U of M researchers develop new drug to target and destroy tumor cells

A new drug created at the University of Minnesota may hold the answer to defeating pancreatic cancer, according to results published today in the prestigious journal Science Translational Medicine.

Read more

Mayo Clinic-led study finds 2-drug combo slows advanced pancreatic cancer

The combination of the novel drug TH-302 with the standard drug gemcitabine has shown early signs of delaying the worsening of cancer in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer, a Mayo Clinic-led study has found. This was evaluated using a measure termed progression-free survival (PFS). According to the results of a multi-center Phase II clinical trial, patients receiving the combination of gemcitabine and TH-302 demonstrated a progression-free survival of 5.6 months compared to 3.6 months in those patients who received gemcitabine alone.

Read more

Electrical pulse treatment gives pancreatic cancer patients new hope

Results of a study presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology’s 37th Annual Scientific Meeting in San Francisco, Calif., signal a light at the end of the tunnel for individuals with inoperable locally advanced pancreatic cancer (LAPC). A new procedure called irreversible electroporation or IRE uses microsecond electrical pulses to force open and destroy tumor cells around a vast and delicate network of blood vessels of the pancreas. The technique has been successful in treating primary and metastatic liver cancer and IRE is now in the first stages of implementation as a treatment for pancreatic cancer.

Read more

Hutchinson Center and TGen scientists discover potential ‘break through’ in pancreatic cancer

Scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) have discovered a literal ‘break through’ in pancreatic cancer.

A unique biological barrier that pancreatic cancer tumors build around themselves have made them especially resistant to chemotherapy treatments, according to the Hutchinson Center/TGen study published today in the highly-regarded journal Cancer Cell.

Read more

New technology to tackle treatment-resistant cancers

Free-flowing cancer cells have been mapped with unprecedented accuracy in the bloodstream of patients with prostate, breast and pancreatic cancer, using a brand new approach, in an attempt to assess and control the disease as it spreads in real time through the body, and solve the problem of predicting response and resistance to therapies.

Read more

Simple test to help diagnose bowel and pancreatic cancer could save thousands of lives

A simple online calculator could offer family GPs a powerful new tool in tackling two of the most deadly forms of cancer, say researchers.

Academics from The University of Nottingham and ClinRisk Ltd have developed two new QCancer algorithms, which cross-reference symptoms and risk factors of patients to red flag those most likely to have pancreatic and bowel cancer, which could help doctors to diagnose these illnesses more quickly and potentially save thousands of lives every year.

Read more

Scientists develop vaccine that successfully attacks breast cancer in mice

Researchers at Mayo Clinic in Arizona (http://www.mayoclinic.org/arizona/) and the University of Georgia (UGA) have developed a vaccine that dramatically reduces tumors in a mouse model that mimics 90 percent of human breast and pancreatic cancer cases — including those that are resistant to common treatments.

Read more

Mayo Clinic reports new findings on noninvasive test for pancreatic cancer

ROCHESTER, Minn. – Pancreatic cancer has one of the highest mortality rates of any of the major cancers, and of the 43,0plus Americans diagnosed with the disease each year, more than 94 percent die within five years of diagnosis. One reason for this high number of deaths is a lack of effective screening tools for catching the disease early. Now, in an effort to try to gain the upper hand on this deadly form of cancer, Mayo Clinic researchers believe they have found a new way to test for pancreatic cancer with DNA testing of patients’ stool samples. The research was presented at the 2011 Digestive Disease Week conference, held May 7󈝶 in Chicago.

Read more

New drug is effective against the most common form of skin cancer

Noted TGen-Scottsdale Healthcare oncologist discusses vismodegib study at AACR

ORLANDO, Fla. — April 5, 2011 — A new drug is effective in preventing new basal cell carcinomas in patients with an inherited predisposition to the disease.

Read more

Researchers find possible new treatment strategies for pancreatic cancer

Athens, Ga. – New University of Georgia research has identified a protein that can be modified to improve the effectiveness of one of the most common drugs used to treat pancreatic cancer.

The research, published in the March edition of the journal Cancer Research, found that a cell-surface protein called CNT1, which transports cancer-killing drugs into tumor cells, was reduced in function in two thirds of pancreatic tumors. By improving the function of CNT1, the researchers increased the effectiveness of the cancer-killing drugs in pancreatic tumor cells derived from human patients, said lead-author Raj Govindarajan, assistant professor of pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences in the UGA College of Pharmacy.

Read more

Next Page »