Study finds molecular 'signature' for rapidly increasing form of esophageal cancer
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 03/25/2013) - During the past 30 years, the number of patients with cancers that originate near the junction of the esophagus and stomach has increased approximately 600 percent in the United States. The first extensive probe of the DNA of these esophageal adenocarcinomas (EACs) has revealed that many share a distinctive mix-up of letters of the genetic code, and found more than 20 mutated genes that had not previously been linked to the disease. The research, led by scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the Broad Institute, and other research centers, may offer clues to why EAC rates have risen so sharply.

Genetic alterations linked with bladder cancer risk, recurrence, progression, and patient survival
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 03/25/2013) - A new analysis by researchers from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston has found that genetic alterations in a particular cellular pathway are linked with bladder cancer risk, recurrence, disease progression, and patient survival. Published early online in CANCER, a peer- reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings could help improve bladder cancer screening and treatment.

UCLA, Caltech research on immune-cell therapy could strengthen promising melanoma treatment
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 03/22/2013) - A new study of genetically modified immune cells by scientists from UCLA (home of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center) and the California Institute of Technology could help improve a promising treatment for melanoma, an often fatal form of skin cancer.

New imaging agent enables better cancer detection, more accurate staging
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 03/21/2013) - Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have shown that a new imaging dye, designed and developed at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, is an effective agent in detecting and mapping cancers that have reached the lymph nodes. The radioactive dye called Technetium Tc-99m tilmanocept, successfully identified cancerous lymph nodes and did a better job of marking cancers than the current standard dye. Results of the Phase III clinical trial are published online in the Annals of Surgical Oncology.

Cell-based immune therapy shows promise in leukemia patients
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 03/21/2013) - Memorial Sloan-Kettering investigators report that genetically modified immune cells have shown great promise in killing the cancer cells of patients with relapsed B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). In fact, all five of the patients who have received the new therapy – known as targeted immunotherapy – have gone into complete remission, with no detectable cancer cells. The results of this ongoing clinical trial are reported online on March 20 in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Ohio State-led study shows how vitamin E can help prevent cancer
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 03/20/2013) - Researchers have identified an elusive anti-cancer property of vitamin E that has long been presumed to exist, but difficult to find. Many animal studies have suggested that vitamin E could prevent cancer, but human clinical trials following up on those findings have not shown the same benefits. In this new work, led by scientists from the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, researchers showed in prostate cancer cells that one form of vitamin E inhibits the activation of an enzyme that is essential for cancer cell survival. The loss of the enzyme, called Akt, led to tumor cell death. The vitamin had no negative effect on normal cells. Study leaders cautioned that taking a typical vitamin E supplement won’t offer this benefit.

Researchers discover how some prostate tumors resist treatment -- and how it might be fixed
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 03/19/2013) - Hormonal therapies can help control advanced prostate cancer for a time. However, for most men, at some point their prostate cancer eventually stops responding to further hormonal treatment. This stage of the disease is called androgen-insensitive or castration-resistant prostate cancer. In a study published March 18 in Cancer Cell, a team led by researchers at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute found a mechanism at play in androgen-insensitive cells that enables them to survive treatment. They discovered that a protein called Siah2 keeps a portion of androgen receptors constantly active in these prostate cancer cells. Androgen receptors—sensors that receive and respond to the hormone androgen—play a critical role in prostate cancer development and progression.

NSAIDs can boost stem cells for transplants for cancer patients
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 03/18/2013) - Scientists say that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs may be a boon to doctors gathering stem cells for transplants to treat patients with blood or bone marrow cancers, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and multiple myeloma. The compounds, known as NSAIDs and which include aspirin, ibuprofen and other painkillers, increased the number of stem and progenitor cells harvested from the blood in animal testing and a small human study, according to work published online in the journal Nature by a research team led by scientists at the Indiana University School of Medicine (home to the Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center).

USC researchers show increase of cell mutations with age
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 03/15/2013) - Research at the Keck School of Medicine of USC (home of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center) showed evidence that cell mutations increase with age, causing supposedly identical cells to diverge genetically. The report is featured as the cover article in the April issue of the journal Aging Cell. The lining of the colon is made up of crypts, sections composed of about 2,000 cell clones. The researchers were able to analyze and compare the genome of crypts from different areas of the same person’s colon. In the colon, genetic mutations are implicated in cancer, and the mutations increase in cases of severe inflammatory bowel disease. Cell divergence in other parts of the body may play a role in other diseases as well.

Johns Hopkins researchers use fat to fight brain cancer
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 03/13/2013) - In laboratory studies, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have found that stem cells from a patient’s own fat may have the potential to deliver new treatments directly into the brain after the surgical removal of a glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive form of brain tumor. The investigators say so-called mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have an unexplained ability to seek out damaged cells, such as those involved in cancer, and may provide clinicians a new tool for accessing difficult-to-reach parts of the brain where cancer cells can hide and proliferate anew. The researchers say harvesting MSCs from fat is less invasive and less expensive than getting them from bone marrow, a more commonly studied method.