Thread: Cancer sucks

Work mate 53 had his ball cut out the other day. Testicular cancer.

Another one Prostate cancer same age. Foking hell.

Originally Posted by terry57

Work mate 53 had his ball cut out the other day. Testicular cancer.

Another one Prostate cancer same age. Foking hell.

Pity, as there seems to be new hope for prostate cancer sufferers.




New treatment for prostate cancer gives 'perfect results' for nine in ten men: research

A new treatment for prostate cancer can rid the disease from nine in ten men without debilitating side effects, a study has found, leading to new hope for tens of thousands of men.

MRI showing prostate cancer in a 75 year old male. Photo: ALAMY


By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor

10:00PM BST 16 Apr 2012

It is hoped the new treatment, which involves heating only the tumours with a highly focused ultrasound, will mean men can be treated without an overnight stay in hospital and avoiding the distressing side effects associated with current therapies.

A study has found that focal HIFU, high-intensity focused ultrasound, provides the 'perfect' outcome of no major side effects and free of cancer 12 months after treatment, in nine out of ten cases.

Traditional surgery or radiotherapy can only provide the perfect outcome in half of cases currently.

Experts have said the results are 'very encouraging' and were a 'paradigm' shift in treatment of the disease.

It is hoped that large scale trials can now begin so the treatment could be offered routinely on the NHS within five years.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence will say in new guidance next week that the treatment is safe and effective and larger scale trials should go ahead.

A larger trial is already recruiting patients and men interested in the treatment should speak to their cancer doctor or GP about being referrred, experts said.
Prostate cancer is the commonest cancer in men with more than 37,000 diagnoses each year approximately 10,000 deaths.
Current treatments include surgery to remove the whole prostate or radiotherapy. Both of which can effectively treat the cancer but often cause side effects such as incontinence and impotence.
However in many men prostate cancer will not progress to a life threatening disease meaning that radical treatment risks side effects unnecessarily. For this reason, research is now focused on reducing side effects.
Focal HIFU involves careful selection of tumours, as small as a grain of rice, within the prostate gland and targeting them with highly focused ultrasound to heat them and destroy them.
The advantage over previous HIFU and other treatments is that damage to surrounding tissue is minimised, meaning there are far fewer side effects.
In the study published in the journal Lancet Oncology, 41 men were treated with focal HIFU. After 12 months, none were incontinent and one in ten suffered impotence.
The majority, 95 per cent, were free of cancer after 12 months.
Dr Hashim Ahmed, who led the study at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust andUniversity College London, said: “This changes the paradigm. By focusing just on the areas of cancer we reduce the collateral damage to surrounding tissue.
"Our results are very encouraging. We’re optimistic that men diagnosed with prostate cancer may soon be able to undergo a day case surgical procedure, which can be safely repeated once or twice, to treat their condition with very few side-effects. That could mean a significant improvement in their quality of life.
“This study provides the proof-of-concept we need to develop a much larger trial to look at whether focal therapy is as effective as the current standard treatment in protecting the health of the men treated for prostate cancer in the medium and long term.”
He said after Nice guidance is issued next week, he expected other doctors to consider using the treatment.
He said: "These results will encourage more physicians to look at it more carefully.
"If men are interested in this concept they should speak to their cancer doctror or their GP.
"The next step is a large scale randomised controlled trial. This needs to be evaluated in a timly way so men can benefit."
The research programme is led by Professor Mark Emberton, of UCL and UCLH. He said: “Focal therapy offers harm reduction – it is a strategy that attempts to redress the balance of harms and benefits by offering men who place high utility on genito-urinary function an alternative to standard care.
"In fact, the concept is not new - tissue preserving strategies have been used successfully in all other solid organ cancers such as breast cancer by offering women a lumpectomy rather than mastectomy.”
Professor Gillies McKenna, director of the Medical Research Council and Cancer Research UK Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology and Biology, said: "Clinical trials, like this one supported by the MRC, are a fantastic tool for telling us whether experimental new treatments are likely to be effective in the clinic.
"If these promising results can be confirmed in a randomised controlled trial, focal therapy could soon become a reasonable treatment choice for prostate cancer alongside other proven effective therapies.”
The research was funded by the MRC, the Pelican Cancer Foundation and St Peter’s Trust.
Jacqui Graves, Interim Head of Healthcare at Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “We welcome any research that shows early signs of improving the outcomes of treatment for prostate cancer patients.
"Significant reduction in the likelihood of common side effects, such as incontinence, will enable men to recover better and go on to lead good quality lives. We hope that a larger trial will be supported to ensure that the UK achieves the best outcomes for men affected by prostate cancer.”
Owen Sharp, Chief Executive of The Prostate Cancer Charity said: “We welcome the development of any prostate cancer treatment which limits the possibility of damaging side effects such as incontinence and impotence. These early results certainly indicate that focal HIFU has the potential to achieve this in the future.
“However, we need to remember that this treatment was given to fewer than 50 men, without follow up over a sustained period of time. We look forward to the results of further trials, which we hope will provide a clearer idea of whether this treatment can control cancer in the long term whilst ridding men of the fear that treating their cancer might mean losing their quality of life.”

New treatment for prostate cancer gives 'perfect results' for nine in ten men: research - Telegraph

‘Holy grail’ gene mapping gives hope to breast cancer victims

The treatment of breast cancer could be revolutionised with patients offered more accurate diagnoses and better-targeted treatments after a study in which scientists genetically mapped the disease.

The research found that rather than being a single disease, breast cancer can be classified into 10 distinct types. It also identified several new genes that determine the aggressiveness of the cancer.

The breakthrough had been hailed by charities as a step towards the “holy grail” of tailoring treatments to the needs of individual patients.

The findings of the research, in which scientists examined 2,000 tumours in the largest ever genetic study of breast cancer tissue, could help predict patients’ chances of survival more accurately and lead to the development of more effective drugs for each cancer type.

The research by Cancer Research UK scientists, published in science journal Nature on Wednesday, will not have an immediate impact on sufferers.

Dr Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said: “This is a landmark study that really changes the way we think about breast cancer – no longer as one disease but actually as 10 quite distinct diseases, dependent on which genes are switched on and which ones aren’t for an individual woman.

“What this research will help us to do is make a much more accurate, much more precise, diagnosis for every patient with breast cancer in the future.

“That will enable us to make sure that we really target the right treatment to the right woman based on those who are going to benefit, or if they’re not going to benefit, not exposing them to the side-effects associated with those treatments.

“That will enable us to make much more progress in breast cancer in coming years.”

Lead researcher Professor Carlos Caldas, at the charity’s Cambridge Research Institute, said: “We have a completely new way of looking at breast cancer. It’s not going to change the outcome for patients treated in the NHS tomorrow. But it will change the way we do clinical trials with new avenues to develop targeted treatments.”

Caldas said the findings have helped scientists to understand why some women with breast cancer have a much better prognosis than others, but cautioned that more research would be needed. “This is a first, very important step.”

He added that scientists now understood what tumours look like at a molecular level and will eventually know which drugs each of the 10 cancer subtypes will best respond to.

“We need to carry out more research in the laboratory and in patients to confirm the most effective treatment plan for each of the 10 types of breast cancer.”

Previously breast cancer had been classified into four subgroups, depending on what they look like under the microscope and on tests for positive or negative “markers” on the tumours. Those with oestrogen receptors should respond to hormone therapies such as tamoxifen, while those with a Her2 receptor can be treated with the drug Herceptin.

More than 70% of breast cancers should respond to hormone therapies. But reactions to treatment vary widely.

The research, which analysed tumour samples taken from women diagnosed with breast cancer between five and 10 years ago, was carried out in collaboration with the BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver, Canada, and included data collected from hospitals in London and Nottingham.

Breast cancer is now the most common cancer in the UK. Eight out of 10 women now survive breast cancer for more than five years, compared with five out of 10 in the 1970s.

Baroness Delyth Morgan, chief executive of the Breast Cancer Campaign, said: “Being able to tailor treatments to the needs of individual patients is considered the holy grail for clinicians and this extensive study brings us another step nearer that goal.”

link: ‘Holy grail’ gene mapping gives hope to breast cancer victims | The Raw Story

I read that article in yesterday's Metro paper. I find it intersting that they say that breast cancer is 10 different diseases, or types, but they don't show the 10 different types.

Originally Posted by S Landreth

and on tests for positive or negative “markers” on the tumours. Those with oestrogen receptors should respond to hormone therapies such as tamoxifen, while those with a Her2 receptor can be treated with the drug Herceptin.

This was me.

Originally Posted by S Landreth

Those with oestrogen receptors should respond to hormone therapies such as tamoxifen, while those with a Her2 receptor can be treated with the drug Herceptin.

Originally Posted by S Landreth

More than 70% of breast cancers should respond to hormone therapies. But reactions to treatment vary widely.

natalie, you quoted only half of what is important there. Here a quote that includes the other half. Patients SHOULD respond, but many don't because there are different cancers. This find is significant but only the first step. Those different kinds need to be identified along with tailored treatment for each.

The wording should have been more clear to avoid this kind of misunderstanding.

the doctor interviewed also said it was likely that other types of cancer could also be split into different categories, although some could not

finding out the types would help the assessment of the best method of cure

Originally Posted by DrAndy

the doctor interviewed also said it was likely that other types of cancer could also be split into different categories, although some could not

Yes that is a great hope for cancer patients. Too many are treated and endue severe side effects and the treatment is not effective. Better differentiation of cancer types can help avoid unnecessary suffering.

Scientists find gene that inhibits pancreas cancer spread

Scientists have identified a gene that slows the spread of pancreatic cancer tumours, paving the way for targeted treatment of one of the deadliest forms of the disease, said a paper published Sunday. After discovering the gene dubbed USP9X at work in a study of pancreatic cancer in mice, the international research team found it also played a role in humans.

After discovering the gene dubbed USP9X at work in a study of pancreatic cancer in mice, the international research team found it also played a role in humans.

"We looked in human tumour specimens and we found that it was missing in a fraction of patients -- the patients that did very poorly ... the people who died the fastest," researcher David Tuveson told AFP.

"Patients that had a low level of the gene expressed ... they died very quickly after their operation and the patients who at the end of their life had lots of metastasis (spreading of the cancer), they had also a very low level of this protein."

The existence of the gene, which is found in all of our cells but goes missing in some tumours, was known before but not its role as a cancer suppressor, said Tuveson.

Three other pancreatic tumour suppressor genes are known to exist, but this is the one whose absence "probably causes metastasis -- that is what kills people with pancreas cancer," said the scientist.

The discovery means that "we can wake up the gene by using drugs" known as epigenetic modulators, he added.

"Our observation allows us to potentially treat people that have lost this gene in the pancreas tumours. It allows us to offer a therapy for the patients that actually have the worst prognosis."

Tuveson said these kinds of drugs have already been developed, "but people haven't figured out where exactly they would be useful.

"We are proposing that these drugs would be useful in this subset of pancreas cancer patients."

Pancreatic cancer kills about 96 percent of its victims within five years of diagnosis, one of the lowest cancer survival rates.

Early diagnosis is difficult, so the disease is often discovered only after it has already spread.

link: Scientists find gene that inhibits pancreas cancer spread

Simple scope exam cuts colon cancer deaths


Screening for colon cancer using a flexible tube -- which is less invasive and more convenient than colonoscopy -- may also help prevent new cases and deaths from the disease, a large federal study finds.

In a large trial of more than 150,000 older U.S. adults, those who were randomly assigned to get screened using so-called flexible sigmoidoscopy on two different occasions were 21 percent less likely to get colon cancer than those not offered the screening.

They were also 26 percent less likely to die of cancer, probably because screening picked up pre-cancerous lesions and early-stage cancers before they could cause serious harm, researchers reported Monday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Many doctors recommend a more complete test — colonoscopy — but many people refuse that costly, unpleasant exam. The new study shows that the simpler test, flexible sigmoidoscopy, can be a good option. Although it may seem similar to having a mammogram on just one breast, experts say that even a partial bowel exam is better than none.

As one put it, "the best test is the one that gets done."

Colonoscopy "is a very unpleasant thing," said Dr. Alfred Neugut, an epidemiologist and oncologist from Columbia University in New York, who wasn't part of the study team.

Colonoscopy "is a very unpleasant thing," said Dr. Alfred Neugut, an epidemiologist and oncologist from Columbia University in New York, who wasn't part of the study team.

"Sigmoidoscopy is a much less elaborate procedure, so you can basically walk into the doctor's office and get it on the spot… and it's much less invasive," he said.
Flexible sigmoidoscopy is one of three colon cancer screening methods recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a government-backed body that sets screening guidelines.

The Task Force says that annual fecal occult blood testing, flexible sigmoidoscopy every five years with fecal testing every three years or colonoscopy every 10 years are all options for adults aged 50 to 75 at average risk of cancer.

But many Americans in that age group still don't get screened -- and one of the reasons may be the discomfort of preparing to get a colonoscopy, including taking laxatives, and the inconvenience and invasiveness of the procedure itself.

People ages 50 to 75 who are at average risk of colon cancer are urged to get screened, but only about 60 percent do. Government advisers recommend one of three methods: annual stool blood tests, a sigmoidoscopy every five years plus stool tests every three years, or a colonoscopy once a decade.

The new findings provide more evidence that sigmoidoscopy as an initial test -- followed by colonoscopy only in the case of positive findings -- may be a valid alternative, researchers said.

The data come from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial, which compared new cases of cancer and cancer-related deaths in adults who did or didn't get different types of screening.

This analysis, led by Dr. Robert Schoen from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, involved 154,900 adults age 55 to 74 who were offered either two sigmoidoscopies, three or five years apart, or no colon cancer screening.

Over the next 12 years, there were 1,012 new cases of colon cancer in the screening group and 1,287 in the unscreened group. In addition, there were 252 related deaths among people offered sigmoidoscopy, compared to 341 in the unscreened group.

The lower mortality in the screening group seemed to be attributable entirely to fewer deaths from so-called distal colon cancer, which occurs in the part of the intestines closer to the rectum. There was no difference between the two groups in deaths from proximal colon cancer, which is cancer higher up in the intestines and beyond the reach of the sigmoidoscopy scope.

False positives common

The screening tests were not without their limitations. One in five men and one in eight women had a false-positive sigmoidoscopy, which resulted in more invasive testing that ultimately found no pre-cancers or cancers. In addition, 22 people suffered a bowel perforation either from the initial sigmoidoscopy or a follow-up colonoscopy.

A limitation of the trial itself is that the two study groups weren't as different as the researchers initially intended: almost half of people in the group assigned to no screening ended up getting a sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy on their own during the study.

Trials in the UK and Italy have also suggested screening with sigmoidoscopy can reduce deaths from colon cancer.

Because of that, the UK plans to offer sigmoidoscopies free of charge to all adults in their mid-50s within the next five years, according to Wendy Atkin, a professor of gastrointestinal epidemiology at Imperial College London, who worked on the UK study.

"We need to revisit sigmoidoscopy in the United States," Atkin told Reuters Health.

Research suggests nurses can do the less-invasive test, she said. It's also significantly cheaper than colonoscopy -- at roughly $150, compared to about $1,000 for a colonoscopy.

Schoen doesn't expect colonoscopy to go out of style as the most popular method for colon cancer screening in the U.S. But, he added, flexible sigmoidoscopy as an initial test is a good choice for some people who want to avoid a colonoscopy unless it's completely necessary.

"Absolutely it's an option on the table," he told Reuters Health.

"If someone, for example, was afraid of anesthesia, if they want a test where the prep is not so aggressive -- they just take enemas as opposed to drinking laxatives, if they cannot spare a day… all those are good reasons if you want to go and have a (sigmoidoscopy)," Schoen said.

Neugut told Reuters Health many U.S. doctors don't do the less-invasive procedures anymore. But data are lacking to prove colonoscopy is any better than initially going for sigmoidoscopy, he said.

"Anyone who doesn't want to have a colonoscopy, they should consider sigmoidoscopy as certainly… a valid form of screening for colon cancer," Neugut said.

couple stories,........

Cancer Treatment Utilizing PD-1/PD-L1 Pathway Boosting Immune System Pathway Ready For Wider Testing: Quantum Day: Cancer Treatment Utilizing PD-1/PD-L1 Pathway Boosting Immune System Pathway Ready For Wider Testing

Immunotherapy is a treatment of a disease by inducing, enhancing, or suppressing an immune response. There are two ways to immunotherapy; Activation and Suppression. Activation Immunotherapy is designed to elicit or amplify the immune system to respond to the disease. Suppression Immunotherapy reduces or suppresses the disease.

Studies and experiments into using the immune system to attack and reject cancer cells have long been underway. The main premise of the process is to stimulate the immune system to attack the malignant tumor cells that are responsible for the disease through immunization (cancer vaccine) or through administration of drugs (therapeutic antibodies). Development in this field has been slow but during that time, much has been learned about the immune system. Coupled with new discoveries in medicine, cancer immunotherapy may be possible within a few decades.

Another field of immunotherapy is cell based immunotherapy. This involves immune cells such as the Natural killer Cells (NK cells), Lymphokine Activated killer cell(LAK), Cytotoxic T Lymphocytes(CTLs), Dendritic Cells (DC), etc., which are either activated in vivo by administering certain cytokines such as Interleukins or they are isolated, enriched and transfused to the patient to fight against cancer.

Cancer therapy that boosts immune system ready for wider testing

Two clinical trials led by Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers in collaboration with other medical centers, testing experimental drugs aimed at restoring the immune system's ability to spot and attack cancer, have shown promising early results in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer, melanoma, and kidney cancer. More than 500 patients were treated in the studies of two drugs that target the same immune-suppressive pathway, and the investigators say there is enough evidence to support wider testing in larger groups of patients.

Results of the Phase I clinical trials will be published online June 2 in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (Abstracts #2509 and #2510).

"Based on the positive response rates to these drugs and longevity of many of these responses, we believe that new clinical trials should move forward," says Suzanne Topalian, M.D., professor of surgery and oncology at Johns Hopkins. Preliminary analysis shows that, among responding patients who were followed for more than one year, responses were maintained for more than one year in two-thirds of those treated on one trial and in half of those in the other trial.

The immune-based therapies tested in the two clinical trials, both made by Bristol-Myers Squibb, aim not to kill cancer cells directly, but to block a pathway that shields tumor cells from immune system components able and poised to fight cancer.

The pathway includes two proteins called programmed death-1 (PD-1), expressed on the surface of immune cells, and programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1), expressed on cancer cells. When PD-1 and PD-L1 join together, they form a biochemical "shield" protecting tumor cells from being destroyed by the immune system. Another protein involved in the pathway and also expressed by cells in the immune system, programmed death ligand(PD-L2), was originally discovered by Johns Hopkins investigators.

To make cancer cells more vulnerable to attack by the immune system, investigators tested each of two drugs -- BMS-936558, which blocks PD-1, and BMS-936559, which blocks PD-L1 -- in separate clinical trials conducted at multiple U.S. hospitals. The drugs are given intravenously in an outpatient clinic every two weeks, and patients can remain on the treatment for up to two years.

The PD-1 blocking drug was tested in 296 patients with various advanced cancers who had not responded to standard therapies. Of those patients receiving the anti-PD-1 therapy, 240 who started treatment by July 2011 were analyzed for tumor response. Significant tumor shrinkage was seen in 14 of 76 (18 percent) non-small cell lung cancer patients, 26 of 94 (28 percent) melanoma patients and nine of 33 (27 percent) kidney cancer patients.

In this trial, some patients experienced stable disease for six months or more, including five of 76 (seven percent) lung cancer patients, six of 94 (six percent) melanoma patients and nine of 33 (27 percent) kidney cancer patients. The investigators say that additional clinical studies will be needed to determine the drug's potential impact on survival.

"This level of response in patients with advanced lung cancer, which is typically not responsive to immune-based therapies, was unexpected and notable," says Julie Brahmer, M.D., associate professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins.

The anti-PD-L1 therapy also showed responses among 207 treated patients. Five of 49 (10 percent) non-small cell lung cancer patients, nine of 52 (17 percent) melanoma patients, and two of 17 (12 percent) kidney cancer patients responded.

"The positive results from both drugs give us a good indication that the PD-L1/PD-1 pathway is an important target for cancer therapy," says Topalian.

The anti-PD1 therapy caused serious toxicities in 41 of 296 (14 percent) patients. Many of the toxicities were immune-related, including colon inflammation, thyroid abnormalities and three deaths from pneumonitis (lung inflammation). The investigators say they are working with colleagues across the country to develop better methods for early detection and effective treatment of pneumonitis. Other less severe toxicities included fatigue, itching and rash. The anti-PD-L1 therapy caused nine percent serious toxicities and no deaths.

Among patients receiving anti-PD-1, tumor samples collected from 42 study patients before they received the experimental therapy were evaluated at Johns Hopkins Medicine for molecular markers that may correlate with clinical response. The investigators found PD-L1, the partner protein to PD-1, in 25 of the 42 samples. Nine of the 25 patients with PD-L1-positive tumors experienced tumor shrinkage as compared with none of the patients with PD-L1 negative tumors.

"These early results indicate that PD-L1 expression in pretreatment tumor biopsies may correlate with clinical response to anti-PD-1 therapy, but more work needs to be done to confirm this, " says Brahmer.

The two therapies targeting the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway are in the same class of so-called "antibody therapies," which are made of proteins that target and bind to certain molecules on the cell surface. Other antibody therapies include such drugs as Erbitux, Herceptin, and Rituxan.

"We have just scratched the surface of laboratory and clinical research on these drugs," says Topalian.

Ultimately, they envision boosting the effectiveness of the therapy by combining it with other anti-cancer agents, including cancer vaccines.

Johnson & Johnson drug slows prostate cancer spread by 58 percent: trial: Johnson & Johnson drug slows prostate cancer spread by 58 percent: trial | Reuters

(Reuters) - A trial of Johnson & Johnson's prostate cancer pill, Zytiga, found that it slowed the spread of the disease by 58 percent in men who had stopped responding to hormonal drugs but not yet treated with chemotherapy, potentially offering new hope for patients who see their cancer return.

Zytiga is one of several new prostate cancer treatments that may significantly prolong the life of patients by zeroing in more closely on certain mechanisms that help tumors proliferate. New data on the medications are being presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting in Chicago.

The trial of 1,088 prostate cancer patients showed those given a placebo and the steroid prednisone went a median of 8.3 months before their disease worsened. Patients treated with the steroid and Zytiga were still faring better at the time the data were analyzed, so a comparable statistic was not yet available.

The study's lead investigator, Dr Charles Ryan of the University of California, San Francisco's Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, estimated that the Zytiga patients would enjoy at least 16 months of progression free survival (PFS).

The trial also found that prednisone-only patients lived for a median of 27.2 months. Overall survival for patients treated with Zytiga had also not yet been reached, but J&J estimated that it improved their survival by 33 percent, or 9 months.

That would clearly surpass the 4.1 month survival benefit demonstrated by Provenge, the cancer vaccine sold by Dendreon Corp that was tested in a similar patient population.

Prostate cancer is the second most common form of cancer in men, with some 30,000 dying from the disease each year in the United States alone and 250,000 globally. Around one-third of patients need no treatment, because their disease does not metastasize, or spread, while another third are treated and cured.

But for the remaining patients, the cancer will recur following treatment or spread to the bones, lymph nodes or other parts of the body. Prostate cancer can turn lethal when it spreads and when it resists standard hormonal therapy.

NEW APPROVAL SOUGHT

Experimental prostate cancer drugs due to be featured at ASCO include Medivation Inc's eznalutamide and alpharadin, which is being developed by Bayer AG and Algeta ASA.

Zytiga is already approved to treat advanced prostate cancer in patients who previously received chemotherapy. J&J expects to file in the second half of this year for U.S. regulatory approval of the drug as a treatment for men with metastatic prostate cancer who have not yet received chemotherapy.

"Clearly, if we're showing greater benefit in the pre-chemotherapy population ... I don't think it's unreasonable that they (clinicians) would move it up," said Michael Meyers, head of the drug's development at J&J.

The study also showed that Zytiga significantly delayed the need for pain drugs taken to reduce side effects and eventual chemotherapy.

In March, the pre-chemotherapy trial was stopped ahead of schedule after it became clear patients were benefiting from Zytiga, a member of a new drug class designed to work inside cancer cells to block the production of testosterone, the male hormone that fuels prostate cancer cell growth.

Zytiga, also known as abiraterone, is currently given for eight months at a cost of around $44,000.

Barclays estimates peak U.S. Zytiga sales of $1.5 billion by 2015, with $700 million from cases where it is used after chemotherapy and $800 million from patients who have yet to try chemo.

Side effects associated with the drug included cardiac disorders, high blood pressure and increased liver enzyme levels.

J&J's Meyers said the safety profile seen with Zytiga in the latest trial was similar to earlier studies, even though patients were exposed to the drug for nearly twice as long.

He said the side effects "for the most part did not disrupt treatment and were easily managed by routine medical interventions."

GenoMEL - the Melanoma Genetics Consortium

Malignant melanoma site.

Look up Reolysin - it is, IMO, the best hope for a true cancer treatment.

'Smart bomb' drug attacks breast cancer: Study: 'Smart bomb' drug attacks breast cancer - Health - msnbc.com

Doctors have successfully dropped the first "smart bomb" on breast cancer, using a drug to deliver a toxic payload to tumor cells while leaving healthy ones alone.

In a key test involving nearly 1,000 women with very advanced disease, the experimental treatment extended by several months the time women lived without their cancer getting worse, doctors planned to report Sunday at a cancer conference in Chicago.

More importantly, the treatment seems likely to improve survival; it will take more time to know for sure. After two years, 65 percent of women who received it were still alive versus 47 percent of those in a comparison group given two standard cancer drugs.

That margin fell just short of the very strict criteria researchers set for stopping the study and declaring the new treatment a winner, and they hope the benefit becomes more clear with time. In fact, so many women on the new treatment are still alive that researchers cannot yet determine average survival for the group.

"The absolute difference is greater than one year in how long these people live," said the study's leader, Dr. Kimberly Blackwell of Duke University. "This is a major step forward."

A warning to hopeful patients: the drug is still experimental, so not available yet. Its backers hope it can reach the market within a year.

The treatment builds on Herceptin, the first gene-targeted therapy for breast cancer. It is used for about 20 percent of patients whose tumors overproduce a certain protein.

Researchers combined Herceptin with a chemotherapy so toxic that it can't be given by itself, plus a chemical to keep the two linked until they reach a cancer cell where the poison can be released to kill it.

This double weapon, called T-DM1, is the "smart bomb," although it's actually not all that smart — Herceptin isn't a homing device, just a substance that binds to breast cancer cells once it encounters them.

Doctors tested T-DM1 in 991 women with widely spread breast cancer that was getting worse despite treatment with chemotherapy and ordinary Herceptin. They were given either T-DM1 infusions every three weeks or infusions of Xeloda plus daily Tykerb pills — the only other treatments approved for such cases.

The median time until cancer got worse was nearly 10 months in the women given T-DM1 versus just over 6 months for the others. That is about the same magnitude of benefit initially seen with Herceptin, which later proved to improve overall survival, too, Blackwell said.

T-DM1 caused fewer side effects than the other drugs did. Some women on T-DM1 had signs of liver damage and low levels of factors that help blood clot, but most did not have the usual problems of chemotherapy.

"People don't lose their hair, they don't throw up. They don't need nausea medicines, they don't need transfusions," said Blackwell, who has consulted in the past for Genentech, the study's sponsor.

"The data are pretty compelling," said Dr. Michael Link, a pediatric cancer specialist at Stanford University who is president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the group hosting the Chicago conference where the results were being presented.

"It's sort of a smart bomb kind of therapy, a poison delivered to the tumor ... and not a lot of other collateral damage to other organs," he said.

Dr. Louis Weiner, director of Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, said the results strongly suggest T-DM1 improves survival. It delivers more drug directly to tumors with less side effects, "a clear advance," he said.

Denise Davis, 51, a customer service representative at a propane company, was diagnosed three years ago with breast cancer that had spread to her liver and bones. Since February of last year, the Lynchburg, Va., woman has made the two-hour trip to Duke in Durham, N.C., every three weeks to get infusions of T-DM1.

"I call it 'Herceptin-plus,'" she said. Scans every six weeks show "everything is still shrinking or stable," she said. "Right now, I'm feeling pretty good about it. The only way I'd feel a little better is if it took care of everything, but I'll take what I can get."

Genentech, part of the Swiss company Roche, plans to seek approval later this year to sell the drug in Europe and the United States. Another company, ImmunoGen Inc., made the technology combining the drugs.

Genentech says the price of T-DM1 has not been determined. Herceptin costs more than $4,000 a month plus whatever doctors charge to infuse it. Herceptin's U.S. patent doesn't expire until 2019.

Research shows promising treatments against skin cancer; Could help melanoma patients with particular gene mutation: Research shows promising treatments against skin cancer; Could help melanoma patients with particular gene mutation - NY Daily News

Two new experimental treatments against advanced melanoma have shown promise in keeping the deadly skin cancer at bay, according to research presented in the United States on Monday.

The agents, known as Dabrafenib and Trametinib, are being developed by the British pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline, and were tested in clinical trials against standard chemotherapy treatments.

The trial on Trametinib included 322 people, of whom 214 took the experimental drug while the rest did standard chemotherapy, researchers said at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago.

More than 22 percent of those on Trametinib responded to treatment compared to eight percent in the chemo group.

The Trametinib group also experienced a median 4.8 month period in which the cancer did not advance, and saw their risk of dying from skin cancer diminish by 46 percent compared to the chemo group -- 81 percent were still alive after six months of treatment compared to 67 percent in the control group.

The phase III trial was the first to evaluate a treatment against melanoma that inhibits a protein known as MEK, and may help about half of all melanoma patients who have a mutation in the BRAF gene that fuels tumor growth.

"This is the first in a new class of targeted drugs that could benefit patients with melanoma who have BRAF mutations," said Caroline Robert, head of Dermatology at the Institute Gustave Roussy in Paris, France.

"The findings show that targeting the MEK molecular pathway is a viable strategy for treating many people with the disease," Robert added.

"Trametinib is likely to become another first-line treatment option for patients with advanced melanoma."

One other therapy on the market, vemurafenib (Zelboraf), is currently approved in the United States and Europe for advanced melanoma.

The second trial involved Dabrafenib, which also targets cancers with the BRAF mutation, and showed a 70 percent lower risk of cancer progression compared to those treated with chemotherapy alone (5.1 months versus 2.7 months).

The phase III trial included 250 participants who had not been treated with any drug prior to enrollment and who had been diagnosed with inoperable melanoma, 187 of whom took the experimental drug while the rest were given standard chemotherapy.

Half of patients in the Dabrafenib group responded to therapy, compared to six percent of patients treated with a chemotherapy treatment known as dacarbazine.

The median time in which the cancer did not progress was 5.1 months in the Dabrafenib group compared to 2.7 months in the control group.

More study is needed to determine the overall survival rate, researchers said.

"These findings represent another advance for melanoma and form the foundation for further studies to evaluate the role of Dabrafenib in combination with other drugs," said lead investigator Axel Hauschild, a professor of dermatology at University of Kiel in Germany.

Continuing from post 128:

Prostate cancer breakthrough drug 'available by Christmas'

Men with advanced prostate cancer could get access within months to a once-a-day pill described as being as big a breakthrough for treatment of the disease as Herceptin has been for breast cancer.

MRI showing prostate cancer in a 75 year old male. Photo: ALAMY


By Stephen Adams, Medical Correspondent

6:00PM BST 27 Jun 2012

Enzalutamide, previously known by the monicker ‘MDV3100’, has been found to extend the lives of those with prostate cancer that has spread to other organs by an average of five months, from 13.5 to 18.5 months.

New data now show it also significantly improves quality of life, reducing the intense pain the disease can cause when it has spread to the bones, giving sufferers more energy, and renewing their appetites.

Now Astellas, the drugs firm that makes it, has submitted an application to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to be able to market it.

Dr Gerhardt Attard, who has helped lead clinical trials at the Institute for Cancer Research (ICR) in London, hoped it would only be a matter of months before approval was granted.

He said that was how quick it took another milestone prostate cancer drug, abiraterone, to be approved.

Patients had shown remarkable advances on enzalutamide, he said.

“They have come in and said, ‘I’ve just played a full round of golf, which I haven’t been able to do in two years.’ “
He added: “It’s a major breakthrough as it offers a treatment option for patients who have few others available.”
Last year his colleague Professor Johann de Bono said its benefits were “similar to those Herceptin brings for women with late stage breast cancer”.
Dr Attard emphasised EMA approval did not mean it would be available immediately across all the NHS. That has to be determined by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice).
However, he said there was a “strong case” for patients to receive it before then under Cancer Drugs Fund in England.
Prostate cancer kills 10,000 men a year, making it comparable in scale to breast cancer, which kills 12,000 women annually in Britain.
After years of new advances in the treatment of advanced prostate cancer, there is at last a surfeit of good news. Earlier today, Nice confirmed it was recommending abiraterone for treatment on the NHS.
Owen Sharp, chief executive of Prostate Cancer UK, said the charity was "delighted" at the decision, which only came about after a u-turn from the drugs rationing body.
He said: "We urge local health authorities in England and Wales to waste no time in putting in place the necessary arrangements to ensure men with advanced prostate cancer can access this drug without delay."


Prostate cancer breakthrough drug 'available by Christmas' - Telegraph

Daily Aspirin Use and cancer Mortality in a large US cohort: http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_jo...cobsdjs318.pdf

A recent pooled analysis of randomized trials of daily aspirin for prevention of vascular events by Rothwell et al. (1) reported a statistically significant 15% reduction in overall cancer mortality during an intervention period of up to 10 years. The overall reduction in cancer mortality was mostly attributable to an estimated 37% reduction in cancer mortality during follow-up occurring after 5 years on aspirin (relative risk [RR] = 0.63, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.49 to 0.82; 92 cancer deaths in the aspirin group compared with 142 in the control group). Similar effects were observed for lower doses, mostly 75–100mg/day, and higher doses (≥300mg/day).

Daily aspirin reduces cancer risk and slows its spread, study confirms

Overall risk of dying from cancer was reduced by 16% among people who took daily dose of aspirin when healthy

Taking a low dose of aspirin every day may reduce the risk of cancer and slow the spread of the disease, according to a study that followed the health of more than 100,000 patients.

Research by a team at the American Cancer Society in Atlanta found the overall risk of dying from cancer was 16% lower among people who took a daily aspirin pill for up to 11 years, with deaths from gastrointestinal cancers, such as oesophageal, stomach and colorectal cancers, falling by around 40%. Deaths from other cancers fell by 12% on average.

Genetic findings may lead to new breast cancer treatments

In findings that are fundamentally reshaping the scientific understanding of breast cancer, researchers have identified four genetically distinct types of the cancer. And within those types, they found hallmark genetic changes that are driving many cancers.

These discoveries are expected to lead to new treatments with drugs already approved for cancers in other parts of the body and new ideas for more precise treatments aimed at genetic aberrations that now have no known treatment.

The study, published online on Sunday in the journal Nature, is the first comprehensive genetic analysis of breast cancer, which kills more than 35,000 women a year in the United States. The new paper and several smaller recent studies are electrifying the field.

"This is the road map for how we might cure breast cancer in the future," said Dr. Matthew Ellis of Washington University, a researcher for the study.

Researchers and patient advocates caution that it will still take years to translate the new insights into transformative new treatments. Even within the four major types of breast cancer, individual tumors appear to be driven by their own sets of genetic changes. A wide variety of drugs will most likely need to be developed to tailor medicines to individual tumors.

"There are a lot of steps that turn basic science into clinically meaningful results," said Karuna Jaggar, executive director of Breast Cancer Action. "It is the 'stay tuned story."

The study is part of a large federal project, the Cancer Genome Atlas, to build maps of genetic changes in common cancers. Reports on similar studies of lung and colon cancer have been published recently. The breast cancer study was based on an analysis of tumors from 825 patients.

The study focused on the most common types of breast cancer that are thought to arise in the milk duct. It concentrated on early breast cancers that had not yet spread to other parts of the body in order to find genetic changes that could be attacked, stopping a cancer before it metastasized.

The study's biggest surprise involved a particularly deadly breast cancer whose tumor cells resemble basal cells of the skin and sweat glands, which are present in the deepest layer of the skin. These breast basal cells form a scaffolding for milk duct cells. Such cancers are often called triple negative, but the study researchers call them basal-like.

Basal-like cancers are most frequent in younger women, in African-Americans and in women with breast cancer genes BRCA1 and BRCA2.

And, the researchers report, their genetic derangements make these cancers a much closer kin of ovarian cancers than of other breast cancers. Basal-like breast cancers also resemble squamous cell cancer of the lung.

"It's incredible," said Dr. James Ingle of the Mayo Clinic, one of the study's 348 authors, of the ovarian cancer connection. "It raises the possibility that there may be a common cause."

The study gives a biologic reason to try routine treatments for ovarian cancer -- platinum drugs, for example -- in basal-like breast cancer, the investigators said. And a common class of drug used in breast cancer, anthracyclines (Adriamycin or epirubicin), might be dropped from the basal-like cancer treatment regimen because they do not increase help in ovarian cancer.

Anthracyclines, Ellis said, "are the drugs most breast cancer patients dread because they are associated with heart damage and leukemia."

Two other types of breast cancer, accounting for most cases of the disease, arise from the laminal cells that line milk ducts. These cancers have proteins on their surfaces that grab estrogen, fueling their growth. Just about everyone with estrogen-fueled cancer gets the same treatment. Some do well. Others do not.

The genetic analysis divided laminal cancers into two distinct subtypes. The laminal A subtype had good prognoses while laminal B did not, suggesting that perhaps patients with laminal A tumors might do well with just hormonal therapy to block estrogen from spurring their cancers while laminal B patients might do better with chemotherapy in addition to hormonal therapy.

After basal-like cancers, and laminal A and B cancers, the fourth type of breast cancer is what the researchers called HER2-enriched. Breast cancers often have extra copies of a gene, HER2, that drives their growth. A drug, Herceptin, can block the gene and has changed the prognosis for these patients from one of the worst in breast cancer to one of the best.

Yet although Herceptin is approved for every breast cancer patient whose tumor makes too much HER2, the new analysis finds that not all of these tumors are alike. The HER2-enriched should respond readily to Herceptin; the other type might not.

The only way to know is to do a clinical trial, and one is already being planned.

Lots of cancer in My profession, another guy burned today at 58. Poor bastard didn't get to enjoy his retirement .


Anther guy I work with diagnosed with it at 53 but has responded well to treatment, 10 years ago he would of died.

Medical advancement in this field is powering ahead.

I'm taking no chances and will retire next year.

Originally Posted by terry57

I'm taking no chances and will retire next year.

That'll be a massive change to your current lifestyle...

I suppose that cancer nowadays does not mean almost certain death, as it did a few years ago

although some types are still virtually certain to kill you

I had stomach surgery 18 months ago. Diverticulitis, which would not respond to antibiotics. Lower bowel resection - most unpleasant. A day or two later, doctor came in to discuss the surgery and prognosis for recovery. After about a 20 minute chat, and as he was walking out of the room, he turned and said, "Oh, by the way, absolutely no cancer present, biopsied it every way possible."

Fuck.....could have led with that statement!

Sounds unlikely but :



Smacking children may increase risk of them developing cancer

Smacking children may put them at greater risk of cancer, heart disease and asthma later in life, a controversial study has suggested.

Photo: IAN JONES

By Rebecca Smith, Medical Editor

12:40PM GMT 12 Nov 2012

Psychologists asked adults with the diseases if they had been verbally or physically abused as children and found they were more likely to say they had been than healthy adults.

The team from Plymouth University said the stress caused by the smacking or shouting in a child's early years may lead to biological changes which predisposes to disease.

Other studies have also suggested that severe trauma in childhood such as physical or sexual abuse may lead to an elevated risk of chronic diseases later.

However experts said it is difficult to rule out other factors such as poverty and social isolation which are often linked to physical and verbal abuse in childhood and could cause disease later in life.

The research team asked 250 healthy adults in Saudi Arabia about their childhood and compared the answers to 150 adults with heart disease, 150 with cancer and 150 with asthma.

They were asked whether and how often they had been beaten and subjected to verbal abuse as children.
Those who had cancer were 70 per cent more likely to have been beaten as a child compared to the healthy group.
Those with cardiac disease were 30 per cent more likely and those with asthma 60 per cent more likely.
Professor Michael Hyland, from the University’s School of Psychology, who led the study said: “Early life stress in the form of trauma and abuse is known to creating long term changes that predispose to later disease.
"But this study shows that in a society where corporal punishment is considered normal, the use of corporal punishment is sufficiently stressful to have the same kinds of long term impact as abuse and trauma.
“Our research adds a new perspective on the increasing evidence that the use of corporal punishment can contribute to childhood stress, and when it becomes a stressor, corporal punishment contributes to poor outcomes both for the individual concerned and for society.”
Smacking a child so hard it leaves a mark may lead to a criminal prosecution in Britain carrying a maximum five-year prison sentence.
Prof David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor Of The Public Understanding Of Risk at the University of Cambridge, said: “I would be very cautious about over-interpreting these results.
"For example, the healthy group are taken from administrators and nurses at the hospital treating the patients, and so are likely to differ in many ways from the ill people. The controls reported less beating and insulting as children, so maybe not being beaten encourages people to enter a caring profession, rather than protecting them from disease?”
Dr Andrea Danese, Clinical Lecturer in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, said: “This research adds to the growing body of research linking childhood maltreatment to later disease. It is possible that child maltreatment may not only affect risk for mental illness but also contribute to risk for medical illness, such as asthma, cancer, and cardiac disease.
“This may have major implication for the way we understand the origins of disease and, thus, for disease prevention.
"However, the evidence is largely based on retrospective reports of childhood maltreatment. In other words, instead of assessing maltreatment in childhood years and following children for years until they reach adulthood to check their health status, often researchers have asked adult people with or without disease to report on their memories of maltreatment in childhood.
"The claims may therefore be biased or overstated, because ill people may be more likely to report unhappy childhood.
“It is also vital to understand the mechanisms through which child maltreatment may influence health. If we understand the biological and behavioural changes brought about by child maltreatment, we might be able to stop these processes before the onset of clinical symptoms."
The findings were published in the Journal of Behavioural Medicine.

Smacking children may increase risk of them developing cancer - Telegraph

By medical reporter Sophie Scott, ABC Updated November 2, 2012, 2:30 pm



ABC © Enlarge photo




Australian scientists have made a major breakthrough in developing a blood test which can identify bowel cancer.
While current tests are effective, the take-up rate is low, with many people choosing not to be screened.
Researchers from the CSIRO and Clinical Genomics say they have developed a blood test which can pick up the presence of bowel tumours.
Researcher Larry La Pointe says they have identified a group of genes which are modified in patients who have colorectal cancer.
"The breakthrough is that we have been able to identify the changes in the blood of those patients," he said.
Blood tests on almost 300 people showed it was more than 70 per cent accurate in picking up the presence of tumours.
"That means in patients with the disease, we were able to identify it three out of four times," Mr La Pointe said.
The test is currently being trialled on 3,000 patients and could be available as early as next year.
Scientists are hopeful the development will encourage more people to get tested.
Bobby McKeown is one person who did not take a bowel cancer test he was sent as part of the Federal Government's screening program.
"Nobody wants to be told they have got cancer," he said.
"So if I don't do the test, I'm not going to be told."
Six months later, he was diagnosed with colorectal cancer.
"I've still got a way to go on the journey and a few things have changed, but I am cancer free," he said.

Researchers develop blood test for bowel cancer - Yahoo!7 News
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Pap smear test could screen for more types of cancers: study


The pap smear — a routine test women undergo to screen for cervical cancer — could help screen for other types of cancer as well, a study said this week.

A new test takes the same fluid swab from the cervix and tests it for the presence of certain cancer-specific mutations.

The scientists were hoping to catch cases of ovarian and endometrial cancer — two common and deadly cancers which, until now, were not able to be screened for routinely.

In the pilot study, the test was able to accurately detect each of 24 endometrial cancers, a 100 percent success rate, according to results published Wednesday in the US journal “Science Translational Medicine.”

The test also detected nine of 22 ovarian cancers, for a 41 percent success rate during the pilot study. And in no cases were healthy women in the control group mis-identified as having cancer during the study.

The scientists cautioned that the process must be tested on a much larger scale before being made available to the public.

But if their findings hold up, the test could be a powerful tool in fighting these two cancers of the ovaries and the uterus lining.

Ovarian cancer causes more deaths than any other cancer of the female reproductive system, the CDC notes, adding that treatment is most effective when it is caught in its early stages.

Likewise, endometrial cancer is the most commonly diagnosed gynecologic cancer, the CDC said, and is best treated when caught early.

“Genomic-based tests could help detect ovarian and endometrial cancers early enough to cure more of them,” Johns Hopkins graduate student Yuxuan Wang said in a statement.

She noted that the cost of the test could be similar to current cervical fluid HPV testing, which is less than $100.

“Our genomic sequencing approach may offer the potential to detect these cancer cells in a scalable and cost effective way,” added lab director Luis Diaz.

He explained that the test works because the cervical fluid collected during the pap test occasionally contains cells shed from ovaries or the uterine lining.

So it followed that any cancer cells present in those organs could also be present in the cervical fluid.

But the 44 women included in the pilot study had already been diagnosed with either endometrial or ovarian cancer.

The test must now be conducted on women who appear healthy, to determine if it could detect cancers in their early stages.

They also aim to search for ways to increase the test’s accuracy in detecting ovarian cancer.

“Performing the test at different times during the menstrual cycle, inserting the cervical brush deeper into the cervical canal, and assessing more regions of the genome may boost the sensitivity,” said Chetan Bettegowda, an assistant professor of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins.

Nearly 70,000 women in the US each year are diagnosed with either ovarian or endometrial cancer, and about a third of them die, the study authors said.



ABSTRACT: Evaluation of DNA from the Papanicolaou Test to Detect Ovarian and Endometrial Cancers


Papanicolaou (Pap) smears have revolutionized the management of patients with cervical cancers by permitting the detection of early, surgically curable tumors and their precursors. In recent years, the traditional Pap smear has been replaced by a liquid-based method, which allows not only cytologic evaluation but also collection of DNA for detection of human papillomavirus, the causative agent of cervical cancer. We reasoned that this routinely collected DNA could be exploited to detect somatic mutations present in rare tumor cells that accumulate in the cervix once shed from endometrial or ovarian cancers. A panel of genes that are commonly mutated in endometrial and ovarian cancers was assembled with new whole-exome sequencing data from 22 endometrial cancers and previously published data on other tumor types. We used this panel to search for mutations in 24 endometrial and 22 ovarian cancers and identified mutations in all 46 samples. With a sensitive massively parallel sequencing method, we were able to identify the same mutations in the DNA from liquid Pap smear specimens in 100% of endometrial cancers (24 of 24) and in 41% of ovarian cancers (9 of 22). Prompted by these findings, we developed a sequence-based method to query mutations in 12 genes in a single liquid Pap smear specimen without previous knowledge of the tumor’s genotype. When applied to 14 samples selected from the positive cases described above, the expected tumor-specific mutations were identified. These results demonstrate that DNA from most endometrial and a fraction of ovarian cancers can be detected in a standard liquid-based Pap smear specimen obtained during routine pelvic examination. Although improvements need to be made before applying this test in a routine clinical manner, it represents a promising step toward a broadly applicable screening methodology for the early detection of gynecologic malignancies.