New combination therapy may overcome HER2 resistance

Dhivya Sudhan, Ph.D., (left) and Carlos L. Arteaga, M.D. –
Credit UT Southwestern

CANCER DIGEST – Jan. 25, 2020 – A combination therapy using a drug already on the market together with a promising new drug still being tested may overcome cancers with HER 2 mutations, that have long shown resistance to treatment.

“This finding may give clinicians an effective response to neratinib resistance,” Carlos L. Arteaga, M.D., Director of the Simmons Cancer Center at UT Southwestern said in a press release. "That could make a real difference for patients with breast, ovarian, lung, and other cancers harboring HER2 mutations."

Report shows steady decline in cancer death rates

Graph credit ACS

CANCER DIGEST – Jan. 17, 2020 – The cancer death rate declined by 29 percent from 1991 to 2017, including a 2.2 percent drop from 2016 to 2017, the largest single-year drop in cancer mortality ever reported.

Overall cancer death rates dropped by an average of 1.5 percent per year during the most recent decade of data (2008-2017), continuing a trend that began in the early 1990s and resulting in the 29 percent drop in cancer mortality in that time. 

Zapping cancer in a single treatment: FLASH therapy is feasible

Photo credit–Roberts Proton Therapy Center

CANCER DIGEST – Jan. 11, 2020 – Imagine that one day in the not-too-distant future, your cancer is treated with an entire course of radiation delivered in a single one-second dose.

For current cancer patients who undergo their radiation treatments over the course of weeks, such a treatment might seem impossible, but researchers at Penn Medicine say they have demonstrated the ability to deliver an entire course of radiation in less than a second.

Single course chemo is effective for preventing testicular cancer

Image credit – MedlinePlus

CANCER DIGEST – Jan. 4, 2020 – Half the chemo is as effective as current regimens in preventing recurrence of testicular cancer after surgery, a new study has found.

The study led by the Institute of Cancer Research, London and University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation trust involved nearly 250 men with early stage testicular cancer at high risk of their cancer returning. The results appear in the Jan. 1, 2020 journal European Urology