Cancer

AbbVie drug shows promise against difficult type of breast cancer

Patients with so-called triple negative breast cancer appeared to have double the response rate to the regimen containing AbbVie’s veliparib in a new type of study

Women with an especially deadly type of breast cancer who received a treatment regimen containing an experimental AbbVie Inc drug prior to surgery are likely to have a significantly better response than those who get a standard chemotherapy regimen, according to data from a clinical trial.

Patients with so-called triple negative breast cancer, who tend to be younger and have a very poor prognosis, appeared to have double the response rate to the regimen containing AbbVie’s veliparib in a new type of study that exploits advances in molecular understanding of the disease, researchers found.

The trial dubbed I-SPY 2 is another step toward developing more personalised treatments. Its design allows researchers to continuously monitor how patients respond as the trial progresses and move patients into arms of the study testing drugs from which they are more likely to gain benefit.

This type of trial should help companies select the right group of patients to enroll into larger, more traditional late stage clinical trials, potentially cutting the cost of bringing new medicines to market.

Drugmakers are under increasing pressure to cut the cost of new medicines that put a huge burden on healthcare systems. One way to do that would be through more efficient, alternative testing methods that lead to fewer trial failures.

“It’s a very nimble trial design that allows you to enroll a fairly small number of patients and come to a fairly high certainty of success (in later larger trials) in a specific subset of patients,” explained Dr. Hope Rugo, who presented the data at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium on Friday.

If a drug combination starts to look like it is working better on patients with one type of breast cancer, the trial design allows for more patients with that type of cancer to move into that arm of the study, said Rugo, director of breast oncology and clinical trials education at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center in San Francisco.

The US Food and Drug Administration, which signed off on the trial design, has said that if a study drug helps cure significantly more cancers, it could be given a provisional type of accelerated approval.

Faster development, reduced cost

“If we can get a better idea of who benefits early, it’s going to be an enormous change in the way we test new agents, and not just for breast cancer but for other malignancies as well,” Rugo said.

“You could avoid doing a 3,500 patient trial in a group of patients who you thought might benefit but don’t,” she said. “We’ll be able to get the drugs to the patients who need them much more quickly and at reduced cost.”

The I-SPY program is testing a variety of experimental medicines from several drugmakers in the neoadjuvant, or pre-surgery, setting in high-risk patients. Rugo was presenting the portion of the trial that involved the AbbVie drug.

In that arm of the study involving 71 high risk patients, the researchers were testing to see whether the treatment, given before surgery, could eliminate any evidence of invasive cancer in breast tissue and lymph nodes removed during subsequent surgery – a measurement known as pathologic complete response (PCR).

They found an estimated PCR in 52 per cent of women who were treated with AbbVie’s veliparib plus the chemotherapies carboplatin and paclitaxel. That compared with a 26 percent PCR rate in those who just got standard paclitaxel. Both groups also received anthracycline-based chemotherapy prior to surgery.

“If we can increase the number of patients who have no invasive cancer, we expect that this will translate into better survival,” Rugo said.

Most breast cancer tumors are estrogen-receptor positive, fueled by the hormone estrogen. About 20 per cent are HER2-positive, meaning a protein called HER2 is prevalent. A third type is driven by the hormone progesterone. All of these have potentially effective treatment options even after recurrence.

Triple-negative tumors – about 15 per cent of breast cancers – lack estrogen, progesterone or HER2 receptors needed for most drugs to work. If the tumor does not respond to chemotherapy, there are currently no alternatives and the typical survival rate after recurrence is less than two years.

More women treated with veliparib and carboplatin dropped out of the study due to side effects, whereas discontinuations in the control arm were primarily due to disease progression.

Rugo said she looked forward to further study of the AbbVie drug, noting that the trial design did not separate which effects were due to veliparib and which to carboplatin.

However, she said, the doubling of response rates was “very encouraging to us and suggests that veliparib is playing an important role in the enhanced response that we’re seeing.”

Source: Khaleej times

Brain cancer cure closer to reality

Scientists have identified a mechanism that can help treat brain cancer and a drug that decreases brain tumour growth.

The researchers at the University of Calgary’s Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI) have made a discovery that could lead to better treatment for patients suffering from brain cancer.

HBI member V. Wee Yong, PhD and research associate Susobhan Sarkar, PhD, and their team including researchers from the Department of Clinical Neurosciences and the university’s Southern Alberta Cancer Research Institute, looked at human brain tumour samples and discovered that specialized immune cells in brain tumour patients are compromised.

The researchers took this discovery and, in an animal model, identified a drug that is able to re-activate those immune cells and reduce brain tumour growth, thereby increasing the lifespan of mice two to three times.

Our brains normally contain specialized cells, called microglia, that defend against injury or infection. “Microglia are the brain’s own dedicated immune system,” explains Yong. “And in this study, we have formally demonstrated for the first time that these cells are compromised in living brain tumour patients.”

As with other forms of cancer, brain tumours start as individual stem-like cells – called brain tumour initiating cells (BTICs). These cells quickly divide and grow, eventually forming a mass, or tumour. Yong and his team have discovered that the tumour disables microglia, permitting the rapid proliferation of BTICs, which ultimately leads to brain tumour growth.

In addition to discovering this mechanism, Yong and Sarkar also identified a drug – amphotericin B (AmpB) – to reactivate microglia that in an animal model, showed a significant reduction in brain tumour growth.

The study was published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Source: Ani news

New Drug Combination Causes Cancer To ‘Eat’ themselves

Turning cancerous cells into cannibalistic cells may be an oncologists best bet for treating a wide variety of tumors. In a study from the Virginia Commonwealth University, researchers have determined that a new drug combination can cause cancer cells to “eat” themselves without harming surrounding tissue. The treatment was shown to be effective in cancers of the colon, liver, lung, breast, brain, and kidney.

Published in the journal Molecular Pharmacology, the study sought to determine whether a combination of the drugs sorafenib and regorafenib can combine with so-called PI3K/AKT inhibitors to achieve a broader, more pronounced effect. Co-author Andrew Poklepovic said in a press release that although further research is necessary, the current findings set the stage for a promising phase 1 clinical trial.

“It is still too premature to estimate when a clinical trial will open to further test this drug combination therapy, but we are now in the planning phase and encouraged by the results of these laboratory experiments,” he told reporters.  “We are also encouraged by the fact that the drugs used in this therapy are either already approved by the FDA to treat certain cancers or are currently being investigated in other clinical trials.”

According to the researchers, sorafenib and regorafenib attacks the tumor growth by blocking the production of enzymes called kinases, which play a crucial role in the proliferation of cancerous cells. Essentially, the new drug combination broadens this effect by adding another class of kinases inhibitors called PI3K/AKT inhibitors. As a result, many cancer cells “starve,” and the tumor growth can no longer be sustained.

“We know that there are certain cellular processes that are frequently dysregulated in cancers and important to cell proliferation and survival, but if you shut down one, then cells can often compensate by relying on another,” said senior author Paul Dent of the Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center. “We are blocking several of these survival pathways, and the cancer cells are literally digesting themselves in an effort to stay alive.”

The study represents the latest attempt to identify a new, reliable method of action for cancer drugs. In a similar research effort published earlier this year, scientists at Oregon State University described how a new type of nanotechnology can improve the efficacy of cytotoxic therapies by heating up cancerous cells. Hopefully, both studies will help oncologists and pharmaceutical researchers develop novel ways to treat the disease that currently kills over 500,000 Americans each year.

Source: Medical Daily

 

23 million Americans failed to get recommended colorectal cancer screenings

About 23 million American adults have failed to receive the recommended screening for colorectal cancer (CRC), according to a report today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, researchers say people are more likely to get the potentially lifesaving tests if they are offered a choice of methods.

The proportion of U.S. adults who are up to date with their recommended CRC screenings increased from 54 percent in 2002 to 65 percent in 2012, according to the report. Researchers attribute this to an increased use of colonoscopies, in which a physician uses a flexible, lighted tube to search the rectum and entire colon for polyps and cancers – many of which can be removed during the procedure.

But during the same 10-year time period, two other recommended tests declined in use: sigmoidoscopy and high-sensitivity fecal occult blood testing (FOBT). A sigmoidoscopy is similar to a colonoscopy, but the doctor performing it uses a shorter tube to examine the rectum and lower third of the colon. With FOBT, a patient collects a small stool sample at home and mails it to a laboratory to test for traces of blood.

Many doctors recommend colonoscopy to their patients because it provides the most complete view of the colon. But it’s also the most invasive of the recommended CRC tests and requires patients to undergo a strict diet the day before screening to help empty the colon.

Research suggests patients who choose FOBT are more likely to complete the test than those who choose colonoscopy. Therefore, federal health officials suggested that doctors offer all recommended CRC tests and identify a screening strategy that their patient is most likely to follow.

Rather than viewing colonoscopy as a rite of passage for everyone reaching their 50th birthday, researchers believe more adults will get screened for CRC if they’re encouraged to choose from a menu of strategies.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends three screening options for adults in the 50 through 75 age bracket. The first option simply involves undergoing FOBT every year. The second option involves undergoing a colonoscopy every 10 years. The third option combines a sigmoidoscopy every five years with FOBT every three years.

Among adults who are up to date on their recommended CRC screening, 62 percent use colonoscopy, according to the CDC report. Just over 10 percent use FOBT, and less than 1 percent use a combination of sigmoidoscopy and FOBT.

“If someone has a strong family history of colon cancer or has polyps or a personal history of a disease such as inflammatory bowel disease, then colonoscopy is clearly preferred,” said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC. “However, for everyone else – and that’s the great majority of people – there is no proven benefit of one versus the other approach.”

Frieden added that the tests are not completely unrelated. For example, patients whose stool samples test positive for blood through FOBT are generally referred to undergo colonoscopies as a follow-up procedure.

Colorectal cancer claims approximately 50,000 lives in the United States each year and is the leading cause of cancer deaths among nonsmokers. However, public health officials say many of these lives could be saved through early detection if more people selected a screening plan and followed through with it.

“The best test is the test that gets done,” Frieden said.

Source: news.nom.co

Cancer vaccine developed to boost lifespan of patients

Russian scientists have developed a vaccine for the treatment of cancer that can increase the patient’s lifespan more than two-fold, ITAR-TASS reported on Wednesday.

The vaccine, developed at the Institute of Clinical Immunology in the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences in Novosibirsk, has already successfully passed clinical tests, said institute’s director Vladimir Kozlov.

Currently, it is being administered to patients by injection at the third and fourth stages of cancer.

”We are deriving dendritic cells from the human body and loading them with tumor antigens,” Kozlov said.

“Dendritic cells process them, then we inject the cells into the patient and they start working in the body evoking a strong immune response. That is, they are actively fighting the tumor.”

The institute’s creation “is not a classical vaccine, which is the means to prevent the illness”, Kozlov said. “In fact, it is a cell therapy.”

The vaccine is counteracting several types of cancer – colorectal (bowel) cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer – and the institute is ready to start its industrial production, Kozlov added.

However, the scientist added that other types of therapy were to be used as well, such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

Source: Khaleej Times

Coffee consumption cuts liver cancer risk

Good news for coffee drinkers: researchers from Italy have shown that coffee consumption reduces the risk of liver cancer by about 40%. And some of the results indicate that if you drink three cups a day, the risks are reduced by more than 50%.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states liver cancer is the ninth leading cause of cancer deaths in the US and the third leading cause of death from cancer in the world.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common form of this cancer and men are approximately three times more likely to develop the disease than women.

The results of the study, published in Clinical Gastronenterology and Hepatology, reaffirm previous findings that coffee drinking does have health benefits.

In just this year, Medical News Today has covered reports that coffee may protect againstwomb cancer, prostate cancer, and even how drinking Greek coffee may be the key to longevity.

A cup of hot coffee may not just get you going in the morning; it may actually help prevent liver cancer.

And as The National Coffee Association’s 2010 National coffee drinking survey reveals, 56% of American adults may have something to celebrate as they sip their morning cup.

Dr. Carlo La Vecchia, from Milan’s Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche Mario Negri and lead author of the study, says:

“Our research confirms past claims that coffee is good for your health and particularly the liver.”

For this study, researchers performed a meta-analysis using data collected from articles published between 1996 and 2012. From this, researchers selected 16 high-quality studies involving a total of 3,153 cases.

Even though the results across studies, time periods and populations have returned consistent results, researchers cannot “prove” a cause and effect relation between drinking coffee and HCC. This may be because patients suffering liver or digestive diseases often reduce their coffee intake, and this may be partially attributable to the relationship.

Coffee drinking has been shown to reduce the risks of diabetes, as a report from the National Center for Biotechnology Information shows.

And diabetes is a known risk factor of liver cancer – indeed; the National Cancer Institute cites it as the most common risk factor.

The researchers also say that more than 90% of primary liver cancers worldwide can be avoided through hepatitis B virus vaccination, control of hepatitis C virus transmission and reduction of alcohol drinking.

Source: 

Outdoor air pollution: cause of cancer, says UN

The specialized cancer agency of the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) announced today that outdoor air pollution is a leading environmental cause of cancer deaths.

An evaluation by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Monographs Program found there is sufficient evidence that exposure to outdoor air pollution causes lung cancer and increases the risk for bladder cancer.

In a news release, the IARC pointed out that air pollution is already known to increase risks for a wide range of diseases, such as respiratory and heart diseases. Studies indicate that in recent years exposure levels have increased significantly in some parts of the world, particularly in rapidly industrializing countries with large populations.

The most recent data indicate that 223,000 deaths from lung cancer in 2010 resulted from air pollution.

“The air we breathe has become polluted with a mixture of cancer-causing substances,” said Kurt Straif, Head of the IARC Monographs Section. “We now know that outdoor air pollution is not only a major risk to health in general, but also a leading environmental cause of cancer deaths.”

The IARC Monographs Program, dubbed the ‘encyclopedia of carcinogens,’ provides an authoritative source of scientific evidence on cancer-causing substances and exposures. In the past, the Program evaluated many individual chemicals and specific mixtures that occur in outdoor air pollution.

These included diesel engine exhaust, solvents, metals, and dusts. But this is the first time that experts have classified outdoor air pollution as a cause of cancer.

“Our task was to evaluate the air everyone breathes rather than focus on specific air pollutants,” said Dana Loomis, Deputy Head of the Monographs Section. “The results from the reviewed studies point in the same direction: the risk of developing lung cancer is significantly increased in people exposed to air pollution.”

The main sources of outdoor air pollution are transportation, stationary power generation, industrial and agricultural emissions, and residential heating and cooking. Some air pollutants have natural sources, as well.

“Classifying outdoor air pollution as carcinogenic to humans is an important step,” stressed IARC Director Christopher Wild. “There are effective ways to reduce air pollution and, given the scale of the exposure affecting people worldwide, this report should send a strong signal to the international community to take action without further delay.”

Source: http://www.un.org

Radiation from airport body scanner detect signs of skin cancer

Airport security screening check points has great potential for looking underneath human skin to diagnose cancer at its earliest

Terahertz radiation, the technology that peeks underneath clothing at airport security screening check points has great potential for looking underneath human skin to diagnose cancer at its earliest and most treatable stages, a researcher has revealed.

Anis Rahman , Ph.D., explained that malignant melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer , starts in pigment-producing cells located in the deepest part of the epidermis. Biochemical changes that are hallmarks of cancer occur in the melanocytes long before mole-like melanomas appear on the skin.

Rahman said that terahertz radiation- form of ‘non-ionizing’ radiation- is ideal for looking beneath the skin and detecting early signs of melanoma.

T-rays can be focused harmlessly below into the body and capture biochemical signatures of events like the start of cancer.

Rahman, president and chief technology officer of Applied Research and Photonics in Harrisburg, Pa., described research focusing T-rays through donated samples of human skin that suggest the technology could be valuable in diagnosing melanoma.

In addition to developing T-rays for cancer diagnostics, Rahman’s team has successfully harnessed them to measure the real-time absorption rates and penetration in the outer layer of skin of topically applied drugs and shampoo.

Other wide-ranging applications include the detection of early stages of tooth decay, trace pesticides on produce, flaws in pharmaceutical tablet coatings, and concealed weapons under clothing, as well as testing the effectiveness of skin cosmetics.

The research was presented at National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

 

Source: Zee news

Centre will set up 20 new state cancer institutes: Azad

   The Centre will set up 20 new state cancer institutes across the country along with 23 new tertiary cancer centers to address the increased requirement of cancer-related treatments in the country, Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said today.

“The central government last week has approved funds for establishment of these institutes and also the existing 27 regional cancer care centers will be strengthened,” Azad said.

This initiative will add 70 state-of-the-art tertiary cancer centers in government sectors, the Minister said while addressing the 41st convocation of AIIMS here.

A National Cancer Institute with state-of-the-art research and patient care facilities would be established at Jhajjar in Haryana, where the government has acquired 300 acres of land for teaching and research requirements of AIIMS, he said.

Azad said the government has upgraded 19 institutions and it intends to take up another 29 government medical colleges for up gradation in the 12th plan period.

He said work on the seventh AIIMS at Rae Bareli would start soon with the land being acquired and the tendering process at an advanced stage.

The process of setting up an AIIMS in Raiganj in West Bengal is under way, he said.

The Minister, however, said these ambitious projects and their effective implementation require availability of large number of trained and skilled human resources.

He said the government has allocated additional financial resources for modernization of existing facilities at AIIMS here, which is under severe strain due to increased patient load.

“Due to the implicit faith of the people in the patient care services at this institute, nearly 10,000 patients visit the AIIMS OPD every day from all parts of the country,” he said.

The Minister conferred degrees on 509 newly graduated doctors. The program was also attended by Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization.

Chan gave away medals for meritorious academic excellence to 29 students. She said the new doctors symbolize India’s aspirations and advised the students to serve the poor and vulnerable sections of society.

She advised them to serve with humanity, quoting Mahatma Gandhi that ‘Service without humanity’ is a deadly sin.

New method could help in early detection of colon cancer

Bettina Scholtka, said that tumour cells are released into stool from the surface of precancers and early-stage colon cancers

Scientists have found a new method to detect genetic variations that initiate colon cancer could be readily used for non-invasive colon cancer screening.

Bettina Scholtka, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Nutritional Toxicology at the University of Potsdam in Nuthetal, Germany, said that tumour cells are released into stool from the surface of precancers and early-stage colon cancers, but detecting a cancer-initiating genetic mutation among a large quantity of normal DNA from a patient’s stool is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Scholtka said that by combining for the first time locked nucleic acid-based, wild-type blocking polymerase chain reaction and high-resolution melting, we were able to achieve the desired sensitivity.

Scholtka and colleagues used 80 human colon tissue samples representing cancers and precancers to detect genetic variations using a combination of two techniques: The first technique — locked nucleic acid (LNA)-based, wild-type blocking (WTB) polymerase chain reaction — suppressed normal DNA present in large quantities in the sample; and the second technique — high-resolution melting (HRM) — enhanced the detection of genetic variations.

The researchers were able to detect APC variations in 41 of the 80 samples. They were also able to detect previously unknown variations in APC. In contrast, the routinely used technique called direct sequencing could detect variations only in 28 samples.

They then analyzed 22 stool samples from patients whose colon tissues had APC variations, and nine stool samples from patients whose colon tissues did not have APC variations, as controls. They were able to detect APC variations in 21 out of 22 samples.

The study has been published in Cancer Prevention Research.