Age should not be a deterrent when treating lung cancer patients. According to a recent study in JCO by thoracic surgeon, Dr. Prasad Adusumilli, older patients with stage 1 non-small cell lung cancer did quite well post-surgery, and after five years 9 out of 10 patients were alive and cancer free. Morton Pollner, one of Dr. Adusumilli’s patients was 76 when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. That was 7 years ago, and today Mr. Pollner is 82, cancer free, and enjoying life. “Whatever I get from here on, it’s like gravy,” he says.
MSK’s Chief of Genitourinary Oncology Service, Dr. Howard Scher, was interviewed by OncLive, where he discussed some of the challenges and developments in prostate cancer treatments. One of the most promising developments in prostate cancer treatment is using liquid biopsies. Since drawing blood is much less risky and costly, the benefits are significant. Liquid biopsies look for multiple tumor products, including circulating tumor cells, and DNA and RNA from tumors. The patient’s blood provides a window into their tumors, and what therapies those tumors will respond to, even when their tumors have metastasized into a variety of regions
Tumor-associated myeloid cells (TAMCs) are a type of suppressor cell that interferes with how checkpoint inhibitors attack cancer cells. However, Drs. Taha Merghoub and Jedd Wolchok found that they can block these TAMCs, improving immunotherapy in their latest Nature article. This provides another layer to the precision medicine of immunotherapy treatments, which according to Merghoub, “[w]e can now potentially identify patients whose tumors possess immune suppressor cells and add a drug to their treatment regimen to specifically disarm them.”
A JAMA study by Dr. Elizabeth Kantor, Assistant Attending Epidemiologist, found that 52% of adults use one or more dietary supplements in 2012, a number that remained stable since 1999. In this data, she found that use of multivitamins decreased from 37 to 31%, as well as the use of Vitamin C, E, and Selenium, which reflected the research findings that showed little benefit from these vitamins. However, other supplements continued to be used, such as Glucosamine for arthritis pain, despite studies demonstrating no benefit.
Kantor ED, et al. Trends in Dietary Supplement Use Among US Adults From 1999-2012. JAMA. 2016;316(14):1464-1474. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.14403