(Posted: 06/03/2013) - Research teams led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center (a component of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) investigators are publishing two important studies regarding use of the targeted cancer drug crizotinib for treatment of advanced lung cancer driven by specific genetic mutations. The first reports the final results of a global, phase 3 trial showing that crizotinib is superior to standard chemotherapy for treatment of advanced ALK-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The second paper describes the first report of resistance to crizotinib treatment in a patient with ROS1-positive NSCLC and reveals the mechanism underlying that resistance. Both papers are being published online in the New England Journal of Medicine to coincide with the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting.

(Posted: 06/03/2013) - A virus that infects most Americans but that usually remains dormant in the body might speed the progression of an aggressive form of brain cancer when particular genes are shut off in tumor cells, new research shows. The animal study by researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James) and at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute suggests that cytomegalovirus (CMV) might significantly accelerate the development and progression of glioblastoma, a deadly form of brain cancer.

(Posted: 06/03/2013) - The combination of the immunotherapy drug ipilimumab and the investigational antibody drug nivolumab led to long-lasting tumor shrinkage in more than half of patients with metastatic melanoma, according to results from a Phase I trial simultaneously published in The New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the 49th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

(Posted: 06/03/2013) - The kidney and liver cancer drug sorafenib holds metastatic thyroid cancer at bay for nearly twice as long as a placebo, according to results of a randomized phase III trial, presented by a researcher from the Abramson Cancer Center and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in a plenary session during the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting.

(Posted: 06/03/2013) - Researchers from UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center report that a new drug in preliminary tests has shown promising results with very manageable side effects for treating patients with melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. The results were presented at the 2013 meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology today in Chicago by Dr. Antoni Ribas, professor of medicine in the UCLA division of hematology-oncology, who led the research. Following Ribas’ presentation, the study was published online ahead of press in the New England Journal of Medicine.

(Posted: 06/03/2013) - Spouses and long-term partners of patients with mouth and throat cancers related to infection with the human papilloma virus (HPV) appear to have no increased prevalence of oral HPV infections, according to results of a multicenter, pilot study led by investigators from Johns Hopkins (home of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center). The study’s results suggest that long-term couples need not change their sexual practices, say the scientists.

(Posted: 06/03/2013) - Eighty-three percent of cancer doctors report that they’ve faced oncology drug shortages, and of those, nearly all say that their patients’ treatment has been impacted, according to a study from researchers at the Abramson Cancer Center and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania presented at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. The results showed that shortages – which have hit especially hard among drugs to treat pediatric, gastrointestinal and blood cancers – have left physicians surveyed unable to prescribe standard chemotherapies for a range of cancers.

(Posted: 05/31/2013) - A newly developed, single-step Raman spectroscopy algorithm has the potential to simultaneously detect microcalcifications and enable diagnosis of the associated breast lesions with high precision, according to data from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (home of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research) published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

(Posted: 05/29/2013) - According to UCSD scientists, an enzyme produced by a specific type of tumor can trigger the transformation of spheres into netlike structures that accumulate at the site of a cancer.

(Posted: 05/22/2013) - Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are at higher risk of melanoma, a form of skin cancer, report researchers at Mayo Clinic. Researchers found that IBD is associated with a 37 percent greater risk for the disease. The findings were presented at the Digestive Disease Week 2013 conference in Orlando, Fla.