International study: How to increase the chance of survival in older patients with head and neck cancer

Should patients over the age of 70 with head and neck cancer receive aggressive combined radiotherapy and chemotherapy? This is a controversial issue among patients, their families and health professionals. A large-scale international study involving Leipzig University Hospital proves the effectiveness of this combined treatment in older patients. The findings have recently been published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Colon cancer: Dying cancer cells give neighbouring tumour cells instructions on how to survive

Researchers at Georg-Speyer-Haus and Goethe University Frankfurt have discovered a new mechanism that explains why only some of the cells in a colon tumour respond to chemotherapy. The research team led by Professor Florian Greten was able to establish that tumour cells dying off during chemotherapy communicate one last time with neighbouring tumour cells to give them instructions on how to resist the therapy. The dying cells re-programme the signalling cascades in the neighbouring tumour cells in such a way that these are no longer vulnerable to chemotherapy. By doing so, the dying cells literally ensure that the tumour survives.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Study at University Medicine Halle points to success of immunotherapy in the treatment of advanced stomach cancer

A clinical trial conducted by researchers at University Medicine Halle has shown that the lives of patients with a certain form of stomach cancer can be significantly prolonged when the current standard of care, which uses a combination of antibody therapy and chemotherapy to inhibit cell growth through receptor blockades, is supplemented by immunotherapy with the drug nivolumab.

Quelle: IDW Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

The nanodrug that attacks cancer twice

A single nanoparticle does two jobs: enhancing the effectiveness of chemotherapy and reinvigorating the immune system.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Potential therapy may boost chemoimmunotherapy response in bladder cancer

Adding an anti-inflammatory medication to immunotherapy and standard chemotherapy drugs may provide long-term suppression of aggressive bladder tumor growth, according to a proof-of-concept study.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Could diet modification make chemotherapy drugs more effective for patients with pancreatic cancer?

The findings of a new study suggest that a ketogenic diet — which is low in carbohydrates and protein, but high in fat — helps to kill pancreatic cancer cells when combined with a triple-drug therapy. In laboratory experiments, the ketogenic diet decreased glucose (sugar) levels in the tumor, suggesting the diet helped starve the cancer. In addition, this diet elevated ketone bodies produced by the liver, which put additional stress on the cancer cells.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Malaria drug could combat chemotherapy-resistant head and neck cancers, research suggests

A new study suggests that the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine inhibits pathways that drive resistance to the chemotherapy agent cisplatin in head and neck cancers and restores tumor-killing effects of cisplatin in animal models.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Stealth nanomedicines combat cancer and cut toxic effects of chemo

New research has identified that the frequently used chemotherapy drug (5-FU or Fluorouracil) is 100 per cent more effective at targeting tumors (rather than surrounding tissues) when administered using an optimized liposomal formulation.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Research advances understanding of DNA repair

A researcher has made a discovery that alters our understanding of how the body’s DNA repair process works and may lead to new chemotherapy treatments for cancer and other disorders. Researchers discovered that base excision repair has a built-in mechanism to increase its effectiveness — it just needs to be captured at a very precise point in the cell life cycle.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Novel treatment makes pancreatic cancer susceptible to immunotherapy, mouse study shows

A new study — in mice — suggests that blocking a major inflammatory pathway that is activated in pancreatic cancer makes the tumors sensitive to chemotherapy and a type of immunotherapy that prompts the immune system’s T cells to attack the cancer cells. The therapy more than doubled survival in a mouse model of pancreatic cancer.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Three-drug combination prolongs survival in men with metastatic, hormone-sensitive prostate cancer

Results from an international, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 3 clinical trial indicate that adding the androgen-receptor inhibitor darolutamide to androgen-deprivation therapy and chemotherapy prolongs the survival of men with metastatic, hormone-sensitive prostate cancer.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Researchers develop model to predict treatment response in gastric cancer

A study is validating the use of genomic sequencing to predict the likelihood that patients with gastric cancer will derive benefit from chemotherapy or from immunotherapy.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Chemotherapy’s effectiveness may vary with time of day

New research suggests that chemotherapy could better target brain tumors in mouse models when it was administered at night instead of during the day. That’s because the blood-brain barrier was more likely to allow the chemotherapy to pass through it at night. The findings highlight the importance of this area of research in humans, and one day, they could help to improve outcomes in patients with brain tumors.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Cancer treatment may inhibit immune response to COVID-19 vaccination

A study has found that patients with cancer who receive chemotherapy — and some targeted therapies, such as CDK4/6 inhibitors and therapies targeted at B cells — may mount an inadequate immune response to COVID-19 vaccination.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Tangled messages: Tracing neural circuits to chemotherapy’s ‚constellation of side effects‘

Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy can experience severe side effects that persist long after treatments end. A new study has found a novel pathway for understanding why these debilitating conditions happen — and why scientists should focus on ‚all of the possible neural processes that deliver sensory or motor problems to a patient’s brain‘ and not just those that occur away from the center of the body.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Engineered nanomaterial captures off-target cancer drug to prevent tissue damage

Standard chemotherapies may efficiently kill cancer cells, but they also pose significant risks to healthy cells, resulting in secondary illness and a diminished quality of life for patients. To prevent the previously unavoidable damage, researchers have developed a new class of nanomaterials engineered to capture chemotherapy drugs before they interact with healthy tissue.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Chemotherapy may affect muscle cells at lower doses than previously thought

Previous research has found that chemotherapy can trigger muscle loss in people living with cancer, but a new study out of found it may also affect the way the body builds new muscle — and at lower doses than previously known, having potential implications for treatments and rehab programs.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Shape-morphing microrobots deliver drugs to cancer cells

Chemotherapy successfully treats many forms of cancer, but the side effects can wreak havoc on the rest of the body. Delivering drugs directly to cancer cells could help reduce these unpleasant symptoms. Now, in a proof-of-concept study, researchers have made fish-shaped microrobots that are guided with magnets to cancer cells, where a pH change triggers them to open their mouths and release their chemotherapy cargo.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

How alike are the cancer cells from a single patient?

Using an experimental system involving new genetic technology, researchers analyzed the gene expression signatures of a representative sample of barcoded leukemia cells. After implanting some of the leukemia cells in mice, they discovered that distinct gene expression signatures correlated with the various organs where the cancer cells ended up. They were also able to identify previously unknown genes that are involved in disease progression and chemotherapy resistance, which may offer new targets for treatment.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Immunotherapy-chemotherapy treatment coupled with in-depth genomic analyses leads to improved survival for patients with mesothelioma

Combining the immunotherapy agent durvalumab with the chemotherapy agents pemetrexed and cisplatin or carboplatin may provide a new treatment option for patients who have inoperable pleural mesothelioma, a cancer of the tissues lining the lungs, according to a phase II clinical trial.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Ibrutinib improves survival for younger people with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

New evidence suggests that adding the targeted therapy ibrutinib (Imbruvica) to a standard chemotherapy regimen can improve how long some younger people with a specific form of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) live.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Chemo helps breast cancer cells get their ‘foot in the door’ to the lungs

A new study adds to the evidence that chemotherapy enhances cancer’s spread beyond the primary tumor, showing how one chemo drug allows breast cancer cells to squeeze through and attach to blood vessel linings in the lungs.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Cancer chemotherapy drug reverses Alzheimer’s symptoms in mice

A drug commonly used to treat cancer can restore memory and cognitive function in mice that display symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, new research has found. The drug, Axitinib, inhibits growth of new blood vessels in the brain — a feature shared by both cancer tumors and Alzheimer’s disease. This hallmark represents a new target for Alzheimer’s therapies. Mice that underwent the therapy not only exhibited a reduction in blood vessels and other Alzheimer’s markers in their brains, they also performed remarkably well in tests designed to measure learning and memory.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

An estrogen receptor that promotes cancer also causes drug resistance

Cancer cells proliferate despite a myriad of stresses — from oxygen deprivation to chemotherapy — that would kill any ordinary cell. Now, researchers have gained insight into how they may be doing this through the downstream activity of a powerful estrogen receptor. The discovery offers clues to overcoming resistance to therapies like tamoxifen that are used in many types of breast cancer.

Quelle: Sciencedaily

Chemotherapy drug puts young children with cancer at high risk of hearing loss

A chemotherapy drug known to cause hearing loss in children is more likely to do so the earlier in life children receive it, new UBC research has found. Cisplatin is a life-saving treatment for many children with cancer, but the study shows that the hearing of very young children is impacted early during treatment and is affected to a greater extent than that of older children.

Quelle: Sciencedaily