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Flaxseed may guard healthy tissues and organs from the harmful effects of radiation, according to researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The study demonstrated that a diet of flaxseed given to mice protected lung tissues before exposure to radiation and caused a noticeable reduction in damage after exposure occurred.

The Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE) recently granted the National Comprehensive Cancer Network^® (NCCN) continuing education accreditation through June 2013. This authorization is essential to oncology pharmacists who require up-to-date and evidence-based educational programs based on the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines™).

Approval has been issued by the FDA for updated label information on pioglitazone (Actos) and medications that contain it. This follows its warning in June 2011 regarding a risk of bladder cancer with use of pioglitazone, a warning that came just days after France and Germany banned use of the drug.

A recently developed urine test can assist in the early detection of and treatment decisions regarding prostate cancer, a study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology finds.

The test is designed to supplement an elevated PSA screening result. While defining those men at highest risk for clinically significant prostate cancer, the test could also delay or negate the need for a needle biopsy in some patients.

In its update of its technology assessment guidelines on chemotherapy sensitivity and resistance assays (CSRAs), the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) cautioned against the use of this technology to select chemotherapeutic agents for individual patients. Rather, the guidelines recommend that oncologists “make chemotherapy treatment recommendations based on published reports of clinical trials and a patient's health status and treatment preferences.”

Breast cancer patients with no response to tamoxifen may overcome resistance to the widely-used drug when taken in combination with the leukemia chemotherapy dasatinib, new research from the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson suggests.

About 70% of breast cancer diagnoses are estrogen receptor (ER)–positive disease, which indicates that the tumor may respond to tamoxifen. However, up to 35% of these ER-positive tumors have little to no response to the drug or ultimately develop resistance to it.

Late-stage ovarian cancer patients responded well to an experimental carboplatin/decitabine combination therapy, even though they had become resistant to carboplatin, Indiana University researchers report. Furthermore, the researchers believe they have discovered biomarkers that could assist in identifying patients who are most likely to benefit from this therapy. 

Although maspin is believed to reduce the formation, development, and spread of tumors in several aggressive cancers (breast, ovarian, and head and neck cancers), it has been challenging to utilize this information and predict how cancer patients will fare with its use; the presence of maspin has been associated with both good and bad prognoses. The cause of this irregularity was considered to be based on the location of maspin within the cell, whether in the nucleus or in the cytoplasm, according to Drs. Read More ›