Some children with liver cancer may need less chemotherapy than is typically used to treat the disease, according to results from a phase 3 clinical trial. The study, led by the NCI-supported Children’s Oncology Group, included children and infants with the most common type of childhood liver cancer, hepatoblastoma, whose tumors had been surgically removed when the disease was diagnosed. Such patients subsequently receive chemotherapy to kill any remaining cancer cells. Liver cancer is rare in children, and only about one-third of these patients have tumors that can be removed surgically at the time of diagnosis. Approximately 90% of children whose…
Author: Brett Johnson
On October 16, 2019, an expert panel convened by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) released updated guidance and recommendations on the role of physical activity and exercise in cancer prevention and survivorship. The panel was co-chaired by Kathryn Schmitz, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Department of Public Health Sciences at the Penn State College of Medicine, and Charles Matthews, Ph.D., of NCI’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics. The recommendations, as outlined in three related publications, are the products of the panel’s comprehensive review of the scientific evidence on physical activity and cancer. In this conversation, Dr. Schmitz, immediate past-president of…
A new test can help to improve the clinical management of women who screen positive for human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in routine cervical cancer screening, an NCI-led study has shown. The test, called p16/Ki-67 dual stain, more accurately predicted whether an HPV-positive woman would go on to develop cervical precancer within 5 yearsExit Disclaimer, compared to a Pap test—the current standard for managing HPV-positive women. As HPV testing becomes more central to cervical cancer screening, “the challenge is how to best manage, or triage, HPV-positive women,” said senior investigator Nicolas Wentzensen, M.D., Ph.D., of NCI’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics (DCEG). Dual stain testing…
A new study has found that a test that measures genomic changes in tissue samples taken from the thyroid can help identify which patients likely need diagnostic surgery for thyroid cancer and which do not. When a suspicious small growth or lump (called a nodule) is found in the thyroid, doctors perform a fine-needle biopsy so that the cells can be examined by a pathologist. But up to one-third of the time, pathologists can’t determine from the appearance of the cells whether the nodule is cancerous (an indeterminate result), explained the study’s lead investigator, Yuri Nikiforov, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.…
The human body normally runs like a well-oiled machine. It is able to activate muscles and run repairs without a conscious thought. One of the truly fascinating components of the human body is the immune system. The immune system is able to identify potentially harmful foreign matter and destroy it. The immune system keeps the body healthy and safe. Because of this quiet but significant work, many researchers over the past thirty years have been asking how the immune system can work to combat cancer. What they have found has very recently come to epitomize what is often referred to…
Researchers have taken the first steps toward developing a vaccine to prevent cancer in people with Lynch syndrome, an inherited condition that elevates a person’s risk of colorectal, endometrial, and other types of cancer. The scientists, led by Steven Lipkin, M.D., Ph.D., of Weill Cornell Medicine, reported results from NCI-funded tests of a cancer prevention vaccine at a recent meeting. The vaccine prevented the growth of colorectal tumors in a mouse model of Lynch syndrome and prolonged the mice’s survival compared with unvaccinated mice. “The simplicity of this approach means that it is promising to take forward” to a human vaccine, Dr. Lipkin said during a press briefing April…
After decades of trying, in 2013 scientists developed a breakthrough drug that targets one of the most hard-to-hit cancer-related proteins, called KRAS. Now results on the first KRAS inhibitor to enter a clinical trial have been released and, so far, look promising. The experimental drug, AMG 510, specifically targets a mutated form of KRAS called G12C. About a third of all cancers are driven by harmful mutations in the RAS family of genes. The KRAS G12C mutation is found in approximately 13% of people with lung cancer, 3% of those with colorectal cancer, and 1% to 3% of people with other solid tumors. That translates to tens of thousands of…
Treatment with the targeted drug gilteritinib (Xospata) can improve survival compared with chemotherapy for some people with acute myeloid leukemia (AML), new results from a large clinical trial show. All participants enrolled in the trial had AML with specific mutations in the FLT3 gene that had come back after prior treatment (relapsed) or had not responded to treatment (refractory disease). Gilteritinib treatment increased median overall survival by close to 4 months compared with standard chemotherapy. Participants who received gilteritinib also had higher rates of complete remission and fewer serious side effects than those who received chemotherapy. The findings were published October 31 in the New England Journal of Medicine. In November 2018, the Food…