(Posted: 06/17/2013) - The process of opening a cancer clinical trial for patient accrual often takes years, and research has shown that trials which are slow to register patients often fail to finish. Following a thorough review, NCI’s Operational Efficiency Working Group produced a series of recommendations that are now being implemented.

(Posted: 06/17/2013) - Researchers have found that antibodies against the human papillomavirus (HPV) may help identify individuals who are at greatly increased risk of HPV-related cancer of the oropharynx, which is a portion of the throat that contains the tonsils.

(Posted: 06/02/2013) - NCI funded a clinical trial that will have an impact on the treatment of late-stage cervical cancer, and also supported a screening trial in India using a network of community outreach workers offering low tech-screening by direct visualization of the cervix coated with dilute acetic acid (vinegar), a process known as VIA. Image depicts cervical cancer microvessel density which increases lethality of the cancer.

(Posted: 06/02/2013) - 3 NCI-funded trials were featured as plenaries at the 2013 ASCO Annual Meeting:
•Visual inspection with acetic acid reduced cervical cancer mortality
•Adding bevacizumab to treatment of recurrent cervical cancer showed survival benefit
•No survival benefit for use of bevacizumab in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma

(Posted: 06/02/2013) - Scientists at the National Institutes of Health, and their colleagues, have discovered that a gene called BACH2 may play a central role in the development of diverse allergic and autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, asthma, Crohn's disease, celiac disease, and type-1 diabetes.

(Posted: 05/22/2013) - Fungal infections of the skin affect 29 million people in the United States. In the first study of human fungal skin diversity, National Institutes of Health researchers sequenced the DNA of fungi that thrive at different skin sites of healthy adults to define the normal populations across the skin topography and to provide a framework for investigating fungal skin conditions.

(Posted: 05/02/2013) - Patients with advanced alveolar soft part sarcoma (ASPS), a rare cancer, achieved some control of their disease using an experimental anti-cancer drug called cediranib. The results from this largest clinical trial on ASPS to date were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology

(Posted: 05/01/2013) - Investigators for The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Research Network have detailed and broadly classified the genomic alterations that frequently underlie the development of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a deadly cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Their work paints a picture of a cancer marked by relatively few mutations compared to other types of cancer occurring in adults.

(Posted: 05/01/2013) - A comprehensive genomic analysis of nearly 400 endometrial tumors suggests that certain molecular characteristics – such as the frequency of mutations – could complement current pathology methods and help distinguish between principal types of endometrial tumors, as well as provide insights into potential treatment strategies.

(Posted: 04/17/2013) - Scientists have overcome a major impediment to the development of effective stem cell therapies by studying mice that lack CD47, a protein found on the surface of both healthy and cancer cells. They discovered that cells obtained from the lungs of CD47-deficient mice, but not from ordinary mice that have the CD47 gene, multiplied in a culture dish and spontaneously converted into stem cells