A targeted cancer drug already in use to treat some women with ovarian and breast cancer may also be beneficial for some people with advanced pancreatic cancer who have inherited mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, according to results from a large clinical trial. In the clinical trial, called POLO, participants who received olaparib (Lynparza) following standard chemotherapy lived for a median of 7.4 months without their pancreatic cancer progressing (progression-free survival), compared with 3.8 months for those who received a placebo after chemotherapy. The findings were presented June 2 at the 2019 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting. Of the 92 patients…
Author: Brett Johnson
Some women with endometrial cancer may be able to receive less intensive treatment than is commonly given to patients without increasing the risk of the disease recurring within 5 years, according to the results of a randomized clinical trial. In the NCI-funded study, women with locally advanced endometrial cancer who received chemotherapy after surgery were no less likely than women who received chemotherapy plus radiation (chemoradiation) after surgery to have a recurrence of their cancers in 5 years. The trial included more than 700 women who initially had surgery to remove endometrial cancer, the more common type of uterine cancer. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either…
Cancer immunotherapy relies on getting T cells—the immune system’s primary killers of infected and diseased cells—to attack and kill tumor cells. But there’s an important stumbling block for immunotherapy: T cells’ ability to kill can fade, a phenomenon often referred to as exhaustion. Research groups from around the globe have now identified several proteins that appear to play a central role in transforming T cells from powerful destroyers to depleted bystanders with limited capacity to harm cancer cells. A series of recent studies—including three published June 17 in Nature and one initially published May 31 in PNAS—largely zeroed in on one protein in particular, a transcription factor…
Radiation therapy, a widely used treatment for brain metastases, can impair important brain functions like memory, processing speed, and attention span, often greatly affecting patients’ quality of life. Initial results from a large clinical trial now suggest that an advanced radiotherapy technique can limit the harm to patients’ cognitive function compared to standard radiation therapy without affecting the treatment’s ability to shrink or control brain tumors. In the NCI-funded trial, patients with brain metastases were treated with the drug memantine (Namenda), which has been shown to help protect cognitive function, and whole-brain radiation therapy (WBRT). Half of the patients, however, received a technically advanced form of…
Results from a new study may explain how astrocytes, a type of brain cell, can drive the spread of cancer to the brain. In the study, researchers showed that astrocytes can activate a growth protein in cancer cells called PPAR-gamma. That protein, in turn, helps the cancer cells gain a foothold in the brain. Metastasis, or the spread of cancer cells to different organs in the body, is a long process that requires a cancer cell to break away from the initial, or primary, tumor, travel through the blood or lymph system, leave the circulation to settle in a distant organ, and grow. Although…
Though it’s the fourth most common type of cancer worldwide, there is still no regular screening guidelines for stomach cancer. Most available stomach cancer screening tests are inaccurate, resulting in false positives and emotional rollercoasters. The troubling part is that stomach cancer rarely shows symptoms in the early stages. With the tumor being impossible to see from the outside, most cases of stomach cancer are diagnosed at a late stage. However, for Amy Rehm, what seemed like an unlucky chain of illnesses resulted in the ability to identify and treat stomach cancer before allowing the cancer to spread. “My journey…
Scientists may have pinpointed the cause of some forms of a rare cancer called gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs), according to a new NCI-funded study. However, the culprit isn’t a harmful genetic mutation, as is typical for cancer, but changes in genes that don’t involve mutations—what are called epigenetic alterations. About 10% of people with GIST have a form of the disease known as SDH-deficient GIST. Tumors of this type are marked by widespread epigenetic alterations but, until now, it hasn’t been clear if these alterations caused the cancer and could be potential targets for treatment. The new study shows that, in tumors of some people with SDH-deficient GIST,…
For some patients with an aggressive form of metastatic colorectal cancer, a treatment regimen that consists of a combination of targeted cancer drugs can improve how long they live without increasing their risk of serious side effects, results from a new clinical trial show. The phase 3 BEACON CRC trial tested both a three-drug combination and two-drug combination to treat people with advanced colorectal cancer whose tumors have a specific mutation in the BRAF gene. The mutation, called V600E, is found in about 10% of metastatic colorectal cancers and is associated with especially poor outcomes for patients. Patients who received the three-drug regimen—which used the…