New technology uses sound to kill pancreatic tumors

Ulster University's Professor John Callan
led the team of researchers who made the
pancreatic cancer breakthrough.

CANCER DIGEST – Nov. 22, 2015 – A new approach using sound waves to destroy cancer cells is showing promise for treating pancreatic cancer.

The treatment, called sonodynamic therapy (SDT) is the latest in a long line of approaches for delivering a toxic blow to cancer tumors without harming healthy tissues. 

Blood test could change cancer diagnosis

CANCER DIGEST – Nov. 13, 2015 – A new test of blood platelets can be used to detect, classify and pinpoint the location of cancer by analyzing as little as one drop of blood. 

Using this new method, researchers have been able to identify cancer with 96 percent accuracy, according to a study at Umeå University in Sweden recently published in the journal Cancer Cell.

Girl undergoes first-ever ‘gene-editing’ treatment

Layla, shown here at 16 months,
is the first patient to receive new
treatment 

CANCER DIGEST – Nov. 7, 2015 – A one-year-old girl in London, England with leukemia is now cancer free and doing well as a result of a new treatment that uses ‘molecular scissors’ to edit genes and create designer immune cells.

The girl, named Layla, had relapsed acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) that had failed to respond to conventional therapies and had limited treatment options available.

The patient’s parents were keen to try the treatment. Mother, Lisa, says: "We didn’t want to accept palliative care and so we asked the doctors to try anything for our daughter, even if it hadn’t been tried before."

First viral therapy for melanoma approved

CANCER DIGEST – Nov. 3, 2015 – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Imlygic (talimogene laherparepvec), the first FDA-approved anti-cancer virus therapy, for the treatment of melanoma in the skin and lymph nodes.

Imlygic is a genetically modified live herpes virus engineered to kill cancer cells. It is used to treat melanoma tumors that cannot be removed completely by surgery. Imlygic is injected directly into the melanoma lesions, where it replicates inside cancer cells and causes the cells to rupture and die.