Category Archives: In the News

It’s Time to Reschedule Your Cancer Screenings

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A recent survey of more than 1,000 American adults found that 35 percent skipped previously scheduled cancer screening appointments during the pandemic. A USA Today article on the survey quotes MSK’s Dr. Jeffrey Drebin, who says that pushing back screening has a domino effect, as it could also delay life-saving treatment.

In the New York Daily News, MSK’s Dr. Lisa DeAngelis emphasizes the importance of cancer care, and how early detection saves lives. She urges New Yorkers to schedule mammograms, colonoscopies, skin checks, and other screenings now, while New York City’s COVID numbers are low and stable.

Nanoparticles and Light

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Source: Wenjing Wu

Designing drugs that attack only tumor cells but not healthy cells is complicated.

Xuequan Zhou, a PhD student from Leiden University, created an anticancer compound with a molecule that can self-organize in nanoparticles and become activated only under blue light irradiation. The new properties allow the drug to be activated only when needed and thus could be instrumental in killing cancer cells without damaging healthy cells. The research team conducted experiments in vitro and also in vivo using a mouse tumor model. The article is published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Along similar lines, a team from Penn State University developed light-activated nanoparticles to target cancer cells. The nanoparticles can bind with microRNA (miRNA) molecules, and those can be released in the cancer cells when exposed to light, thus sparing healthy tissue. The miRNA molecules will then pair to a messenger mRNA and inhibit proteins’ production essential for cancer cells’ survival. The paper is published in Biomaterials.

 

When COVID Meets Cancer

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A recent study about cancer patients with COVID-19 indicates that while chemotherapy and surgery do not worsen outcomes, immunotherapy may.

The study, published in Nature Medicine on June 24, followed 423 symptomatic COVID patients at MSK. Of these, 168 were hospitalized and 40 needed mechanical ventilation. Fifty-one patients, or 12 percent, died.

Severe illness was correlated with older age (65 and above), non-white race, heart disease, high blood pressure, kidney disease, and immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment (an immunotherapy). Metastatic cancer, cancer surgery, or chemotherapy within the previous 30 days did not correlate with increased rates of hospitalization or severe respiratory disease.

In an MSK blog post on the study, co-author Dr. Mini Kamboj stated that those in need of immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment should still receive it and should be especially diligent about reducing their risk of contracting COVID.

Read more:
Cancer Network
European Pharmaceutical Review
Fierce Pharma
Healio
MedPage Today