New hope for older Hodgkin lymphoma patients

They lymph node system
throughout the body is part
of the immune system.

CANCER DIGEST – Sept. 27, 2015 – A new engineered antibody drug may offer hope for people over 60 with Hodgkin lymphoma, early results from a clinical trial show.

In the small trial of 27 people averaging 78 years old, with the disease, who were not able or willing to undergo standard chemotherapy, 24 achieved an objective response, meaning the drug halted the progression of the cancer or caused it to go into remission.

Biomarker may predict which HER2-negative breast cancer patients will benefit from targeted therapy

CANCER DIGEST – Sept. 22, 2015 – A new study has demonstrated that brief exposure to a targeted therapy can tell doctors which HER2-negative patients will respond — and which should switch to another kind of treatment.

Pancreatic cancer stem cells could be 'suffocated' by diabetes drug

CANCER DIGEST – Sept. 21, 2015 – A new study shows that pancreatic cancer stem cells (PancSCs) are virtually addicted to oxygen–based metabolism, and could be “suffocated” with a drug already used to treat diabetes. 

Cancer cells commonly rely on glycolysis, a type of metabolism that does not use molecular oxygen to generate energy. PancSCs can make use of an even more efficient form of metabolism, called oxidative phosphorylation or OXPHOS, which occurs in a part of the cell called mitochondria. Metformin blocks PancSCs from using OXPHOS triggering cell death, or apoptosis. 

Olive oil and Mediterranean diet may reduce breast cancer risk

CANCER DIGEST – Sept. 14, 2015 – Eating a Mediterranean diet with added extra virgin olive oil was associated with a 68 percent lower risk of breast cancer compared to women who did not follow the diet in a study of women in Spain, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.

The Mediterranean diet comes from foods characterized by the traditional cooking style of countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea. It emphasizes eating primarily plant-based foods, such as fruits and vegetables, whole grains,

New targeted therapy improves lung cancer survival

Image courtesy NCI

CANCER DIGEST – Sept. 10, 2015 – The world’s largest clinical trial comparing two targeted therapies for a form of advanced non-small cell lung cancer has found that a newer medication called afatinib decreased the risk of cancer progression and the risk of death by 19 percent compared to an older therapy called erlotinib. 

The type of non-small cell cancer studied is called squamous cell carcinoma of the lung, and begins in the tissue that lines the air passages in the lungs, most often located in the larger airways that join the lungs to the trachea or windpipe.

Common heart drug linked to longer survival in ovarian cancer

A very large ovarian cancer (in circle) as seen on CT

CANCER DIGEST – Sept. 2, 2015 – A common drug used to lower blood pressure has been linked to longer survival in women who underwent chemotherapy for ovarian cancer.

The study looked at the records of 1,425 women who had previously been treated for ovarian cancer, including 269 who were also taking a beta-blocker during chemotherapy. The study was published in the journal Cancer.