Cancer News and Research

Latest Cancer News and Research

Data from Oncolytics’ REOLYSIN Phase III combination trial on head and neck cancers

Oncolytics Biotech Inc. today provided an update on its Phase III trial of REOLYSIN in combination with carboplatin and paclitaxel for the treatment of head and neck cancers (REO 018).

12 Sep 2012

First Edition: September 12, 2012

Today's headlines include news about former President Bill Clinton's role on the presidential campaign trail as well as reports from Capitol Hill and details of a new survey regarding health insurance costs.

12 Sep 2012

MD Anderson joins API’s Actimab-A Phase I/II trial in acute myeloid leukemia

Actinium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (API), a biopharmaceutical company that develops innovative targeted payload immunotherapeutics, announced that MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas has joined the Company's ongoing Phase I/II trial in newly diagnosed patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

12 Sep 2012

Children's Hospital Oakland to celebrate 100th birthday

Children's Hospital & Research Center Oakland is celebrating its 100th birthday. The free-standing, not-for-profit pediatric medical center was founded in 1912 and opened for business in 1914. Children's Hospital Oakland will celebrate the landmark birthday for two years and kicked off festivities with a birthday party at Children's Fairyland in Oakland on September 8.

12 Sep 2012

Annual economic cost of chronic pain is as high as $635 billion: Study

Health economists from Johns Hopkins University writing in The Journal of Pain (www.jpain.org) reported the annual cost of chronic pain is as high as $635 billion a year, which is more than the yearly costs for cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

12 Sep 2012

Weill Cornell to establish new child care center

Weill Cornell Medical College announced today that it will create a child care center for up to 60 children of its faculty, students and staff near its campus on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

12 Sep 2012

U.S. to cover costs of cancer monitoring, treatment for 9/11 first responders

The 70,000 surviving firefighters, police officers and other first responders who raced to the World Trade Center after the attacks of September 11, 2001 will be entitled to free monitoring and treatment for some 50 forms of cancer.

12 Sep 2012

Gene therapy regimen can safely restore immune systems to children with Bubble Boy disease

UCLA stem cell researchers have found that a gene therapy regimen can safely restore immune systems to children with so-called "Bubble Boy" disease, a life threatening condition that if left untreated can be fatal within one to two years.

12 Sep 2012

Exercise and health: An interview with Professor Karim Khan

I’ll quote from the ‘7 investments’ document (see below) as I don’t believe we need to reinvent the wheel to argue for the benefits of exercise. I am very keen to move to the issue of ‘how can we help people exercise’. But for the record:

12 Sep 2012

Ethnicity, race affect likelihood of finding suitable unrelated stem cell donors for cancer patients

Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues have published a study describing the greater difficulty in finding matched, unrelated donors for non-Caucasian patients who are candidates for hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT).

12 Sep 2012

Pregnancy exposures may increase risk of breast cancer in multiple generations of offspring

Chemicals or foods that raise estrogen levels during pregnancy may increase cancer risk in daughters, granddaughters, and even great-granddaughters, according to scientists from Virginia Tech and Georgetown University.

12 Sep 2012

Bioengineers design nanoparticles that can safely and predictably infiltrate deep into the brain

The brain is a notoriously difficult organ to treat, but Johns Hopkins researchers report they are one step closer to having a drug-delivery system flexible enough to overcome some key challenges posed by brain cancer and perhaps other maladies affecting that organ.

12 Sep 2012

e-Therapeutics initiates second ETS2101 phase I trial in solid tumours

e-Therapeutics plc announces that it has started a second phase I clinical trial of its anti-cancer drug ETS2101. This trial will enrol up to 45 patients with a variety of solid tumours at two UK centres, St James's University Hospital in Leeds and the Northern Centre for Cancer Care at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle.

12 Sep 2012

APS conference to explore potential mechanisms behind health benefits of exercise

The effects of physical inactivity are, literally, hazardous to your health. Although the detrimental effects of being inactive are generally thought to be associated with childhood obesity and Type 2 diabetes, they have a significant impact on other illnesses. Physical inactivity contributed at least 25 percent to the prevalence of hip fractures, osteoporosis, coronary heart disease, and colon cancer according to recent data released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

12 Sep 2012

New model reveals how immune system functions under conditions of neutropenia

Cancer chemotherapy can be a life-saver, but it is fraught with severe side effects, among them an increased risk of infection. Until now, the major criterion for assessing this risk has been the blood cell count: if the number of white blood cells falls below a critical threshold, the risk of infection is thought to be high.

12 Sep 2012

Scripps scientists discover new antibody-discovery technique

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have found a new technique that should greatly speed the discovery of medically and scientifically useful antibodies, immune system proteins that detect and destroy invaders such as bacteria and viruses. New methods to discover antibodies are important because antibodies make up the fastest growing sector of human therapeutics; it is estimated that by 2014 the top-three selling drugs worldwide will be antibodies.

12 Sep 2012

Molecular insight into oxygen sensing mechanism

The study of an oxygen-sensing bacterial regulatory protein by chemistry researchers at the University of Georgia has provided molecular insight into the oxygen sensing mechanism, which could ultimately lead to a better understanding of the ageing process and new treatments for human diseases such cancer, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

12 Sep 2012

Blocking GSK3b enzyme can prevent bacterial-induced periodontal bone loss

A University of Louisville scientist has found a way to prevent inflammation and bone loss surrounding the teeth by blocking a natural signaling pathway of the enzyme GSK3b, which plays an important role in directing the immune response.

12 Sep 2012

Berkeley lab researchers link possible new oncogene with resistance to cancer drugs

A gene that may possibly belong to an entire new family of oncogenes has been linked by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) to the resistance of breast cancer to a well-regarded and widely used cancer therapy.

12 Sep 2012

Minimally invasive esophagectomy viable alternative to open surgery

Patients undergoing surgery for esophageal cancer may benefit from minimally invasive techniques as much as they do from open surgery, say researchers.

11 Sep 2012