cancer treatment

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FDA Drops Approval of Avastin for Breast Cancer

Drug lacks benefits, but side effects are 'life-threatening': commissioner

(Newser) - The Food and Drug Administration has reversed its approval of Avastin as a treatment for breast cancer, long the subject of controversy. The agency’s commissioner said the drug didn't help patients but could hurt them, the New York Times reports. “This was a difficult decision,” says...

Ecstasy Can Treat Cancer: Study

Researchers find a way to drastically boost its effectiveness

(Newser) - Could ecstasy cure cancer? The idea suddenly doesn’t seem so farfetched. Researchers at Birmingham University have found a way to boost its cancer-suppressing powers 100-fold, making it a potentially viable treatment for leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma, the Telegraph reports. Ecstasy was already known to fight many white blood cell...

&#39;Holy Grail&#39; of Cancer Treatment May Have Arrived
'Holy Grail' of Cancer Treatment May Have Arrived
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Aug 14, 2011 1:11 PM CDT

'Holy Grail' of Cancer Treatment May Have Arrived

Doctors excited about 'huge' new clinical trial

(Newser) - Dramatic results from a new cancer treatment trial are being called "a huge accomplishment—huge," and could mean a breakthrough in treating a common type of leukemia and potentially a range of other cancers. University of Pennsylvania scientists basically turned patients' T cells into leukemia-killing machines by modifying...

More Cancer Patients Try Risky 'Hot Chemo Bath'

But doctors unsure treatment merits its invasiveness

(Newser) - A combination of surgery and heated chemotherapy is rising in popularity—even though patients compare it “to being filleted, disemboweled and then bathed in hot poison,” writes Andrew Pollack in the New York Times . The surgery plus heated chemo, or Hipec, involves cutting the patient open, probing the...

Chavez Going Back to Cuba for Treatment

Will this time undergo chemotherapy

(Newser) - Hugo Chavez is returning to Cuba today for further cancer treatment, which this time will include chemotherapy in order to, as he says, "armor the body against new malignant cells." Chavez made the surprise announcement yesterday, reports the AP, asking lawmakers' permission to return to the country where...

FDA Panel: Don't Use Avastin for Breast Cancer

It recommends that agency revoke approval of popular drug

(Newser) - A special committee of the FDA voted unanimously to recommend revoking approval of the best-selling cancer drug in the world as a treatment for breast cancer. The panel says Avastin is ineffective in treating breast cancer and unsafe, paving the way for the government to remove its endorsement, reports the...

Two Skin Cancer Drugs Hailed as 'Breakthroughs'

Both can significantly increase survival for those with metastatic melanoma

(Newser) - Two new drugs offer new hope to patients with metastatic melanoma, the typically lethal advanced form of skin cancer. The trial of PLX4032, or vemurafenib, was so successful that the study was halted after three months so that all patients could receive the new drug, the Los Angeles Times reports....

How Nanodiamonds Can Boost Cancer Drugs

New research shows the particles make drugs more effective

(Newser) - Cancer treatment could get a boost thanks to nanodiamonds, small carbon-based particles whose shape is similar to diamonds. Chemotherapy drugs often become ineffective, because cancer cells spit them out of cells too quickly. But by attaching anticancer drugs to nanodiamonds, the cancer cells are thwarted because they're unable to pump...

More Women Treating Cancer While Pregnant

The old advice of terminating the pregnancy is being replaced

(Newser) - As women delay childbirth until they're older, doctors are seeing more cases of moms-to-be with cancer. About in 1 in 1,000 pregnant women are diagnosed with the disease—that's about 3,500 each year, reports MSNBC . With the increase comes changing attitudes about treatment: No longer is terminating the...

New Breast Cancer Drug Hails From Briny Deep

Natural drug discovery on the decline

(Newser) - Halaven, the new breast cancer drug the FDA approved in November, has an origin that’s rare in today’s pharmaceutical industry: It’s natural. Halaven is derived from halichondrin B, a chemical found in a species of black sponge that lives off the coast of Japan, the Wall Street ...

'Thin' Michael Douglas Trying to Gain Weight After Chemo

Weight reportedly dropped to 139 pounds

(Newser) - Michael Douglas has dropped a lot of weight during his chemo treatment for throat cancer —he reportedly went from 175 pounds to 139—but a friend tells Radar that he's now on a determined eating campaign to gain it back. The accompanying story has a photo of Douglas on...

Peonies: The New Saving Grace for Chemo Patients?

Together with licorice, peonies ease nausea, cramps

(Newser) - A new drug could help ease the suffering of chemo patients, and it’s made up of some pretty humble ingredients: Peony flowers, licorice, and the extracts of dates and skullcap plants. If that sounds more like a home remedy than a drug, that’s because it is. Researchers at...

New Vaccine May Cure Skin Cancer

Offers hope in fighting deadly melanoma

(Newser) - A new vaccine being tested in the UK may offer hope to patients suffering from the deadliest form of skin cancer. The drug, which attacks tumor cells and boosts the body's response to skin cancer without affecting healthy cells, appears to cure advanced melanoma in some patients. In a study...

'Potentially Huge' Treatment Blocks Cancer at Gene Level

New technique snips messenger RNA in half

(Newser) - Scientists think they are onto a "potentially huge" breakthrough in the fight against cancer after successfully blocking cancer cells on a genetic level for the first time in humans. In clinical trials on cancer patients, the "game-changing" form of genetic therapy snipped in half the messenger RNA inside...

Pain-Relieving Morphine May Spread Cancer

But drug to counter harmful effect exists

(Newser) - Morphine, a painkiller often prescribed to ease cancer patients' suffering, may in fact encourage the spread of the disease. A new study suggests that the opiate strengthens blood vessels that deliver oxygen and nutrients to tumors, as well as makes it easier for cancers to invade new tissues and spread,...

Study May Yield Better Cancer Drugs, Less Chemo

(Newser) - A breakthrough with cancer stem cells may lead to more potent drugs—ones that pair with chemotherapy in the sort of drug cocktail used against AIDS, reports the New York Times. If borne out, the development—in which researchers figured out how to screen for chemicals that attack only cancerous...

Child Cancer Survivors Risk Heart Trouble Years Later

Weakening starts to show in young adults

(Newser) - Kids who’ve conquered cancer can end up battling the effects of treatment years later as young adults, the Wall Street Journal reports. Some 10% of kids treated with drugs called anthracyclines, powerful against leukemia and other cancers, later suffer from progressive  weakening of the heart that can lead to...

Docs Weigh Longer Chemo in Cancer Battle

Experts say tumors could be treated as chronic diseases

(Newser) - Instead of waiting for cancer to return, some doctors are keeping up patients’ chemotherapy even when the threat has lessened, the New York Times reports. With maintenance therapy, some in the medical and drug industries say, it may be possible to treat cancer as a chronic disease, with tumors kept...

Mammograms May Lead to Overtreatment: Study

But screening can't determine danger; many treated unnecessarily

(Newser) - One-third of breast cancers that show up on mammograms may be essentially harmless, meaning that treating every tumor causes unnecessary trauma, a five-nation study suggests. A mammogram doesn't reveal whether a cancer is lethal or harmless, so all get treated when some could be merely monitored, the BBC reports. The...

Health Reform Must Pass the Test of Prostate Cancer

Efficacy should trump novelty in care choices

(Newser) - Forget public options and universal mandates. The real litmus test for health care reform is prostate cancer testing, writes David Leonhardt of the New York Times. Treatments for the disease range in cost from a few thousand dollars to more than $100,000. "You can probably guess which treatments...

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