New drug shows promise for a deadly type of uterine cancer

CANCER DIGEST – April 24, 2020 – The first early clinical trial of a new drug for a deadly type of uterine cancer showed an impressive 30 percent response rate, according to a report presented online at Thursday's virtual session of the Society for Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) Annual Meeting on Women's Cancer.

Study links reductions in digestive tract cancers to regular aspirin use

Credit Sauligno – used under Creative Commons license

CANCER DIGEST – April 17, 2020 – Taking aspirin at least once or twice a week cut the risk of digestive tract cancers, such as colorectal cancer, by 22 percent to 38 percent according to findings of the largest, most comprehensive analysis of data to date.

"We found that the risk of cancer was reduced with increased dose," said lead author Dr Cristina Bosetti (PhD), head of the Unit of Cancer Epidemiology at the Mario Negri Department of Oncology, Milan (Italy) in a press release.  "An aspirin dose between 75 and 100mg a day was associated with a 10% reduction in a person's risk of developing cancer compared to people not taking aspirin; a dose of 325mg a day was associated with a 35% reduction, and a dose of 500mg a day was associated with a 50% reduction in risk."

Immunotherapy after chemo slows bladder cancer progression

Image credit Terese Winslow via Cancer.gov

CANCER DIGEST – April 11, 2020 – Using immunotherapy immediately after chemotherapy treatment in patients with metastatic bladder cancer significantly slowed the progression of the cancer, according to results of a clinical trial led by Mount Sinai researchers published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in April.

The trial involving 108 patients showed that the time before their type of bladder cancer called urothelial cancer progressed was 60 percent longer when they received the immunotherapy drug called pembrolizumab (Keytruda®) after platinum-based chemotherapy compared to patients who received a placebo after chemotherapy.

Cancer drug a potential anti-COVID-19 treatment for people with blood cancers

Photo credit -- Hoffman La Roche, Ltd

CANCER DIGEST – April 4, 2020 – A 60-year-old Wuhan man in the hospital for treatment of multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, contracted COVID-19 but three days after receiving the cancer drug his chest tightness went away and 10 days