Immunotherapy before surgery may reduce liver cancer recurrence

CANCER DIGEST – Jan. 22, 2022 – Giving liver cancer patient immunotherapy before surgery substantially reduced liver tumors in a third of those treated, a new study shows.

Researchers at Mount Sinai’s Tisch Cancer Institute in New York reported the results of a small phase 2 trial in the January 2022 journal The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology. 

The results showed that the immunotherapy killed not only more of the tumor but microscopic cancer cells that likely would have been missed by surgery, and would potentially cause the tumor to regrow and spread.

Dr. Thomas Marron, lead author and director of the Early Phase Trials Unit at the Tisch Cancer Institute said the results hold implications for other types of cancers, not just liver cancer in terms of administering immunotherapy before or after surgery.

Study shows AI can help improve prostate cancer diagnoses

Diagram showing a transperineal prostate biopsy
– Credit Cancer Research UK via Wikipedia

CANCER DIGEST – Jan. 16, 2021 – A major international collaboration validating artificial intelligence (AI) for diagnosing and grading prostate cancer has shown results researchers say suggest that AI systems are ready to be used as a complementary tool in prostate cancer care. The study was published in the Jan. 13, 2022 Nature Medicine.

Led by researchers at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, a group of more than 1000 AI experts engaged in a competition to test AI algorithms for accurately grading prostate cancer. 

High fiber diet may boost effects of ICB therapy for melanoma patients

Photo credit National Institutes of Health

CANCER DIGEST – Jan. 8, 2022 – In an unusual study involving humans and mice, researchers have found that a high fiber diet may improve the treatment of melanoma.

AIDS drugs may be useful in treating low-grade brain tumors

Photo Credit Plymouth University

CANCER DIGEST – Jan. 1, 2022 – Drugs already approved to treat HIV/AIDS may be effective in blocking common forms of brain tumors from developing into cancer, new research shows.

A study led by Drs. Sylwia Ammoun and Rober Belshaw at the Brain Tumor Research Centre at the University of Plymouth found that specific sections of DNA that contain genes that produce proteins, called HERV-K, that play a key role in tumor development. The results were published in the December 2021 journal Cancer Research.