Cancer Currents: An NCI Cancer Research Blog
A blog featuring news and research updates from the National Cancer Institute.
A new study shows that blocking the transfer of calcium ions (Ca2+) into mitochondria is toxic to cancer cells and impairs growth of tumors in mice, while sparing normal cells.
All cells use calcium ions as signaling agents to regulate metabolism and other cellular functions. Blocking the flow of calcium into mitochondria, which are the chief producers of energy-rich ATP molecules in cells, created an energy “crisis” from which normal cells could recover but cancer cells could not, the study showed.
An experimental strategy for treating advanced ovarian cancer has caused tumor regression in animal models, according to a new study. The strategy uses a protein fragment, or peptide, to stimulate normal cells in the tissues surrounding cancer cells—the tumor microenvironment—to block the growth of the cancer cells.
Suming Wang, Ph.D., and Anna Blois, Ph.D., of Boston Children’s Hospital’s Vascular Biology Program and their colleagues, reported the results March 9 in Science Translational Medicine. Based on the findings, the researchers said they would continue to explore this strategy as a potential treatment for ovarian cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, or metastasized.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has expanded the approved uses of the targeted therapy crizotinib (Xalkori®) for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
The new approval is for the treatment of patients with advanced NSCLC whose tumors have alterations—known as rearrangements—in the ROS1 gene. Crizotinib was originally approved for patients with advanced NSCLC whose tumors have similar alterations in the ALK gene.
NCI constantly publishes new information on its websites, so periodically we provide updates on new content of interest to the cancer community.
Researchers have adapted a high-magnification technique for viewing body structures at the cellular level so that they can visualize blood vessels in human tumors in real time.
Using the technique, called intravital microscopy (IVM), they found that approximately half of blood vessels in tumors in patients with melanoma had no blood flow and that tumor blood vessels were much larger than would have been anticipated from prior studies.
Phase III cancer clinical trials almost always compare a new treatment with the existing standard of care. With science moving so rapidly, research results sometimes outrace a trial’s design and the trial has to be recalibrated to include newer treatments.
One current example of this need for trial redesign is a recently opened NCI-sponsored clinical trial led by the ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group, called EA1131, for women with triple-negative breast cancer, a subtype of breast cancer that is notoriously difficult to treat. Women in the trial must have had chemotherapy before surgery—known as neoadjuvant chemotherapy—but still have some evidence of cancer in their breast or lymph nodes at the time of surgery (residual disease). Under the trial’s initial design, after surgery, patients were to be randomly assigned to receive either adjuvant therapy with a platinum chemotherapy drug or no additional therapy, which was the standard of care when the trial opened in May 2015.
Patients with metastatic melanoma have experienced dramatic tumor regressions in early clinical trials of adoptive cell transfer—a technique in which immune cells are collected from patients, expanded in the laboratory, and infused back into patients to attack the cancer. However, to date, these immune cells have been harvested only from solid tumor tissue, a process that requires invasive surgery and is not always possible.
Now, scientists in NCI’s Center for Cancer Research (CCR) have developed a novel strategy for identifying tumor-reactive and mutation-specific immune cells circulating in the blood of patients with melanoma.
Infection with human papillomavirus (HPV) types targeted by the quadrivalent HPV vaccine has declined by nearly two-thirds among teenage girls since HPV vaccination was recommended in the United States, according to new study results. The study also is the first to show a reduction in national prevalence of these four HPV types among U.S. women in their early twenties since the vaccine was introduced.
In the United States, routine vaccination against HPV, which causes virtually all cervical cancers and is transmitted through sexual contact, has been recommended since mid-2006 for 11- to 12-year old girls and for females up to age 26 who have not previously been vaccinated. HPV vaccination has been recommended for males since 2011.
Human biospecimens, as any cancer researcher will tell you, are a foundational resource in basic and clinical cancer research. And with the launch last year of President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative and his announcement in January about the launch of the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative, NCI-supported biospecimen programs have taken on renewed importance.
Quality biospecimens are critical to achieving the type of progress envisioned by both of these initiatives, whether it’s for conducting genomic analyses that will allow us to better understand cancer progression, discovering and validating biomarkers that can predict prognosis or response to therapy, or identifying new targets for therapy.
Testing for genetic mutations strongly associated with an increased breast cancer risk has risen dramatically among women younger than age 40 who are diagnosed with the disease, according to a new study.
Overall, within a year of their diagnosis, 87 percent of the women in the Young Women’s Breast Cancer Study were tested for mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. Mutations in either of these genes increase a woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer, her risk of developing breast cancer at a younger age, and her lifetime risk of ovarian cancer.
Patients who miss radiation therapy sessions during cancer treatment have an increased risk of their disease returning, even if they eventually complete their course of radiation treatment, according to a new study.
The magnitude of the effect was higher than the researchers anticipated, which they believe suggests that noncompliance with radiation therapy may be an indicator for other risk factors that could negatively affect outcomes.
Researchers have created a model of cancer in zebrafish that allows them to capture live images of tumors forming and growing, in some cases from a single cell. Using the model, the researchers characterized some of the early genetic andepigenetic changes associated with melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer.
In the fish, an important event in the development of melanoma was the activation, in differentiated pigment-producing cells, of a genetic program that normally occurs during embryonic development. The reprogramming of these mature cells, called melanocytes, gave them some of the characteristics of stem cells , such as the ability to grow and divide frequently, the researchers found.
Researchers have identified a genetic rearrangement that may drive the development of a rare benign brain tumor in children. The rearrangement, which causes parts of two genes to fuse, may spur the growth of tumors through three distinct biological mechanisms simultaneously, the researchers found.
The study focused on angiocentric gliomas, a rare subtype of low-grade pediatric tumors that was first described less than a decade ago. Fewer than 30 cases have been reported in the scientific literature. Based on their findings, the study authors propose that angiocentric gliomas should be classified as a distinct biologic entity and that the presence of the gene fusion should be used to confirm the diagnosis.
NCI constantly publishes new information on its websites, so periodically we provide updates on new content of interest to the cancer community.
Imagine the concentrated power of more than one million laptops working to screen a tumor sample from a patient against thousands of drugs and millions of drug combinations. At the end of this screening process, this mega-computer would help to identify a specific treatment with the greatest potential to combat that patient’s cancer.
NCI scientists, in collaboration with colleagues with the Department of Energy (DOE) Exascale Computing Initiative(ECI) and the National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI), have been hard at work for the past 14 months developing a plan to use this type of large-scale computing to influence cancer science and, ultimately, clinical treatment.
In a new study, researchers have confirmed that infection withhuman papillomavirus (HPV) 16 precedes the development of some head and neck cancers. Previous studies have established an association between HPV-16 infection and oropharyngeal cancer, a type of head and neck cancer. The new study is the first to do so using samples collected from participants prior to their cancer diagnoses.
The study also reported, for the first time, an association between head and neck cancer risk and infection with HPV types other than HPV 16.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved eribulin mesylate (Halaven®) on January 28 for some patients with liposarcoma. The approval is for patients whose cancers are advanced (metastatic) or cannot be removed by surgery (unresectable) and are no longer responding to anthracycline-based chemotherapy.
“The approval offers a therapeutic option for a disease with minimal treatment options,” said Chris Heery, M.D., director of the Clinical Trials Group in NCI’s Center for Cancer Research.
Yesterday, the White House released the President’s fiscal year (FY) 2017 Budget Request, which includes $680 million of additional funding for NCI to support the cancer research initiative inspired by Vice President Biden.
The budget request affirms the administration’s commitment to cancer research and the realistic optimism in the cancer community about the opportunities for progress in many areas. This substantial proposal follows the $260.5 million increase in NCI funding that Congress appropriated this year.
Researchers have identified a biological mechanism that may help explain a longstanding association between obesity and an increased risk of colorectal cancer in humans. In mice, the researchers found, the excess intake of calories reduced the production of a hormone that activates a signaling pathwayinvolved in suppressing the development of tumors in the colon and the rectum.
Expression of the hormone, guanylin, which is only produced and acts in the colon, is often reduced in obese individuals.
Many women cancer survivors have problems with mobility and other physical functioning as a result of persistent peripheral neuropathy caused by chemotherapy treatment, according to a new study. The problems with physical functioning were associated with a substantial increase in the women’s risk for injurious falls.
The study findings were presented on January 11 at the 2016 Cancer Survivorship Symposium in San Francisco.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario