(Posted: 04/15/2013) - A new, minimally invasive treatment that tears microscopic holes in tumors without harming healthy tissue is a promising treatment for challenging cancers, suggests a preliminary study being presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 38th Annual Scientific Meeting in New Orleans. The study, from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, uses irreversible electroporation (or IRE) as a new way to attack cancer, using microsecond electrical pulses to kill cancer at the cellular level without damaging healthy tissue nearby.

(Posted: 04/11/2013) - Some breast tumor circulating cells in the bloodstream are marked by a constellation of biomarkers that identify them as those destined to seed the brain with a deadly spread of cancer, said researchers led by those at Baylor College of Medicine and the Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center, in a report that appears online in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

(Posted: 04/11/2013) - Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have “rationally rewired” some of the cell’s smallest components to create proteins that can be switched on or off by command. These “protein switches” can be used to interrogate the inner workings of each cell, helping scientists uncover the molecular mechanisms of human health and disease. In the first application of this approach, the UNC researchers showed how a protein called Src kinase influences the way cells extend and move, a previously unknown role that is consistent with the protein’s ties to tumor progression and metastasis. UNC is home to the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

(Posted: 04/10/2013) - In a report that appears online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers have shown that a subset of breast cancer patients who have tumors overexpressing a protein called the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER-2 positive) may benefit from a combination of targeted treatments that zero in on the breast cancer cells themselves. That could enable some women to avoid the "sledgehammer" of typical chemotherapy drugs that kill normal and tumor cells alike and avoid triggering resistance in tumor cells. Institutions taking part in the study were: the Baylor College of Medicine (home to the Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center), Vanderbilt University (home of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center), the University of Alabama Birmingham (home of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center), the University of Chicago (home of the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center), the Mayo Clinic, and the Methodist Hospital.

(Posted: 04/10/2013) - The most recent in a series of studies from a team at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center has shown that a single molecule is at the heart of one of the most basic survival tactics of prostate cancer cells. A paper published by the Public Library of Science identifies a microRNA called miR-125b as a potential target for treatments designed to stop the proliferation of prostate cancer cells, particularly in patients who have developed a late-stage form of the disease resistant to androgen deprivation therapy.

(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.

(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.

(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.

(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.

(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.