Cancer - March 2012 Archives

ROCHESTER, Minn. — March 26, 2012.  Even as the rates of some cancers are falling, Mayo Clinic is seeing an alarming trend: the dramatic rise ...

This year tobacco-related illness will kill nearly 6-million people worldwide. That's more people than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. Just this week in Singapore, at a ...

Could blocking a testosterone receptor lead to a new way of treating an aggressive form of breast cancer?  Researchers at Mayo Clinic in Arizona and The Translational ...

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Could blocking a testosterone receptor lead to a new way to treat an aggressive form of breast cancer? That's a question researchers at Mayo Clinic in Arizona and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) are exploring. Preliminary results of a Mayo Clinic — TGen collaborative study shows the testosterone receptor may be a potential target to attack in treating triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). VIDEO ALERT: Click here to watch Dr. Barbara Pockaj explain the study. Lead researcher Barbara Pockaj, M.D., a surgical oncologist at Mayo Clinic in Arizona will present the results of the study at the 65th annual Society of Surgical Oncology conference on March 23 in Orlando, Fla. TNBC is highly aggressive and affects approximately 10 to 20 percent of breast cancer patients. The disease is characterized by larger, faster-growing tumors than other types of breast cancer and has limited treatment options. Unlike other forms of breast cancer in which treatments are tailored to specifically target hormone receptors such as estrogen and progesterone or the HER-2 proteins that promote the growth and spread of cancer cells, triple negative cancer cells do not possess markers for estrogen, progesterone or HER-2, Dr. Pockaj says. There are no targeted therapies for TNBC, just chemotherapy, she says. Researchers at Mayo Clinic and TGen say that could change if the androgen (testosterone) receptor shows potential as a therapeutic target. "The goal of the study was to define what may be fueling TNBC, thereby identifying new potential options for effective targeted treatment," says co-lead researcher Heather Cunliffe, Ph.D., Associate Professor and head of TGen's breast and ovarian cancer research unit. "The team discovered that the androgen receptor is expressed in a significant proportion of these tumors, and moreover, the androgen-receptive positive tumors shared a unique clinical behavior."

Mayo Clinic researchers are using a genetic combination of human DNA and a cousin of the rabies virus to eradicate skin cancer from within trained mouse immune ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic researchers have trained mouse immune systems to eradicate skin cancer from within, using a genetic combination of human DNA from melanoma cells and a cousin of the rabies virus. The strategy, called cancer immunotherapy, uses a genetically engineered version of the vesicular stomatitis virus to deliver a broad spectrum of genes derived from melanoma cancer cells directly into tumors. In early studies, 60 percent of tumor-burdened mice were cured in fewer than three months and with minimal side effects. Results of the latest study appear this week in the journal Nature Biotechnology. "We believe that this new technique will help us to identify a whole new set of genes that encode antigens that are important in stimulating the immune system to reject cancer. In particular, we have seen that several proteins need to be expressed together to generate the most effective rejection of the tumors in mice," says Richard Vile, Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic researcher in the Department of Molecular Medicine and a coauthor of the study, along with Jose Pulido, M.D., a Mayo Clinic ophthalmologist and ocular oncologist. Dr. Vile's success with melanoma adds to Mayo Clinic's growing portfolio of experimental cancer vaccines, which includes an active clinical trial of vesicular stomatitis vaccines for liver cancers. Future studies could include similar vaccines for more aggressive cancers, such as lung, brain and pancreatic. "I do believe we can create vaccines that will knock them off one by one," Dr. Vile says. "By vaccinating against multiple proteins at once, we hope that we will be able to treat both the primary tumor and also protect against recurrence." The immune system functions on a seek-and-destroy platform and has fine-tuned its capacity to identify viral invaders such as vesicular stomatitis virus. Part of the appeal of building cancer vaccines from the whole spectrum of tumor DNA is that tumors can adapt to the repeated attacks of a healthy immune system and display fewer antigens (or signposts) that the immune system can identify. Cancers can learn to hide from a normal immune system, but appear unable to escape an immune system trained by the vesicular stomatitis virus with the wide range of DNA used in the library approach. "Nobody knows how many antigens the immune system can really see on tumor cells," says Dr. Vile. "By expressing all of these proteins in highly immunogenic viruses, we increased their visibility to the immune system. The immune system now thinks it is being invaded by the viruses, which are expressing cancer-related antigens that should be eliminated." Much immunotherapy research has slowed because of researchers' inability to isolate a sufficiently diverse collection of antigens in tumor cells. Tumors in these scenarios are able to mutate and reestablish themselves in spite of the body's immune system.

ST. CLOUD, Minn. — Mayo Clinic today announced that CentraCare's Coborn Cancer Center will be the first member of the Mayo Clinic Cancer Care Network. The Coborn Cancer Center is the first cancer-specific member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network. The agreement formalizes a long-standing relationship between the two organizations. Coborn Cancer Center physicians will benefit from enhanced access to Mayo physicians and clinical resources, which in turn will benefit local patients and their families. Mayo Clinic Cancer Care Network membership is based on a rigorous set of patient care and quality data. Network members have access to several unique Mayo services and tools, such as: AskMayoExpert, a state-of-the-art resource that provides access to Mayo Clinic's evidence-based disease management protocols, clinical care guidelines, treatment recommendations and reference materials for a variety of medical conditions eConsults, which give member physicians the ability to connect with a Mayo expert to get input on specific questions as they care for their patients Administrative consulting that supports clinical practice models and the unique needs of Coborn Cancer Center patients "We are proud to formalize our ongoing relationship with our colleagues at CentraCare's Coborn Cancer Center," says David Hayes, M.D., medical director of the Mayo Clinic Care Network, which was launched last year. "This relationship brings together two like-minded organizations that share a goal of improving the delivery of health care through high-quality, collaborative medical care." "CentraCare Health System is proud to work with Mayo Clinic to ensure an even stronger cancer program for the patients we serve," says Terence Pladson, M.D., president and CEO, CentraCare Health System. "We look forward to developing strong relationships with CentraCare physicians who care for cancer patients," says Jan Buckner, M.D., chairman of Mayo Clinic's Division of Medical Oncology. "This relationship will build upon our long-standing collaborations in conducting clinical trials as well as frequent informal patient consultations." "As a physician who trained at Mayo, I am excited that the Mayo Clinic Cancer Care Network will give me and my Coborn Cancer Center colleagues access to resources that can mean additional peace of mind for our patients," says Donald Jurgens, M.D., medical oncologist, Coborn Cancer Center.

WHAT: Mayo Clinic and St. Cloud-based CentraCare Coborn Cancer Center will announce a formal agreement between the two organizations. WHO: David Hayes, ...

For patients diagnosed with myelofibrosis, a bone marrow disorder that disrupts the body’s normal production of blood cells, new hope may be on the horizon. A ...