Colorectal Cancer News and Research

Latest Colorectal Cancer News and Research

Physicians today perform more colonoscopies than necessary

A colonoscopy allows a physician look inside the entire large intestine, from the lowest part, the rectum, all the way up through the colon to the lower end of the small intestine.

16 Aug 2004

Genentech announces FDA approval of Avastin manufacturing

Genentech has announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) for the manufacturing of Avastin™ (bevacizumab) bulk drug substance at the company's facility in Vacaville, California.

11 Aug 2004

Link between short-term hormone therapy (HT) and improvements in life quality for women with menopausal symptoms

An article in the current issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine explains how a computer based simulation model has found a link between short-term hormone therapy (HT) and improvements in life quality for women with menopausal symptoms. The article also points out that short-term hormone therapy may actually shorten life expectancy.

10 Aug 2004

First evidence of the molecular link between inflammation and cancer

The investigators found that a gene called I-kappa-B kinase (IKK beta), a pro-inflammatory gene, acts differently in two cell types to cause cancer. When IKK beta was deleted, the cancer incidence and tumor growth in mice was decreased by nearly 80 percent.

5 Aug 2004

Cancers of the gut amongst the most preventable through changes in diet

Cancers of the gut are one of the major causes of death from cancer, but a review published this week shows that they are also amongst the most preventable through changes in diet.

23 Jul 2004

ImClone quarterly sales reach $71.4 Million

Total revenues for the second quarter of 2004 were $71.5 million as compared with $17.9 million for the second quarter of 2003 and $109.6 million in the first quarter of 2004.

22 Jul 2004

Erbitux (cetuximab) combined with irinotecan offers another option for patients who have colorectal cancer

Erbitux (cetuximab), offers another option for patients who have colorectal cancer that resists standard chemotherapy treatment, according to an article written by two Mayo Clinic cancer researchers published in the current edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

21 Jul 2004

Evidence that new anti-inflammatory drug may sensitize leukemia, and breast and lung cancers to conventional chemotherapy

Ohio researchers have used a recently developed anti-inflammatory drug as a starting point to construct a possible new, targeted anti-cancer agent.

10 Jul 2004

Drinking lots of milk may lower the risk of colorectal cancer

Drinking lots of milk and increasing your calcium intake may lower the risk of colorectal cancer, according to a new study that appears in the July 7 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

7 Jul 2004

There are 9.8 million cancer survivors in the United States

A cancer survivor is defined as anyone who has been diagnosed with cancer, from the time of diagnosis through the balance of his or her life. The findings are published in the June 25 issue of CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, "Cancer Survivorship - United States, 1971 - 2001."

24 Jun 2004

Calcium supplements can decrease the risk of all types of colorectal polyps

While taking calcium supplements can decrease the risk of all types of colorectal polyps, research led by Dartmouth Medical School shows calcium had the greatest effect on advanced colorectal adenomas, considered to be most strongly associated with invasive colorectal cancer.

15 Jun 2004

Drug Tarceva improves survival chance for patients with advanced lung cancer

Roche OSI Pharmaceuticals and Genentech today announced that their investigational drug Tarceva(TM) (erlotinib) achieved a significant 42.5% improvement in median survival compared to placebo in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

5 Jun 2004

Diabetics could be up to three times more likely to get bowel cancer

People with diabetes could be up to three times more likely to get bowel cancer – according to a report from Cancer Research UK and the Medical Research Council published*(1) today.

5 Jun 2004

People with diabetes could be up to three times more likely to get bowel cancer

Scientists tested a marker of the sugar levels in blood samples*(2) taken from almost 10,000 men and women aged between 45-79 and then checked their medical condition six years later.

5 Jun 2004

Drug helps patients with metastatic colorectal cancer

A drug designed to cut off a tumor’s blood supply, when paired with a chemotherapy combination, resulted in significant improvement in survival in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, the first time in decades that survival times have been extended in patients with this devastating form of advanced cancer.

3 Jun 2004

Drug to extend lives of colorectal cancer patients

A drug designed to cut off a tumor's blood supply, when paired with a chemotherapy combination, resulted in significant improvement in survival in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, the first time in decades that survival times have been extended in patients with this devastating form of advanced cancer.

2 Jun 2004

Avastin study shows significant improvement in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer

Genentech, Inc. and Roche have announced that the New England Journal of Medicine published the first Phase III study of an anti-angiogenesis cancer therapy, showing that the addition of Avastin™ (bevacizumab) to the IFL chemotherapy regimen (5-FU/Leucovorin/ CPT-11) significantly extended survival in patients with first-line (previously untreated) metastatic colorectal cancer.

2 Jun 2004

Study may help oncologists tailor chemotherapy to patients based on their genetic make-up

Genetic variations in an individual’s ability to repair DNA damage may help predict survival in lung cancer patients treated with the common chemotherapy drugs cisplatin or carboplatin, a new study shows.

2 Jun 2004

Women who regularly take aspirin at lower risk of breast cancer

Women who regularly take aspirin seem to be at lower risk of the most common type of breast cancer than those who do not take aspirin, report researchers from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and College of Physicians & Surgeons, Weill Cornell Medical College , and New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

31 May 2004

Smoking a lot more harmful than previously thought

The U.S. Surgeon General has released a new comprehensive report on smoking and health, revealing for the first time that smoking causes diseases in nearly every organ of the body. Published 40 years after the surgeon general's first report on smoking -- which concluded that smoking was a definite cause of three serious diseases -- this newest report finds that cigarette smoking is conclusively linked to diseases such as leukemia, cataracts, pneumonia and cancers of the cervix, kidney, pancreas and stomach.

30 May 2004