MU researcher’s photoacoustic device finds cancer cells before they become tumors
January 4, 2012 by admin · Leave a Comment
Early detection of melanoma, the most aggressive skin cancer, is critical because melanoma will spread rapidly throughout the body. Now, University of Missouri researchers are one step closer to melanoma cancer detection at the cellular level, long before tumors have a chance to form. Commercial production of a device that measures melanoma using photoacoustics, or laser-induced ultrasound, will soon be available to scientists and academia for cancer studies. The commercial device also will be tested in clinical trials to provide the data required to obtain U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for early diagnosis of metastatic melanoma and other cancers.
Antiestrogen therapy may decrease risk for melanoma
January 3, 2012 by admin · Leave a Comment
Women with breast cancer who take antiestrogen supplements may be decreasing their risk for melanoma, according to a study published in Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
UCLA researchers engineer blood stem cells to fight melanoma
Researchers from UCLA’s cancer and stem cell centers have demonstrated for the first time that blood stem cells can be engineered to create cancer-killing T-cells that seek out and attack a human melanoma. The researchers believe this approach could be useful in 40 percent of Caucasians with this malignancy.
Sleeping sickness drug may provide long-term protection against skin cancer
October 22, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
An antiparasitic agent used to treat African sleeping sickness might someday be used to prevent nonmelanoma skin cancers. Researchers found that DFMO, or α-difluoromethylornithine, still appeared to protect against nonmelanoma skin cancers years after people stopped taking the drug, according to a poster presented at the 10th AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research, held Oct. 22-25, 2011.
Infusing chemotherapy into the liver gives extra months of disease-free life in melanoma patients
September 22, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
Melanoma of the eye (ocular or uveal melanoma) frequently spreads to the liver and, once this has happened, there is no effective treatment and patients die within an average of two to four months. Only about one in ten patients live for a year. Now, final results from a phase III study have demonstrated that a new treatment significantly extends the time patients can live without the disease progressing.
Combo therapies tested to overcome drug resistance in melanoma patients
July 31, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
About 50 to 60 percent of patients with melanoma have a mutation in the BRAF gene that drives the growth of their cancer. Most of these patients respond well to two novel agents being studied in clinical trials that inhibit the gene, with remarkable responses that are, unfortunately, almost always limited in duration.
Therapeutic melanoma vaccine improves response rate, progression-free survival
May 31, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
First cancer vaccine to show improved response rate
HOUSTON ― A vaccine for one of the most lethal cancers, advanced melanoma, has improved response rate and progression-free survival for patients when combined with the immunotherapy drug Interleukin-2, according to research led by scientists from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Indiana University Health Goshen Center for Cancer Care.
New technique extends cancer-fighting cells’ potency in melanoma patients
April 26, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
BOSTON–Like brainy bookworms unprepared for the rough and tumble of post-graduation life, white blood cells trained by scientists to attack tumors tend to fade away quickly when injected into cancer patients. Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists, however, have developed a technique that can cause such cells to survive in patients’ bloodstreams for well over a year, in some cases, without the need of other, highly toxic treatments, a new study shows.
Topical treatment may prevent melanoma
April 25, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
While incidents of melanoma continue to increase despite the use of sunscreen and skin screenings, a topical compound called ISC-4 may prevent melanoma lesion formation, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers.
NIH researchers complete whole-exome sequencing of skin cancer
April 14, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
Study is the most comprehensive view of melanoma’s genetic landscape
A team led by researchers at the National Institutes of Health is the first to systematically survey the landscape of the melanoma genome, the DNA code of the deadliest form of skin cancer. The researchers have made surprising new discoveries using whole-exome sequencing, an approach that decodes the 1-2 percent of the genome that contains protein-coding genes. The study appears in the April 15, 2011, early online issue of Nature Genetics.
