~Cancer~

[uscitizen]

How close has cancer hit you or someone you love?
They say 1 out of 3 women will develop some form of cancer, and even tho it's not the number one killer of women (heart disease is), it ranks very high as the killer of men and women.
It kills more people than obesity. It kills more people than heart attacks/strokes.
I loathe fucking cancer, it's my only enemy in life........I am surrounded by it on both sides of my family and I have had to deal with it personally, in my own body~
I wish they would find something to help with this dreaded jackass disease. More and more children are being stricken with some form of cancer.
Instead of them getting closer to finding a cure, I hear about more and more cases~

Got it, dying...
Outlived my doctors estimates by a year or so.
And did not do the chemo thing either.
It sucks.

 

[uscitizen]

Just realized this is an old thread, hope I did not repeat myself

 

[jeffdix]

smoking is the major cause for cancer. Still people can live normal with cancer.

 

[waltky]

Aspirin Can Possibly Treat, Help Prevent Cancer...

Studies find an aspirin a day can keep cancer at bay
March 20, 2012 - Three new studies published on Wednesday added to growing scientific evidence suggesting that taking a daily dose of aspirin can help prevent, and possibly treat, cancer.

Previous studies have found that daily aspirin reduces the long-term risk of death due to cancer, but until now the shorter-term effects have been less certain - as has the medicine's potential in patients already diagnosed with cancer. The new studies, led by Peter Rothwell of Britain's Oxford University, found that aspirin also has a short-term benefit in preventing cancer, and that it reduces the likelihood that cancers will spread to other organs by about 40 to 50 percent. "These findings add to the case for use of aspirin to prevent cancer, particularly if people are at increased risk," Rothwell said. "Perhaps more importantly, they also raise the distinct possibility that aspirin will be effective as an additional treatment for cancer - to prevent distant spread of the disease."

This was particularly important because it is the process of spread of cancer, or "metastasis", which most often kills people with the disease, he added. Aspirin, originally developed by Bayer, is a cheap over-the-counter drug generally used to combat pain or reduce fever. The drug reduces the risk of clots forming in blood vessels and can therefore protect against heart attacks and strokes, so it is often prescribed for people who already suffer with heart disease and have already had one or several attacks. Aspirin also increases the risk of bleeding in the stomach to around one patient in every thousand per year, a factor which has fuelled an intense debate about whether doctors should advise patients to take it as regularly as every day.

Last year, a study by British researchers questioned the wisdom of daily aspirin for reducing the risk of early death from a heart attack or stroke because they said the increased risk of internal bleeding outweighed the potential benefit. Other studies, including some by Rothwell in 2007, 2010 and 2011, found that an aspirin a day, even at a low dose of around 75 milligrams, reduces the long-term risk of developing some cancers, particularly bowel and oesophageal cancer, but the effects don't show until eight to 10 years after the start of treatment. Rothwell, whose new studies were published in The Lancet and The Lancet Oncology journals on Wednesday, said this delay was because aspirin was preventing the very early development of cancers and there was a long time lag between this stage and a patient having clinical signs or symptoms of cancer.

Rothwell and others said deeper research was now needed into aspirin as a potential treatment for cancer in patients whose disease has not yet spread. "No drug has been shown before to prevent distant metastasis and so these findings should focus future research on this crucial aspect of treatment," he said. Peter Johnson, chief clinician at the charity Cancer Research UK, said his group was already investigating the anti-cancer properties of aspirin. "These findings show we're on the right track," he said. In a written commentary on the research in The Lancet, Andrew Chan and Nancy Cook of Harvard Medical School in the United States said it was "impressive" and moved health experts "another step closer to broadening recommendations for aspirin use".

Source

 

[waltky]

Healthier lifestyle reduces risk of cancer...

Half of all cancers are preventable: study
28 Mar.`12 - Half of all cancers could be prevented if people just adopted healthier behaviors, US scientists argued on Wednesday.

Smoking is blamed for a third of all US cancer cases and being overweight leads to another 20 percent of the deadly burden that costs the United States some $226 billion per year in health care expenses and lost productivity. For instance, up to three quarters of US lung cancer cases could be avoided if people did not smoke, said the article in the US journal Science Translational Medicine. Science has shown that plenty of other cancers can also be prevented, either with vaccines to prevent human papillomavirus and hepatitis, which can cause cervical and liver cancers, or by protecting against sun exposure, which can cause skin cancer.

Society as a whole must recognize the need for these changes and take seriously an attempt to instill healthier habits, said the researchers. "It's time we made an investment in implementing what we know," said lead author Graham Colditz, an epidemiologist at the Siteman Cancer Center at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. Exercising, eating right and refraining from smoking are key ways to prevent up to half of the 577,000 deaths from cancer in the United States expected this year, a toll that is second only to heart disease, according to the study.

But a series of obstacles to change are well enshrined in the United States, which will see an estimated 1,638,910 new cancer cases diagnosed this year. Those hurdles include skepticism that cancer can be prevented and the habit of intervening too late in life to stop or prevent cancer that has already taken root. Also, much of the research on cancer focuses on treatment instead of prevention, and tends to take a short-term view rather than a long-term approach. "Humans are impatient, and that human trait itself is an obstacle to cancer prevention," said the study.

Further complicating those factors are the income gaps between the upper and lower social classes that mean poor people tend to be more exposed to cancer risk factors than the wealthy. "Pollution and crime, poor public transportation, lack of parks for play and exercise, and absence of nearby supermarkets for fresh food hinder the adoption and sustained practice of a lifestyle that minimizes the risk of cancer and other diseases," said the study. "As in other countries, social stratification in the United States exacerbates lifestyle differences such as access to health care, especially prevention and early detection services. "Mammograms, colon screening, diet and nutrition support, smoking cessation resources and sun protection mechanisms are simply less available to the poor."

More Half of all cancers are preventable: study - Yahoo! News

See also:

Cancer: 'Book of knowledge' published
28 March 2012 - The first volume of a "book of cancer knowledge" has been published, which scientists say will speed up the search for new cancer drugs.

The "encyclopaedia" details how hundreds of different cancer cells respond to anti-cancer agents. UK, US and European researchers say the data, published in Nature, is a step towards tailoring cancer medicine to a patient's genetic profile. A cancer charity said the work would help in testing new cancer drugs. Cancer cells grown in the laboratory are an essential tool in cancer research. Hundreds of different cell lines exist, allowing scientists to study the effect of new cancer drugs on the human body.

Now, a team at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute near Cambridge and various cancer institutes around the world have released two papers cataloguing data on hundreds of cancer cell lines. The UK team, working with colleagues in the US, Paris and Switzerland, screened more than 600 cancer cell lines with 130 drugs, identifying genetic signatures linked with drug sensitivity. Already clues are emerging that could be of benefit to patients, including the discovery that a rare bone cancer in children (Ewing's sarcoma) appears to be vulnerable to certain drugs.

Personalised medicine

Dr Mathew Garnett of the Sanger Institute is lead researcher on one of the two papers published in the journal Nature. He told the BBC: "It's bringing together two very large and very powerful data sets and asking which cell line is the most sensitive and what is behind that sensitivity. "This is the largest study of its kind linking drug response with genetic markers. You need these very large studies to identify small subsets of cells that are sensitive to drugs." Dr Levi Garraway of The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, US, is a senior member of the research team behind the second paper, which profiled 24 drugs across nearly 500 cell lines. He told the BBC: "Developing this large cell-line resource with all the associated genetic details is another piece in the pie to get us to our goal of personalised cancer medicine. "We're trying to get smarter about understanding what the right drug is using the genetic information in each tumour. This is a stepping stone along the way."

The next step is use the information to help decide on tailored treatments for cancer patients. This would involve getting a genetic "fingerprint" of their tumour, which could be matched to information in the database. Some cancer drugs are already available for individuals with a certain genetic makeup. he best known is Herceptin, a breast cancer drug that works in patients with an overactive HER2 gene. Professor Charles Swanton, based at Cancer Research UK's London Research Institute, said the papers were "an invaluable resource" that provided "extremely useful intelligence" for cancer researchers. He added: "This new resource will help speed up cancer research and may well begin to guide further developments in personalised cancer medicine."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17537242

 

[waltky]

Uncle Ferd lets his fat g/f's check him out...

Self-checking won't spot testicle cancer: doctor
28 Mar.`12 - Celebrity appeals for British men to check their testicles to detect early signs of cancer are a waste of time and possibly harmful, an opinion piece published by the British Medical Journal (BMJ) says.

Singer Robbie Williams and the Leicester Tigers rugby team are among those who have lent their names to a campaign for men to be "testicle aware," just as women are encouraged to look for dangerous lumps in their breasts. But in a personal view published in Thursday's BMJ, Doctor Keith Hopcroft, a general practitioner in the southeastern county of Essex, lashes the invitation for a man to "grope his gonads or caress his crown jewels" as "well-meaning whimsy, with the potential to do harm." "There is no good evidence that routine testicular self-examination is of any benefit," he writes. "The chances of discovering something significant from routine self-examination of the testicles are minuscule. At least 50,000 men would need to examine themselves for 10 years to prevent one death."

Hopcroft says the "testicle aware" campaign is based on the notion that this form of cancer is a silent killer, with no symptoms of pain. The campaigners argue men should look for painless swelling that, they say, is a possible sign of cancer. But, argues Hopcroft, at least half of patients with testicular cancer usually experience pain. The real question is teaching men to be aware of this symptom and act on it swiftly, rather than "turning the nation's blokes into ball-watching neurotics," he says. Self-examination may turn up benign swellings such as epididymal cysts that are harmless but may cause the man crippling anxiety, he adds.

Source

 

[waltky]

Nanomedicine offers new treatment therapy...

New cancer drug delivery system shows promise
4 Apr.`12 - A new method of delivering cancer drugs that could cut down on chemotherapy's side effects and boost the strength of the tumor-fighting medicine has shown promise, US researchers said Wednesday.

Early phase 1 studies on a small group of humans have shown the therapy, which delivers a potent cancer drug directly to the tumor through a process known as nanomedicine, is safe and shows some effectiveness in shrinking cancers. The treatment had an effect even when given at doses as low as 20 percent of the typical amount, said the research presented at a science conference in Chicago and published simultaneously in Science Translational Medicine. In addition, it was shown to concentrate drug activity in the tumor up to 10 times higher than seen in conventional application of the same chemo drug. "If you try to get that concentration in a conventional form, you will kill the patient," said Omid Farokhzad, a physician-scientist at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and co-senior author of the clinical trial.

The 17 patients involved in the ongoing phase 1 study all have advanced cancers, according to the results presented at the American Association for Cancer Research's annual meeting. Six of the patients have shown some response to the drug, with one cervical cancer patient showing a shrinkage of tumors and five showing stabilization of their diseases, which include pancreatic, colorectal, bile duct, tonsillar and anal cancer. Researchers were pleased with the results because the doses were low, suggesting that one day doctors may find a way around the weakening effects of chemotherapy by targeting medicine at the tumor itself.

The nanomedicine is called BIND-014, and Farokhzad, who is also an associate professor at Harvard School of Medicine, described it as the "the first of this kind ever to be going into humans for any kind of illnesses." The nanomedicine was combined with the chemotherapy drug docetaxel (Taxotere), often used against solid tumors found in patients with breast, ovarian, prostate and non-small cell lung cancer. BIND-014 is made by BIND Biosciences, a biopharmaceutical company in the northeastern state of Massachusetts.

Study co-author Philip Kantoff, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said the emerging data "validates the potential for the revolutionary impact of nanomedicines and is a paradigm shift for the treatment of cancer." More research is needed before scientists can determine if the method is safe for widespread use in the treatment of cancer.

Source

 

[laughinReaper]

Both my grandfathers,one of my grandmothers,my step mother,and my husbands grandmother all died of cancer. My mother has had breast cancer and skin cancer but they caught it in time. Cancer sucks.

 

[Jackson]

I lost my best friend, my beautiful Mother to that damn disease in November 2005. Lung cancer, yes she smoked. They say there are 5 stages of grief, I sure hope to hell I would get to the final one, because I haven't yet, and truth be told, I doubt I ever will. She and I shared a bond like no other Mother and daughter you would see. Most people were jealous of us, we never fussed, always did things for each other, we were always there for each other. God what I wouldn't give to have my Mother here with me. Mother's days and her birthdays and Christmas are so damn hard. I am her only daughter, and so it was difficult for both of us, when she came home under Hospice care, because we both knew, the end was near.
Then I lost my Dad, my SF, to cancer in March 2008. Even tho he was so mean to me, I loved him and I forgave him for the many years of abuse. That's one thing about me, I am a very forgiving person. But he suffered terribly and I watched him die. My Mother went peacefully in her sleep, for that I am very thankful.
Then my Mother's favorite sister, my favorite Aunt, I lost her to cancer in February 2009. She sort of took over the role of my Mother after Mother left me. And she did a great job!
Also on my Mother's side, I lost my Grandfather to cancer, lung cancer- and my Grandmother to cancer (my Mother's parents) as well as Mother's oldest brother, he also passed away from cancer. And all of them, with the exception of my Aunt, they all passed away at the age of 66. My dear Aunt lived to be 68.
On my real Dad's side, even tho I didn't know him that well, he died at the age of 54, passed away from liver cancer.
And like I mentioned earlier, I have had the dreaded C word in my body, had to fight it for awhile, but I'm not about to give in, and so far, I'm doing great~
But I so loathe cancer, it sickens me.

Dabs, your story is heartbreaking. Your suffering is monstrous. I am so sorry.

I just lost my best friend to cancer. It has shaken my faith. I prayed so hard for her to overcome her illness that I was sure she would make it, but Death took her over like a thief in the night. It still jars me awake.

My thoughts are with you.

 

[sparky]

My childhood pals son contracted the big C around Xmas time, massive tumor in his chest

at first they told him to go home, here's your O2 tank, but his petite wife stood the doc's down, and had him admitted.

The kid was given this super kemo deal, told he might have a chance if he survived it, but it was a rough go, lungs filled, he was talking to St Peter

meanwhile my pal wasn't taking it well, told his kid wouldn't survive the night

we talked a lot, but he was inconsolable, and went out on his back porch and had the big one

the kid bounced back the next day. he survived another month before the cancer ate him up

i went to two funerals this month, was asked to speak at my pals by his brothers

imho, cancer eats families up

~S~

 

[Jackson]

My childhood pals son contracted the big C around Xmas time, massive tumor in his chest

at first they told him to go home, here's your O2 tank, but his petite wife stood the doc's down, and had him admitted.

The kid was given this super kemo deal, told he might have a chance if he survived it, but it was a rough go, lungs filled, he was talking to St Peter

meanwhile my pal wasn't taking it well, told his kid wouldn't survive the night

we talked a lot, but he was inconsolable, and went out on his back porch and had the big one

the kid bounced back the next day. he survived another month before the cancer ate him up

i went to two funerals this month, was asked to speak at my pals by his brothers

imho, cancer eats families up

~S~

Losing loved ones eats families up. You saw it first hand.

 

[Emma]

I lost a patient last week. The tumor in his throat had been removed and he'd received chemo, but it soon recurred and grew out of control. He came to us with a baseball-sized mass growing out of his throat, compressing his trachea. Part of me wished the tumor would invade an artery, so that he would quickly exsanguinate (even though I knew it would terrify his family to see that happen). Instead, he suffocated to death over a period of about a week, as the tumor slowly closed off his air supply. All I could do was medicate the shit out of him and pray he wasn't aware of what was happening. But of course at some level, he was. What a hideous way to die.

I can't fathom how anyone can be opposed to a person's right to choose to end their own life. Physician-assisted suicide is not euthanasia.

 

[mudwhistle]

How close has cancer hit you or someone you love?
They say 1 out of 3 women will develop some form of cancer, and even tho it's not the number one killer of women (heart disease is), it ranks very high as the killer of men and women.
It kills more people than obesity. It kills more people than heart attacks/strokes.
I loathe fucking cancer, it's my only enemy in life........I am surrounded by it on both sides of my family and I have had to deal with it personally, in my own body~
I wish they would find something to help with this dreaded jackass disease. More and more children are being stricken with some form of cancer.
Instead of them getting closer to finding a cure, I hear about more and more cases~

My Dad died from it.

I don't dwell on it.

 

[Dabs]

How close has cancer hit you or someone you love?
They say 1 out of 3 women will develop some form of cancer, and even tho it's not the number one killer of women (heart disease is), it ranks very high as the killer of men and women.
It kills more people than obesity. It kills more people than heart attacks/strokes.
I loathe fucking cancer, it's my only enemy in life........I am surrounded by it on both sides of my family and I have had to deal with it personally, in my own body~
I wish they would find something to help with this dreaded jackass disease. More and more children are being stricken with some form of cancer.
Instead of them getting closer to finding a cure, I hear about more and more cases~

My Dad died from it.

I don't dwell on it.

I don't dwell on it.
My Mother and I were very close....closer than most Mothers/daughters.
There is a void in my life now that she is gone.......my heart is broken........I try and remember the good times......but that only makes me realize there will be no more good times to be made.
I miss her terribly......it's just the way I am........

 

[Middleoftheroad]

I've lost an uncle to it, and currently my dad has it. His is a particularly deadly form, glioblastoma, the most aggressive of brain tumors. His also was not caught early enough and so is not operable. He is currently going through radiation with hope that the cancer goes into remission in order for it to become operable, but it is unlikely. From what I have read, in inoperable cases life expectancy is 3-6 months and it has already been 4. He goes through stages of seizures after which he cannot talk for a day or two and has no memory for the next 3-4 days.

 

[waltky]

Hope for prostate cancer patients...

New Drug Could Slow Spread of Prostate Cancer
April 20, 2012 - In mice, stops disease from spreading to nearby tissues and bone

Scientists report they have developed a drug that can prevent prostate cancer from spreading to nearby tissues and bone, increasing the chances of successful treatment. The experimental compound doesn't cure prostate cancer. It contains the disease so more traditional cancer therapies, such as surgery and radiation, have a chance to work.

Raymond Bergan is director of experimental therapeutics at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University in Illinois, where the drug was developed. Using breast cancer as an analogy, Bergan says it's not the original cancer that's lethal, but its spread or metastasis. "The relevance of that is life versus death, literally," he says. "If the cancer is localized, it's very treatable, curable. If the cancer has spread throughout the body, it will take her life. We can treat it, but it will take her life."

The new drug, called KBU2046, is a small molecule that attaches to tumor proteins involved in metastasis and disables them, so they can't travel to distant organs. Bergan says it's like turning off a switch that tells the cells to keep moving all the time. Bergan and his colleagues transplanted aggressive human prostate cancer cells into mice, and then fed them the drug for five weeks. The compound prevented metastasis of the cancer to the lungs, a frequent site of tumor spread in men with prostate cancer.

Toxicity studies showed the compound is safe. Unlike other cancer therapies, which can cause significant side effects, investigators say the experimental drug spares healthy cells, causing minimal side effects. Bergan is confident that KBU2046 will work to contain other cancers as well. "We don't think it's specific to prostate cancer. We've done some early tests with other cancer cells in the laboratory and it appears to stop them from moving." Bergan stresses that drugs developed using animal models don't always work in humans, and he's looking forward to trials involving cancer patients.

Source

 

[Mr. H.]

Lil' sis recently had biopsies taken from her thyroid.
Prognosis is most likey cancer. Will no more this week.
It'll be taken out but the big if - has it spread.
Film at 11.

 

[waltky]

Dat's why Granny gets her vaccinations...

Infection causes one in six new cancer cases: study
8 May,`12 - Largely preventable or treatable infections with viruses, bacteria and parasites cause about two million new cancer cases and 1.5 million cancer deaths each year, said a study published Wednesday.

This amounted to about one in six of the 12.7 million new cancer cases reported in 2008, said the report in The Lancet Oncology journal. "Application of existing public health methods for infection prevention, such as vaccination, safer injection practice or antimicrobial treatments, could have a substantial effect on the future burden of cancer worldwide," said the report by the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France.

Four infections, hepatitis B and C, human papillomavirus (HPV) and the Helicobacter pylori stomach bacteria, accounted for the bulk of the cases, some 1.9 million -- mostly gastric, liver and cervical cancers. Infection-related cancers accounted for 3.3 percent of new cases in Australia and New Zealand, but 32.7 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, said the report, based on a study of 27 cancer types in 184 countries.

Cervical cancer accounted for half the infection-related cancers in women, and liver and gastric cancers for 80 percent of cases in men. "Around 30 percent of infection-attributable cases occur in people younger than 50 years," said the report.

Sourec

 

[waltky]

Using stem cells to provide a 'shield' for cancer patients...

Stem cell shield 'could protect cancer patients'
9 May 2012 - The trial is being conducted on patients with brain cancer

It may be possible to use "stem cell shielding" to protect the body from the damaging effects of chemotherapy, early results from a US trial suggest. Chemotherapy drugs try to kill rapidly dividing cancer cells, but they can also affect other healthy tissues such as bone marrow. A study, in Science Translational Medicine, used genetically modified stem cells to protect the bone marrow. Cancer Research UK said it was a "completely new approach".

The body constantly churns out new blood cells in the hollow spaces inside bone. However, bone marrow is incredibly susceptible to chemotherapy. The treatment results in fewer white blood cells being produced, which increases the risk of infection, and fewer red blood cells, which leads to shortness of breath and tiredness. Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in Seattle, said these effects were "a major barrier" to using chemotherapy and often meant the treatment had to be stopped, delayed or reduced.

'Protective shields'

They have tried to protect the bone marrow in three patients with a type of brain cancer, glioblastoma. One of the researchers, Dr Jennifer Adair, said: "This therapy is analogous to firing at both tumour cells and bone marrow cells, but giving the bone marrow cells protective shields while the tumour cells are unshielded." Bone marrow was taken from the patients and stem cells, which produce blood, were isolated. A virus was then used to infect the cells with a gene which protected the cells against a chemotherapy drug. The cells were then put back into the patient. The lead author of the report, Prof Hans-Peter Kiem, said: "We found that patients were able to tolerate the chemotherapy better, and without negative side effects, after transplantation of the gene-modified stem cells than patients in previous studies who received the same type of chemotherapy without a transplant of gene-modified stem cells."

The researchers said the three patients had all lived longer than the average survival time of 12 months for the cancer. They said one patient was still alive 34 months after treatment. Cancer Research UK scientist Prof Susan Short said: "This is a very interesting study and a completely new approach to protecting normal cells during cancer treatment. "It needs to be tested in more patients but it may mean that we can use temozolomide [a chemotherapy drug] for more brain tumour patients than we previously thought. "This approach could also be a model for other situations where the bone marrow is affected by cancer treatment."

BBC News - Stem cell shield 'could protect cancer patients'

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Another sign Jesus is comin' soon - we ain't s`posed to live forever...

Immune boosters show promise against cancer: study
2 June`12 - A pair of experimental treatments that fight cancer by boosting the immune system have shown promise in early studies and deserve testing in larger patient groups, said US research released Saturday.

The drugs, both made by Bristol-Myers Squibb, work by breaking down the shield that protects tumor cells. Rather than try to kill the cancer directly, they allow the immune system to do its work against the invading cells. In the trials which included just over 500 people, as many as one in four patients with non-small cell lung cancer, melanoma and kidney cancer, who had not responded to standard therapies, saw significant shrinkage of their tumors. Results of the phase 1 clinical trials were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and released at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago. The drugs are known as BMS-936558, which blocks a protein PD-1 on the surface of immune cells; and BMS-936559, which blocks a protein PD-L1 expressed on cancer cells.

They are in the same class of treatments as other antibody therapies against cancer including Erbitux, Herceptin, and Rituxan. "We have just scratched the surface of laboratory and clinical research on these drugs," said lead author of the PD-1 study, Suzanne Topalian, professor of surgery and oncology at Johns Hopkins University. "Based on the positive response rates to these drugs and longevity of many of these responses, we believe that new clinical trials should move forward." Among the 296 patients who tested in the PD-1 blocking drug, 18 percent of non-small cell lung cancer patients saw significant tumor shrinkage, as did 28 percent of melanoma patients and 27 percent of kidney cancer patients.

A small number of patients, five to nine percent, saw their disease remain stable for six months or more, though more study is needed to determine the treatment's impact on survival, the researchers said. "This level of response in patients with advanced lung cancer, which is typically not responsive to immune-based therapies, was unexpected and notable," said lead researcher on the PD-L1 study Julie Brahmer, associate professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins University. Among the 207 patients treated with the anti-PD-L1 therapy, 10 percent of non-small cell lung cancer patients, 17 percent of melanoma patients, and 12 percent of kidney cancer patients showed positive responses. "The positive results from both drugs give us a good indication that the PD-L1/PD-1 pathway is an important target for cancer therapy," said Topalian. Early analysis showed that among those who responded to the therapy, those responses were maintained for more than a year in half to two-thirds of of patients. However, the treatments also caused serious toxic effects in 14 percent of patients, including three deaths from lung inflammation, or pneumonitis.

Other significant side effects were colon inflammation and thyroid abnormalities. Some people reported fatigue, itching and rash. "A major limitation of the various approaches to turning on an immune response to cancer is that the immune system exerts a major effort to avoid immune overactivation, which could harm healthy tissues," said an accompanying editorial by doctor Antoni Ribas in the New England Journal of Medicine. However, Ribas, a melanoma expert at the University of California Los Angeles, pointed out that the treatments may help extend the duration of tumor suppression and could open new doors in personalized treatment. The research "predicts that these antibodies unleash a memory immune response to cancer," he wrote, adding the approach "may well have a major effect on cancer treatment." The study authors said the therapies might be most useful if combined with other anti-cancer agents, including cancer vaccines.

Source