Chemotherapy News and Research

Latest Chemotherapy News and Research

Overweight and obese women with breast cancer may be undertreated

Overweight and obese women with breast cancer may receive reduced doses of chemotherapy drugs, which may put them at greater risk of cancer recurrence, according to a study in the June 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

13 Jun 2005

Chemotherapy for brain tumors is boosted after vaccine targets resistance-related TRP-2 antigen

In the August issue of the journal Oncogene, researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute describe a molecular mechanism that appears to make malignant brain tumors more vulnerable to chemotherapy after they have been treated with the dendritic cell vaccine.

13 Jun 2005

Novel and more effective way of testing which gene mutations cause cancer

Often cancer research goes like this: study cancerous cells in a lab dish, find mutations that appear in many of the samples, develop drugs to target proteins made by the mutated genes, and voila, new chemotherapy drugs are born. Or at least that's the hope.

12 Jun 2005

Half of 580 women diagnosed with breast cancer in one study experienced lymphedema

The good news is that there are nearly two million breast cancer survivors in the United States , and survival rates continue to increase for patients with this disease. But the flip side is that survival can present its own set of little-known complications.

12 Jun 2005

Texas girl with Hodgkin's sees return of the disease- treatment to go ahead

12-year old Katie Wernecke, the child at the centre of a nasty court battle between her parents and state officials, has seen a return of the Hodgkin's cancer her parents have tried to resist having treated by radiation therapy.

12 Jun 2005

Experts call for more research into treatments for children's brain tumours

More independent study is needed into the biology of children's brain tumours if effective treatments are to be developed, experts at The University of Nottingham have said in a leading journal.

10 Jun 2005

Researchers use RNAi libraries to identify regulators of apoptosis and chemoresistance

Using targeted RNA interference, or RNAi libraries, researchers at Harvard Medical School describe the first large-scale classification of kinase and phosphatase gene families on the basis of their role in apoptosis and cell survival. This study appears in the June issue of Nature Cell Biology.

10 Jun 2005

European approval of Temodal (temozolomide) capsules for treatment of glioblastoma multiforme

Schering-Plough announced today that the European Commission has granted approval of Temodal (temozolomide) Capsules for first-line use for the treatment of patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most common and aggressive form of primary brain cancer.

10 Jun 2005

Exercise helps recovery after chemotherapy for breast cancer

Exercise after chemotherapy for breast cancer boosted the activity of infection-fighting T cells in women who worked out regularly, according to data from a study conducted at Penn State University under the direction of Andrea Mastro, professor of microbiology and cell biology.

10 Jun 2005

Molecule called Smad7 may open doors to future treatments in pancreatic and other forms of cancer

Making new strides in their ongoing effort to understand mechanisms behind the relentless growth of cancer cells, researchers at Dartmouth Medical School have found a promising key that may open doors to future treatments in pancreatic and other forms of cancer.

9 Jun 2005

12-year-old cancer victim taken into care after parents block treatment on religious grounds

State Child Protective Services in Texas are going to court on June 15 to try to get custody of a 12-year-old girl suffering from advanced Hodgkin's disease.

9 Jun 2005

Designed drug for combined hormone and chemotherapy treatment

The search for new drugs to fight cancer remains at the top of the to do list for pharmaceutical researchers. A recent variation is polymer chemotherapy agents, drugs that have been attached to a "backbone" of long chain molecules.

9 Jun 2005

Rituximab provides new hope for people with lupus

Rheumatologists at the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology in Vienna, Austria heard today (Thursday 9 June) that rituximab is the first drug in a quarter of a century that is making a real impact, and an alternative to previous standard treatments of high-dose steroids, and chemotherapy.

9 Jun 2005

Possible new treatment for chemobrain using the drug dexmethyphenidate (d-MPH)

Patients who take medication for cancer often find themselves with a new problem when their treatment ends.

8 Jun 2005

Test accurately predicts aggressiveness of breast cancer

A test that measures how quickly cells are dividing is an accurate way for doctors to predict the aggressiveness of breast cancer tumors, even among women with very early stages of the disease, researchers told the 2nd ESMO Scientific & Educational Conference (ESEC) in Budapest, Hungary.

6 Jun 2005

Chemotherapy options improve for patients with advanced colorectal cancer

For the first time, researchers have shown that a chemotherapy regimen of capecitabine plus oxaliplatin (CAPOX) is as safe and effective as infusional 5-fluorouracil/folinic acid plus oxaliplatin (FUFOX) in the first-line treatment of metastatic colorectal carcinoma (MCRC).

6 Jun 2005

Genetically engineered virus has shown promise as a treatment for patients with colorectal cancer

A single injection of a genetically engineered virus has shown promise as a treatment for patients with colorectal cancer that has spread to the liver, according to preliminary results reported at the 2nd ESMO Scientific & Educational Conference (ESEC) in Budapest, Hungary.

6 Jun 2005

Genetics may play a role in the effectiveness of chemotherapy drugs

Today, the most common childhood cancer is cured in about 80 percent of patients; only forty years ago, this number was closer to five percent. In efforts to further increase the survival rate, researchers from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, the University of Tennessee, and the University of Chicago studied how an individual's genetics might play a role in the effectiveness of chemotherapy drugs.

3 Jun 2005

Chemo combo increases breast cancer survival

A new Spanish study has found that a combination of chemotherapy drugs can increase the five-year survival rate of women with metastatic, node-positive breast cancer by 7 percent.

2 Jun 2005

Triple approach is promising against cancer cells

A trimodal treatment strategy combining chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and a protein kinase inhibitor is much more effective against cancer cells than any combination of only two treatment methods.

1 Jun 2005