers have documented diverse genetic changes in different parts of the same primary tumor, suggesting that individual tumors harbor a complexity of genetic changes that has not been well appreciated (Gerlinger M, Rowan AJ, Horswell S, et al. N Engl J Med. 2012;366:883-892). This discovery has implications for personalized medicine directed at genetic changes identified in 1 biopsy of a primary tumor.
Primary gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) sited outside the gastrointestinal (GI) tract carries a poorer prognosis than primary GIST within the GI tract, according to a study presented at the recent ASCO GI Symposium in January 2012. Lead investigator of the study, Mary L. Guye, MD, surgical oncologist at the City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte, California, noted that these results suggest that GIST location should be factored into risk stratification.
Basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), commonly referred to as nonmelanoma skin cancers (NMSCs), are the most common types of cancers in the United States. These 2 cancers account for approximately 2 million cases of skin cancer annually.1 BCC is approximately 4 to 5 times more common than SCC.2 Although rarely metastatic, BCC and SCC can cause substantial local destruction involving extensive areas of soft tissue, cartilage, and bone, as well as disfigurement.
Updated analysis of disease-free survival (DFS) in the NO16968 trial confirms a survival benefit with the addition of oxaliplatin in adjuvant treatment of stage III colorectal cancer. The study compared XELOX (capecitabine plus oxaliplatin) versus bolus 5-fluorouracil/leucovorin (5-FU/LV) in 1886 patients with resected stage III colon cancer, and the updated analysis was based on a median follow-up of 7 years.