Artificial intelligence boosts accuracy of breast cancer imaging

Artificial Intelligence learned which lesions were likely malignant (red)
and which were likely benign (green) – Credit NYU School of Medicine

CANCER DIGEST – Oct. 17, 2019 – An artificial intelligence (AI) tool identified breast cancer with approximately 90 percent accuracy when combined with analysis by radiologists, a new study finds.

Viagra may speed stem cell harvesting for bone marrow transplants

Diagram shows standard regimen (left) compared to new
Viagra regimen (right) – Credit Smith-Brendan, et al,
Stem Cell Reports 2019

CANCER DIGEST – Oct. 12, 2019 – A combination of Viagra and a second drug called Plerixafor speeds production and mobilization of blood-forming stem cells needed for bone marrow transplants, new research shows.

The new approach to harvesting stem cells involves a single oral dose of Viagra followed two hours later by a single injection of Plerixafor. The study published Oct. 10, 2019 in Stem Cell Reports showed that the method mobilized enough stem cells from the bone marrow in just 2 hours.

New drug pushes cancer cells to error prone division

Breast cancer cell. Image credit: Anne Weston, Francis Crick Institute
via the Wellcome Collection. Licence: CC BY-NC.

CANCER DIGEST – Oct. 5, 2019 – A new drug that dramatically increases tumor cell division is showing promise for treating fast-growing cancers such as triple-negative breast cancer and certain ovarian cancers.

The drug discovered at the Institute of Cancer Research, London, is named BOS172722 and is an example of a new class of drugs characterized as evolution-busting therapies.