Cancer Research Lab

Imatinib interruption results in rapid progression in most patients with advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumors and cannot be recommended unless patients experience significant toxicity, French researchers report in the March 20th issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

“This trial shows that it is not possible to interrupt a targeted treatment — here imatinib– of cancer in the advanced phase, without exposing a patient to a high risk of rapid relapse,” lead investigator Dr. Jean-Yves Blay said.

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The chemokine fractalkine has powerful anti-tumor activity in a mouse model of metastatic colon cancer, French researchers report in the March issue of Gut.

Senior investigator Dr. Heidy Schmid-Alliana said that “our preliminary experiments performed in models of subcutaneous implantation of several tumor cell types, with intra-tumoral injections of fractalkine-coding plasmids, produced highly promising results with a marked reduction in tumor size.”

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Annual computed tomographic (CT) screening for lung cancer resulted in identification of a high proportion of patients with early-stage disease, researchers report in the April issue of Radiology

Principal investigator Dr. Claudia I. Henschke said that when conducting such screening “it is important to follow a well-defined and well-tested algorithm — or approach — which defines who needs further workup and what and when that workup should be done.”

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Younger age at menopause is associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer, researchers from the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in Minneapolis report.

Bladder cancer is common in the U.S., representing about 6% of all new cancer cases among men and 2% among women, Anna E. Prizment and colleagues report in the March issue the International Journal of Cancer. “Established risk factors for bladder cancers include age, gender, smoking and chemical carcinogens.”

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CT-guided lung tumor radiofrequency ablation shows promise in older patients who have refused or who were not candidates for surgery, researchers report in the April issue of Radiology.

“Since many patients in our study had no other treatment options,” researcher Dr. Damian E. Dupuy said, “our results show the utility of lung radiofrequency ablation for this group of elderly sick people.”

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For women diagnosed with breast cancer in one breast, MRI is useful in detecting cancer in the opposite breast that may have been missed with mammography and clinical examination, new research shows.

Up to 10% of women who have received treatment for unilateral breast cancer have involvement of the other breast as well, according to the report in The New England Journal of Medicine for March 29. The focus of the present study was to determine if MRI evaluation can improve the detection of contralateral malignancies.

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High body mass index (BMI) does not increase the risk of prostate cancer, but BMI and weight gain are associated with a greater risk of mortality from the disease.

“This is a large study that shows a convincing dose-response association between obesity and adult weight gain and death from prostate cancer,” lead investigator Dr. Margaret E. Wright said.

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Calcium, vitamin D supplements and dairy products are protective against colorectal cancer, according to findings published in the March issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

“Colorectal cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers worldwide, and dietary factors are considered to be important in its risk,” Dr. Song-Yi Park, of the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, and colleagues write. “A possible protective effect of calcium and vitamin D against colorectal carcinogenesis has been suggested from results of in vivo and in vitro studies.”

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In the absence of new therapies, sequential cisplatin-based treatment appears to be a useful option in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), according to Italian researchers.

“While waiting for a tailored, more rational approach to lung cancer treatment,” lead researcher Dr. Anna Ceribelli said, “we believe that empirical strategies using chemotherapeutic drugs are still a reasonable alternative for patients with advanced NSCLC.”

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Swiss drugmaker Roche said on Thursday that Avastin had been approved in Europe for the treatment of women with metastatic breast cancer.

The European Commission had approved Avastin for the first line treatment of women with metastatic breast cancer in combination with paclitaxel, Roche said in a statement.