Lymphoblastic Cancer Causes

Clinical Trials Network Aims to Strengthen Cancer Immunotherapy Pipeline

Later this year, the first clinical trials will be launched under a new NCI-funded initiative to spur the development of cancer treatments that work by revving up the immune system’s response to tumors. The Cancer Immunotherapy Trials Network (CITN) includes the foremost researchers in cancer immunotherapy from 27 top U.S. cancer centers and universities who are working collectively to identify promising agents and to formulate and run the trials in which they will be tested.
NCI Cancer Bulletin

NCI Cancer Bulletin for February 21, 2012

NCI Cancer Bulletin

Cancer Screening Rates Lag Behind National Target Levels

Screening rates for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer remained lower in 2010 than national objectives set forth in Healthy People 2020, measures set by the Department of Health and Human Services to improve the health of Americans and gauge the impact of prevention activities. The findings appeared in the January 27 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).
NCI Cancer Bulletin

Additional Surgery after Breast-Conserving Surgery Varies Widely

A new study has found that the number of women who have one or more additional surgeries to remove suspected residual tumor tissue (re-excisions) following breast-conserving surgery (BCS) for breast cancer varies widely across surgeons and hospitals. Although researchers, led by Dr. Laurence E. McCahill from the Richard J. Lacks Cancer Center in Grand Rapids, MI, could not determine whether this variation affected rates of tumor recurrence, “the wide level of unexplained clinical variation itself represents a potential barrier to high-quality and cost-effective care,” the authors wrote in a report that appeared February 1 in JAMA.
NCI Cancer Bulletin

A Conversation with Drs. Christopher Kinsinger and Henry Rodriguez about Sharing Proteomics Data

Last September, NCI’s Office of Cancer Clinical Proteomics Research convened a workshop of researchers and stakeholders in the field of proteomics to discuss ways to better share data about the structure and functions of proteins—a challenge facing the entire proteomics community. The meeting, held in Sydney, Australia, addressed establishing standards to ensure the quality of the data, particularly those generated by a technique known as mass spectrometry. A meeting report with recommendations for the field was recently published simultaneously in four journals simultaneously.
NCI Cancer Bulletin

NCI Cancer Bulletin for February 7, 2012

NCI Cancer Bulletin

Genetic Abnormality Predicts Treatment Benefit for Patients with Rare Brain Tumor

The addition of chemotherapy to radiation therapy doubled the median survival time for patients with an aggressive form of oligodendroglioma, a rare brain tumor. The patients all had a genetic abnormality known as the 1p19q co-deletion.
NCI Cancer Bulletin

Featured Clinical Trial: First-in-Humans Study of New Immunotherapy Agent

The name of the trial is Phase I Study of Intravenous Recombinant Human IL-15 in Adults with Refractory Metastatic Malignant Melanoma and Metastatic Renal Cell Cancer (NCI-10-C-0021). See the protocol summary.
NCI Cancer Bulletin

Experimental Drug Improves Survival in Previously Treated Metastatic Colorectal Cancer

Treatment with the investigational agent regorafenib modestly improved survival for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer whose disease had progressed after multiple prior treatments, according to clinical trial results presented last week at the 2012 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium.
NCI Cancer Bulletin

Epigenetic Study Suggests Possible Treatment for Retinoblastoma

Based on a new model of the genetic and epigenetic changes underlying the childhood cancer retinoblastoma, researchers have identified a potential strategy for treating this rare disease. The model, published online in Nature January 11, suggests that inhibiting a protein called spleen tyrosine kinase (SYK) could benefit patients with this cancer of the eye.
NCI Cancer Bulletin