Cancer News and Research

Latest Cancer News and Research

Study may lead to improved, targeted therapies for cancer patients

A team of Princeton University scientists has produced a systematic listing of the ways a particular cancerous cell has "gone wrong," giving researchers a powerful tool that eventually could make possible new, more targeted therapies for patients.

11 Dec 2009

COA: Current health reform legislation does not address major inadequacies in Medicare reimbursement

The Community Oncology Alliance (COA) today issued a statement warning that oncologists throughout the U.S. may face closing their practices if critical Medicare reimbursement fixes for treating cancer patients are not made as a part of health care reform.

11 Dec 2009

Scientists explore new potential therapies for Parkinson's disease

Following up on their previous work showing the rescue of dopamine neurons by chemicals that interact with the retinoid X receptor (RXR), researchers have now investigated the potential of these chemicals, known as RXR ligands, for the treatment of Parkinson's disease.

11 Dec 2009

Stroke drug kills cancer cells and leaves normal cells intact, report researchers

A never-approved drug developed to prevent the death of nerve cells after a stroke can efficiently kill cancer cells while keeping normal cells healthy and intact, an international team led by a Tel Aviv University researcher is reporting in the journal Breast Cancer Research.

11 Dec 2009

Nobel Prize discovery opens new perspectives for detection and prevention of age-related diseases

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to three American scientists Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak for the discovery of "how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase”. The research contributed to the understanding of how telomeres protect chromosomes from degradation and identified telomerase, the enzyme that preserves telomere length and integrity.

11 Dec 2009

California's EWC program: Cuts alarm breast cancer survivors and advocates

Breast cancer survivors and advocates from all seven California Affiliates of Susan G. Komen for the Cure® signaled their alarm today at the recently announced cuts to California's Every Woman Counts program, which would effectively shut the doors to breast cancer screening services for 1.2 million low-income and uninsured women for the first six months of 2010.

11 Dec 2009

Winners of the 2010 ASBMB-Merck Award

James A. Wells, professor and chairman of the department pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco, and director of UCSF's small molecule discovery center, has been named the winner of the 2010 American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology-Merck Award for his pioneering studies in the field of protein engineering.

11 Dec 2009

Chemotherapy improves overall survival in postmenopausal breast cancer patients

Chemotherapy generally improves survival in postmenopausal breast cancer patients, according to a landmark study led by Dr. Kathy Albain of Loyola University Health System.

11 Dec 2009

Stem cell therapy can be used for LSCD, reports newly published research

Newly published research, by investigators, at the North East England Stem Cell Institute (NESCI) in the journal Stem Cells reported the first successful treatment of eight patients with "Limbal Stem Cell Deficiency" (LSCD) using the patients' own stem cells without the need of suppressing their immunity.

11 Dec 2009

Combination of MRI and mammography screenings detects early-stage breast cancer

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) coupled with mammography detects almost all cancers at an early stage, thereby reducing the incidence of advanced stage breast cancer in high-risk women.

11 Dec 2009

Positive results from Genomic Health's Oncotype DX study in breast cancer patients with node-positive disease

Genomic Health, Inc. today announced that The Lancet Oncology published positive results from a study of Oncotype DX(®) in postmenopausal women with node-positive, estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer conducted by the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG), a National Cancer Institute-supported clinical trials cooperative group.

11 Dec 2009

HST Global and HMD team up to develop curriculum for FIT protocol

HST Global, Inc. (OTCBB: HSTC) today announced a Partnership with Dr. James W. Forsythe to facilitate the development of a curriculum for the licensing and/or certification to administer Dr. Forsythe’s immune therapy in clinics to be built or acquired by HST Global, Inc.

11 Dec 2009

FDA approves Fenwal's InterSol platelet additive solution

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved InterSol, the first solution approved to replace a portion of plasma used when storing platelets for up to five days, allowing some of the donor plasma to be used for other purposes.

11 Dec 2009

Tasigna demonstrates greater efficacy over Gleevec in chronic Ph+ CML patients

In a large Phase III clinical trial, Tasigna (nilotinib capsules) demonstrated greater efficacy over Gleevec (imatinib) in the treatment of adult patients with newly diagnosed Philadelphia chromosome-positive chronic myeloid leukemia (Ph+ CML) in chronic phase. The new clinical data were just presented as a late breaking abstract at the 51st annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), in New Orleans, Louisiana.

11 Dec 2009

NIH launches a $37 million program to reduce obesity

The National Institutes of Health is launching a $37 million program that will use findings from basic research on human behavior to develop more effective interventions to reduce obesity.

11 Dec 2009

Scientists develop new model of skin cancer based on Src kinases

Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have developed a new model of skin cancer based on the knowledge that a common cancer-related molecule called Src kinase is activated in human skin-cancer samples.

11 Dec 2009

Initiation of multi-national Phase III study of Stimuvax announced

Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, today announced the initiation of its multi-national Phase III study of the investigational therapeutic cancer vaccine Stimuvax® (BLP25 liposome vaccine) in Asian patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

11 Dec 2009

Women with high BMI are at increased risk of dying from breast cancer

Breast cancer patients with a high body mass index (BMI) have a poorer cancer prognosis later in life. Specifically, their treatment effect does not last as long and their risk of death increases.

11 Dec 2009

Winner of the 2010 Avanti Award in Lipids

The 2010 Avanti Award in Lipids, which recognizes outstanding research contributions in the area of lipid research, has been awarded to David W. Russell, the Eugene McDermott distinguished chair of molecular genetics at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

11 Dec 2009

Fulvestrant 500 mg reduces risk of disease progression in women with metastatic breast cancer

AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) today announced that data from a Phase III study of postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive advanced breast cancer presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (Abstract 25) showed treatment with fulvestrant (FASLODEX) 500 mg reduced the risk of disease progression (assessed as time to progression (TTP)) by 20%

11 Dec 2009