(Posted: 11/30/2012) - A diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is particularly devastating since the prognosis for recovery is usually poor, with the cancer most often not detected until late stages. Research led by scientists at the University of California, San Diego (home of the Moores Comprehensive Cancer Center) and UC San Francisco Schools of Medicine (home of the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center) examined the tumor-initiating events leading to pancreatic cancer (also called pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma or PDA) in mice. Their work, published on line November 29 in the journal Cancer Cell, may help in the search for earlier detection methods and treatments.

(Posted: 11/30/2012) - A team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine (home of the Moores Comprehensive Cancer Center), has shown for the first time how cancer cells control the ON/OFF switch of a program used by developing embryos to effectively metastasize in vivo, breaking free and spreading to other parts of the body, where they can proliferate and grow into secondary tumors.

(Posted: 11/29/2012) - The combined loss of two tumor suppressor genes, retinoblastoma (RB) and phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) was shown to be strongly associated with progression of DCIS to invasive breast cancer, according to a University of Texas, Southwestern study published November 28 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. UT Southwestern is home to the Harold C. Simmons Cancer Center.

(Posted: 11/29/2012) - Prostate cancer presents a dilemma for patients and the physicians who treat them. Which cancers are essentially indolent and present no risk and which are life threatening? Which can be watched and which need aggressive treatment? Researchers in the department of molecular and cellular biology at Baylor College of Medicine (home of the Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center), think a receptor called COUP-TFII that they have long studied may point the way to an answer. In a study that appears online in the journal Nature, they show that high levels (overexpression) of COUP-TFII can overcome a natural barrier to progression of prostate cancer, allowing tumor cells to grow and spread throughout the body – a process called metastasis.

(Posted: 11/29/2012) - A previously invincible mutation in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) has been thwarted by an investigational drug in a phase I clinical trial led by the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, reported in The New England Journal of Medicine. All 12 patients in the trial with chronic phase CML and the T315I mutation had a complete hematologic response (absence of CML cells in the blood) after treatment with ponatinib. Eleven had a major reduction in CML cells in the bone marrow and nine achieved a complete cytogenetic response – no cells in the marrow.

(Posted: 11/29/2012) - Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have combined the ability to detect cancer DNA in the blood with genome sequencing technology in a test that could be used to screen for cancers, monitor cancer patients for recurrence and find residual cancer left after surgery. A report describing the new approach appears in the Nov. 28 issue of Science Translational Medicine. To develop the test, the scientists took blood samples from late-stage colorectal and breast cancer patients and healthy individuals and looked for DNA that had been shed into the blood.

(Posted: 11/28/2012) - A survey of women undergoing routine screening mammography found that many of them would be interested in pursuing additional screening tests if notified they had dense breast tissue, despite the possibility of false positives, invasive procedures, and out-of-pocket costs, according to a Stanford University School of Medicine (home to the Stanford Cancer Institute) study presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

(Posted: 11/28/2012) - University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and Harvard researchers have discovered an alternative mechanism for activating Ras that does not require mutation or hormonal stimulus. In healthy cells, Ras transmits hormone signals into the cell that prompt responses such as cell growth and the development of organs and tissues. A mutation on the RAS gene can chronically activate those signals, leading to tumor initiation and progression. Harvard University is home to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

(Posted: 11/28/2012) - A new study by an international team of investigators led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists is the first to demonstrate that chemotherapy and a new, targeted therapy work better in combination than chemotherapy alone in treating patients with the most common genetic subtype of lung cancer. Published online in The Lancet Oncology, the combination of chemotherapy and the targeted drug selumetinib was more effective than chemotherapy alone in a clinical trial involving patients with a form of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that carries a mutation in the gene KRAS – a variety that represents about 20 percent of all NSCLC cases.

(Posted: 11/28/2012) - About 70 percent of women who have both breasts removed following a breast cancer diagnosis do so despite a very low risk of facing cancer in the healthy breast, new research from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center finds. Recent studies have shown an increase in women with breast cancer choosing this more aggressive surgery, called contralateral prophylactic mastectomy, which raises the question of potential overtreatment among these patients.