Scientists investigating drug therapies for children with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) have presented new data demonstrating for the very first time that a small molecule called ABT-737 can increase the effectiveness of standard therapies.
By bypassing a well-known gene implicated in almost one-third of all cancers and instead focusing on the protein activated by the gene, Duke University Medical Center researchers believe they may have found a new target for anti-cancer drugs.
City of Hope has been named one of ?America?s Best Hospitals? in two specialties by U.S.News & World Report. City of Hope ranked 30th on this year?s list of top cancer hospitals and 29th on the list for urology.
Hyperthermia, combined with chemotherapy, improves the chances of healing and survival of patients with low-lying, soft tissue sarcomas. At the Annual General Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago, the GSF scientist Professor Dr. Rolf D. Issels, presented the results of the first, randomized worldwide phase III study in which the effectiveness and superiority of the combined-therapy methods are proven, in comparison with results from chemotherapy alone.
The number of lymph nodes that contain evidence of cancer is the best predictor of the effectiveness of adding chemotherapy and radiation to a treatment plan prior to surgery in individuals with oesophageal cancer, according to a study published last month in the Annals of Surgery.
A genetically engineered herpes simplex virus, primarily known for causing cold sores, may help keep arteries ?free-flowing? in the weeks following angioplasty or stent placement for patients, according to research published early in the online edition of PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America).
Treatment of HIV patients must balance the need to suppress viral replication against the harmful side effects and significant cost to the patient of antiretroviral therapy.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine report how the gene for utrophin, which codes for a protein very similar to dystrophin, the defective protein in Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), puts the brakes on its own expression in muscle cells, thereby suggesting a new target for treatment.
Estrogen, which binds estrogen receptor alpha (ER-alpha), is a risk factor for breast cancer development. However, one-third of new breast cancers lack detectable ER-alpha. These ER-alpha?negative cancers are more aggressive and have a worse prognosis than do ER-alpha?positive breast cancers, and have been thought to be estrogen independent.
Scientists at Duke University combine the best aspects of x-ray computed tomography (CT) scanning with single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), which is the single-gamma-ray counterpart of positron emission tomography (PET) scans, to obtain both anatomical and functional information using a single comfortable gantry.