The drugs were designed to keep cancer cells at bay by preventing their growth, survival and spread. Yet, after clinical trials, they left scientists scratching their heads and drug developers watching their investments succumb to cancer’s latest triumph. The drugs worked…
Tumor Micro-Environment: Rough for Nanoparticle Cancer Drugs
Nanoparticle drugs—tiny containers packed with medicine and with the potential to be shipped straight to tumors—were thought to be a possible silver bullet against cancer. However new cancer drugs based on nanoparticles have not improved overall survival rates for cancer patients…
Targeting Brain Cancer Cells With a Wound-Healing Drug
At the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, three scientists are planning to create a virus capable of destroying brain cancer. It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but it isn’t hypothetical – the researchers were recently awarded a grant from…
Researchers Study Potential Blood Test for Prostate Cancer
Vanderbilt University researcher William Mitchell, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues in Germany and Canada have demonstrated a method for detecting “cell-free” tumor DNA in the bloodstream. Mitchell believes the technique will be transformative in providing improved cancer diagnostics that can both predict…
Researchers Map Paths to Cancer Drug Resistance
A team of researchers led by Duke Cancer Institute has identified key events that prompt certain cancer cells to develop cancer drug resistance to otherwise lethal therapies. By mapping the specific steps that cells of melanoma, breast cancer, and a blood…
Drug Blocks Key Signal in Cancer Growth and Drug Resistance
An experimental cancer drug may block an important driver for the survival, growth and spread of cancer cells. The first clinical trial of an experimental drug, called pictilisib, found the safety profile to be manageable in cancer patients at doses that…
Microcapsule Eliminates Toxic Punch of Experimental Anti-Cancer Drug
Johns Hopkins researchers have developed a sugar-based molecular microcapsule that eliminates the toxicity of an anticancer agent developed a decade ago at Johns Hopkins, called 3-bromopyruvate, or 3BrPA, in studies of mice with implants of human pancreatic cancer tissue. The encapsulated…
Combo Treatment Benefits Women with Metastatic Breast Cancer
Results of a Phase 2, open-label, dose-confirmation study of eribulin in combination with capecitabine, suggests that this therapy is efficacious in women with metastatic breast cancer (overall response rate 42.9% and clinical benefit rate 57.1%), with a safety and tolerability profile…
New Cause of Child Brain Tumor Identified
Doctors and scientists from The University of Manchester have identified changes in a gene, which can increase the risk of developing brain tumors in children with a rare inherited condition called Gorlin syndrome. Gorlin syndrome causes an increased risk of developing…