The Latest in the World of Cancer Research

• Adherence to cancer prevention guidelines may reduce risk of disease. A recent systematic review conducted by researchers at the University of Arizona found that studies consistently demonstrate reductions in overall incidence and mortality. Results are published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention.

• A clinical trial conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital found that the use of patient navigators increased cancer screening rates in low-income and ethnic minority groups. This randomized clinical trial was conducted from April 2014 to December 2014 in 18 practices and included 1,612 patients. The findings were published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

• In a landmark study, scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their international collaborators have shown that Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) is not a single disorder, but at least 11 different diseases, and that genetic changes explain differences in survival among young AML patients. The study results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Continue reading →

Here are a few newsworthy items in the world of cancer research

• As part of the National Cancer Moonshot initiative, the Genomic Data Commons will standardize accessible data so that it can be used by cancer researchers.  The plan is to integrate genomic and clinical data so it may ultimately serve as a resource for clinicians and their patients.
• Research conducted by scientists in St. Jude’s Research Hospital suggest that pediatric leukemia patients treated with higher concentrations of methotrexate are more likely to experience impaired executive function later on in life. Their findings were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
• Through a meta-analysis, researchers at the University of California in the San Diego School of Medicine, reported that personalized medicine leads to better outcomes in patients with cancer. 346 studies for a three year period were analyzed. The results were published in JAMA Oncology.
• A research group at Lund University in Sweden has discovered two new types of blood cancer in the pediatric population. The discovery came about through the application of next generation sequencing (NGS) platforms. The discovery may signal the greater use of personalized medicine, applicable to different patients. The research findings were published in Nature Communications.

Surfing the web, I uncovered these new items worth sharing:

• Nature recently published survey results on the subject of reproducibility of scientific experiments.   Hear what the scientists divulged:
• Scientists from the National Cancer Institute have made new discoveries using technology called cryo-EM (cryo-electron microscopy) where they were able to capture images of glutamate dehydrogenase, an enzyme found in cells with a level of atomic detail.  They were also able to demonstrate cancer target proteins, too small to view in the past. A discussion of these findings was published in Cell.
• NIH Research suggests that rare cancers may share symptoms with ADHD in the pediatric population. The specific tumors that have been shown to mimic symptoms of ADHD are pheochromocytomas and paragangliomas. Read more on this research in Hormone and Metabolic Research.