Brain Metastases News and Research

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Elderly survivors of breast, lung, and skin cancers face risk of brain metastasis later in life

Elderly survivors of breast cancer, lung cancer, and melanoma face risk of brain metastasis later in life, and may require extra surveillance in the years following initial cancer treatment.

3 May 2019

New study highlights need for equity in access to radiation therapy care in rural areas

The newest study of America's radiation oncology workforce finds that gender and race gaps have narrowed slightly, although persistent and growing geographic disparities point to a need for more equity in access to radiation therapy care.

5 Apr 2019

Prophylactic cranial irradiation used as standard approach for patients with NSCLC

Prophylactic cranial irradiation, a technique used to prevent the clinical development of brain metastases, is established as a standard approach for many patients with small cell lung cancer after initial therapy.

19 Mar 2019

Estrogen can affect surrounding brain cells to promote triple-negative breast cancer metastasis

Triple-negative breast cancers are more likely than other breast cancer types to metastasize and are especially likely to go the brain in younger women. Researchers have tested various hypotheses to explain this danger.

2 Mar 2019

Why melanoma tumors in the brain may be worse?

Melanoma tumors that have spread to the brain are equipped to thwart immunotherapies and targeted therapies that succeed against tumors growing in other sites.

20 Feb 2019

MGH-led research team reveals how solid stress impacts tissue surrounding brain tumors

A Massachusetts General Hospital-led research team has demonstrated, for the first time, how solid stress - the physical forces exerted by the solid components of a tumor - impacts the tissue surrounding brain tumors and contributes to resulting neurological dysfunction and neuronal cell death.

8 Jan 2019

Patients with stage IV disease now living a median 6.8 years after ALK+ NSCLC diagnosis

According to the National Cancer Institute, patients diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) between the years 1995 and 2001 had 15 percent chance of being alive 5 years later. For patients with stage IV disease, describing cancer that has spread to distant sites beyond the original tumor, that statistic drops to 2 percent.

2 Jan 2019

Using molecular targeting approach to kill melanoma cells

In 1960, scientists described the "Philadelphia chromosome" that causes chronic myeloid leukemia, and in 2001 the Food and Drug Administration approved the drug imatinib to disable the action of this cancer-causing genetic change.

27 Nov 2018

NIH awards $3.5 million to continue development of robotic system for treating brain tumors

Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Albany Medical College, along with corporate partners GE Global Research and Acoustic MedSystems Inc., have received a five-year, $3.5 million award from the National Institutes of Health through the National Cancer Institutes' Academic-Industrial Partnership program, to continue development of an innovative robotic system that, operating within an MRI scanner, can deliver a minimally invasive probe into the brain to destroy metastatic brain tumors with high-intensity therapeutic ultrasound under real-time guidance.

13 Nov 2018

FDA approves LORBRENA for treatment of patients with ALK-positive metastatic NSCLC

Pfizer Inc. today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved LORBRENA, a third-generation anaplastic lymphoma kinase tyrosine kinase inhibitor for patients with ALK-positive metastatic non-small cell lung cancer whose disease has progressed on crizotinib and at least one other ALK inhibitor for metastatic disease; or whose disease has progressed on alectinib or ceritinib as the first ALK inhibitor therapy for metastatic disease.

5 Nov 2018

New City of Hope CAR T cell trial focuses on HER2-positive breast cancer patients with brain metastases

Women with HER2-positive breast cancer that has spread to the brain need more treatment options, and City of Hope and Mustang Bio Inc. are meeting that challenge.

30 Oct 2018

Hippocampal avoidance during whole-brain radiotherapy reduces risk of cognitive decline

Whole-brain radiotherapy can be delivered more safely to patients with brain metastases by avoiding the hippocampus according to a randomized phase III NRG Oncology trial presented at the American Society for Radiation Oncology Annual Meeting.

23 Oct 2018

Takeda announces positive Phase 3 ALTA-1L data in first-line therapy for advanced ALK+ NSCLC

Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited today announced that intracranial efficacy data from the Phase 3 ALTA-1L (ALK in Lung Cancer Trial of BrigAtinib in 1st Line) trial showed improved intracranial progression-free survival (PFS) and intracranial objective response rate (ORR) with ALUNBRIG (brigatinib) compared to crizotinib among anaplastic lymphoma kinase-positive (ALK+) non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients.

22 Oct 2018

Brigatinib drug may offer first-line treatment option for ALK-positive NSCLC

Results of a 275-patient, multi-national phase III clinical trial known as ALTA-1L published today in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented concurrently in the press program at the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) World Conference on Lung Cancer 2018 argue for brigatinib as a first-line treatment option for advanced ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer.

26 Sep 2018

Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials of entrectinib drug in ROS1-positive NSCLC show promising results

Results of phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trials of the drug entrectinib in ROS1-positive non-small cell lung cancer presented on the press program of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer 19th World Conference on Lung Cancer show a response rate of 77.4 percent for 53 patients evaluable for response, with median duration of response of 24.6 months.

25 Sep 2018

Immunotherapy combination shrinks melanoma that has spread to the brain

Combination immunotherapy shrank melanoma that has spread to the brain in more than half of the patients in a clinical trial reported in the New England Journal of Medicine led by an investigator at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

23 Aug 2018

Immunotherapies may increase overall survival in patients with melanoma brain metastases

Among patients with cutaneous melanoma who had brain metastases (MBM), first-line treatment with a checkpoint inhibitor was associated with a 1.4-fold increase in median overall survival, according to results from a national cohort.

13 Jul 2018

Clinical trial results of tucatinib with T-DM1 shows promise in treating HER2+ breast cancer

Phase 1b clinical trial results published in JAMA Oncology show promise for the combination of tucatinib with T-DM1 against heavily pretreated HER2-positive breast cancer.

11 Jul 2018

Study explores occurrence and treatment of brain metastases in ROS1 lung cancer

Increasingly, doctors are treating lung cancer based on the genetic rearrangements driving the disease. For example, cancers that are driven by changes in the genes ALK, EGFR, and ROS1 can now all be paired with drugs that target these specific changes.

10 Jul 2018

New treatment regimen boosts survival for young adults and children with T-cell malignancies

In a federally funded, randomized phase III clinical trial performed by the Children's Oncology Group (COG), 90% of children and young adults with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) or T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma (T-LL) were alive four years after starting treatment regimens on this trial, and 84% were cancer free.

17 May 2018