A tumor suppressor is identified as an inhibitor of inflammatory pathways
NCI News Note
(Posted: 04/09/2013) - Scientists at NCI have found that a protein, FBXW7, which acts as a tumor suppressor, is also important for the reduction in strength of inflammatory pathways. It has long been recognized that a complex interaction exists between cancer causing mechanisms and inflammation.

New brain cancer treatment may be more effective, less toxic
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 04/09/2013) - A Phase 2 clinical trial testing a new protocol for treating a relatively rare form of brain cancer, primary CNS lymphoma, may change the standard of care for this disease, according to doctors at UC San Francisco Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, who led the research. Described this week in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the trial involved 44 patients who were given a combination of high-dose chemotherapy with immune therapy, rather than the standard combination of chemotherapy with a technique known as whole-brain radiotherapy.

New Mayo software identifies and stratifies risk posed by lung nodules
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 04/09/2013) - A multidisciplinary team of researchers at Mayo Clinic has developed a new software tool to noninvasively characterize pulmonary adenocarcinoma, a common type of cancerous nodule in the lungs. Results from a pilot study of the computer-aided nodule assessment and risk yield (CANARY) are published in the Journal of Thoracic Oncology.

NCI Cancer Centers at AACR: 2013
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 04/08/2013) - The American Association for Cancer Research’s annual meeting draws thousands of attendees to five days of science presentations and educational sessions. The institutions that comprise the network of NCI-designated Cancer Centers are strong presences.

Cancer immunotherapy in children: How does it differ from approaches in adults?
NCI Perspective
(Posted: 04/08/2013) - More often than not, cancer immunotherapies that work in adults are used in modified ways in children. Seldom are new therapies developed just for children, primarily because of the small number of pediatric patients relative to the adult cancer patient population. Depicted are members of NCI’s Pediatric Oncology Branch. From left: Drs. Crystal Mackall, Daniel Lee, and Alan Wayne

Third-generation device significantly improves capture of circulating tumor cells
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 04/04/2013) - A new system for isolating rare circulating tumor cells (CTCs) – living solid tumor cells found at low levels in the bloodstream – shows significant improvement over previously developed devices and does not require prior identification of tumor-specific target molecules. Developed at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Engineering in Medicine and the MGH Cancer Center (an affiliate of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute), the device rapidly delivers a population of unlabeled tumor cells that can be analyzed with both standard clinical diagnostic cytopathology and advanced genetic and molecular technology. The MGH team's report has been published in Science Translational Medicine.

Melanoma Rates Rising in U.S. Children
HealthDay
(Posted: 04/04/2013) - While melanoma in children is still extremely rare, the rate increased by about 2 percent per year from 1973 to 2009 among U.S children from newborns to age 19...Recent studies have also shown that melanoma is on the rise among adults as well. Exactly what is driving these trends is not fully understood, but increased exposure to ultraviolet radiation from both the sun and tanning booths as well as greater awareness of melanoma may be responsible, according to study authors led by Jeannette Wong of the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

Study finds antidepressant helps relieve pain from chemotherapy
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 04/03/2013) - The antidepressant drug duloxetine, known commercially as Cymbalta, helped relieve painful numbness and tingling feelings caused by chemotherapy in 59 percent of patients, a new study led by University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers finds. This is the first clinical trial to find an effective treatment for this pain. Other NCI-designated Cancer Centers or host universities involved in the study were: Duke University, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, and Ohio State University.

3-D scaffolds a new tool to fight cancer
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 04/03/2013) - Porous polymer scaffolds fabricated to support the growth of biological tissue for implantation may hold the potential to greatly accelerate the development of cancer therapeutics. Researchers at Rice University, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York reported this week that three-dimensional scaffolds used to culture Ewing’s sarcoma cells were effective at mimicking the environment in which such tumors develop.

Newly identified tumor suppressor provides therapeutic target for prostate cancer
NCI Cancer Center News
(Posted: 04/03/2013) - The enzyme PKCζ acts as a tumor suppressor by keeping the pro-tumor c-Myc gene in check, in both mice and humans. Researchers from the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute have identified how an enzyme called PKCζ suppresses prostate tumor formation. The finding, which also describes a molecular chain of events that controls cell growth and metastasis, could lead to novel ways to control disease progression.