FDA approves first 'living drug' therapy for cancer

CANCER DIGEST – Aug. 31, 2017 – The US Food and Drug Administration approved the first treatment for cancer based on genetic engineering of the patient’s own immune system.

While it has been referred to as gene therapy, the new treatment does not actually change or replace the genes that cause the cancer, rather it alters genes of the immune system to better recognize and eliminate the cancer. In that sense it is the first FDA-approved gene therapy in that it reprograms the patient’s own cells to attack the cancer.

Imaging technique detects tumor oxygen levels in prostate cancer

CANCER DIGEST – Aug. 26, 2017 – A new imaging technique using a combination of light and sound to check the oxygen levels in prostate tumors could lead to a non-invasive way to determine how aggressive the cancer is.

Researcher getting closer to liquid biopsy for cancer

Scientists have developed a blood test that identifies tiny bits of cancer-specific DNA in blood that accurately identified more than half of 138 people with relatively early-stage colorectal, breast, lung and ovarian cancers.

The research performed on blood and tumor tissue samples from 200 people with all stages of cancer in the U.S., Denmark and the Netherlands, appears in the Aug. 16 issue of Science Translational Medicine. 

FDA approves two drugs for certain types of AML

A scanning electron 

microscope image 

from normal circulating 

human blood. – Wikipedia

CANCER DIGEST – Aug. 12, 2017 – The FDA approved two new drugs for treatment of specific types of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a rapidly progressing cancer that forms in the bone marrow.

Vyxeos was approved for two types of AML, newly diagnosed therapy-related AML called t-AML, and myelodysplasia-related changes changes called ALM-MRC. 

Targeted radiotherapy reduces side effects of breast cancer surgery

CANCER DIGEST – Aug. 7, 2017 – Targeting the tumor site with radiotherapy after surgery to remove breast cancer resulted in fewer long-term side effects five years later, according to a new British study.

The researchers at 30 radiotherapy centers across the UK, led by The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre, studied more than 2,000 women aged 50 or over who had early stage breast cancer that was at a low risk of coming back. The results of the study were published in the Aug. 2, 2017 The Lancet.