(Posted: 02/19/2013) - Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute show, more fully than ever before, how mutations shift and evolve over time in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) -- providing a strobe-like look at the genetic past, present, and future of CLL tumors.

(Posted: 02/19/2013) - Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center scientists and colleagues, who conducted the Scandinavian Prostate Cancer Group Study Number 4 trial, identified that radical prostatecomy lowered prostate cancer deaths with a statistically significant absolute mortality difference between RP and watchful waiting of 6.1%.

(Posted: 02/15/2013) - Tumors are not factories for the mass production of identical cancer cells, but are, in reality, patchworks of cells with different patterns of gene mutations. In a new study, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute show, more fully than ever before, how these mutations shift and evolve over time in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) – providing a strobe-like look at the genetic past, present, and future of CLL tumors.

(Posted: 02/15/2013) - The drug bevacizumab, also known by the trade name Avastin, shrinks tumors briefly in patients with an aggressive brain cancer known as glioblastoma multiforme, but then they often grow again and spread throughout the brain for reasons no one previously has understood. Now, Mayo Clinic researchers have found out why this happens. They have also discovered that, in animals, pairing Avastin with another cancer drug, dasatinib, can stop that lethal spread. Dasatinib is approved for use in several blood cancers.

(Posted: 02/14/2013) - The experimental drug selumetinib may allow some patients with advanced thyroid cancer to overcome resistance to radioiodine (RAI), the most effective therapy for the disease, according to new research from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

(Posted: 02/14/2013) - Triple-negative breast cancers are more biologically diverse than previously believed and classification should be expanded to reflect this heterogeneity, according to a study from the University of North Carolina led by researchers at the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, along with scientists from the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology in Barcelona, Spain.

(Posted: 02/12/2013) - Researchers led by MD Anderson Cancer Center employed an extensive analysis of genomic information to identify a new, high-risk cohort of ovarian cancer patients, characterize their tumors, find a potential treatment and test it in mouse models of the disease. The exhaustive analysis that led to micro RNA 506 (miR-506) as a potential therapeutic candidate for advanced or metastatic ovarian cancer is the cover article in the Feb. 11 edition of Cancer Cell.

(Posted: 02/12/2013) - An international team of scientists led by the University of North Carolina (home to the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center) has published a study evaluating different ways of helping men consider their values about PSA screening. They report that the decision-making process was influenced by the format in which information was presented. The team described PSA screening decision options in terms of four key attributes: effect on prostate cancer mortality, risk of biopsy, risk of being diagnosed with prostate cancer and risk of becoming impotent or incontinent as a result of treatment.

(Posted: 02/12/2013) - Geneticists led by University of Utah scientists have engineered mice that develop clear cell sarcoma (CCS), a significant step in better understanding how this rare and deadly soft tissue cancer arises. The mouse model also can potentially speed the development of drugs to target genes that must be activated for the cancer to form. The study included researchers from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and Stanford University.

(Posted: 02/11/2013) - Monitoring the hepatic function of unresectable liver cancer patients, measured by 99mTc-labeled iminodiacetic acid (HIDA) via single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) prior to and during radiation therapy, provides vital information that could guide more customized treatment plans and reduce risks of liver injury, according to University of Michigan research being presented at the 2013 Cancer Imaging and Radiation Therapy Symposium. The University of Michigan is home to the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.