Forum for Science, Industry and Business

Joining forces against cancer

“We are at a crucial moment in our fight against cancer,” said ESMO President Prof. Jose Baselga. “We have never before made so much progress in our fight to eradicate cancer as a cause of death, and multidisciplinary treatment is a key factor in this success.”

New data presented at the 33rd ESMO Congress, 12-16 September 2008, Stockholm, Sweden also highlight the benefits of combined treatments:

Phase II trial of pazopanib before surgery in early lung cancer

Pazopanib, a new oral angiogenesis inhibitor, has demonstrated interesting activity in difficult to treat non-small-cell lung cancer, US researchers report. In a phase II trial, 30 out of 35 patients treated with preoperative pazopanib for a minimum of two weeks saw their tumor size shrink by up to 85%.

“This is a positive result that will be explored further,” said Prof. Nasser Altorki from Weil Medical College of Cornell University in New York. “To my knowledge, no other results on the effect of angiogenesis inhibitors in early stage operable lung cancer have been published. The results presented here with pazopanib indicate a highly active drug in this setting and further development in lung cancer is underway to fully understand the value of this drug in this disease.”

Chemotherapy, radiotherapy and cetuximab in head and neck cancer

Treating locally advanced head and neck cancers with an alternating regimen of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, plus cetuximab, has shown promise in a phase II trial, Italian researchers report.

Their trial in 45 patients combined chemotherapy with fluorouracil and carboplatin given on weeks 1, 4 and 7 of treatment, with radiotherapy administered daily on weeks 2-3, 5-6 and 8-10. Cetuximab was also added weekly. “Both complete response rate and long-term results compare favorably with the best reported in the literature,” Dr. Marco Merlano from the S. Croce General Hospital in Cuneo reports. 30 patients experienced a skin toxicity that the authors attribute to an interaction between the treatments, and 2 patients died from toxicities, they report.

Zoledronic acid added to adjuvant endocrine therapy prevents breast cancer recurrences

One-third of breast cancer recurrences in pre-menopausal women can be prevented by adding zoldronic acid to treatment with endocrine therapy combined with anastrazole or tamoxifen.

These results, reported for the first time recently, show that “we can positively impact the fate of our cancer patients by influencing the microenvironment of micro-metastases by relatively simple means,” says lead author Prof. Michael Gnant from the Medical University of Vienna.

The study results are included in the ESMO "Oncology Highlights" session in Stockholm. The findings will be expanded with new data from a multivariate analysis of the variables affecting disease-free and recurrence-free survival, Professor Gnant said.

Vanessa Pavinato | alfa
Further information:
http://www.esmo.org

Im Focus: Spider silk key to new bone-fixing composite

University of Connecticut researchers have created a biodegradable composite made of silk fibers that can be used to repair broken load-bearing bones without the complications sometimes presented by other materials.

Repairing major load-bearing bones such as those in the leg can be a long and uncomfortable process.

Im Focus: Writing and deleting magnets with lasers

Study published in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces is the outcome of an international effort that included teams from Dresden and Berlin in Germany, and the US.

Scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) together with colleagues from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and the University of Virginia...

Im Focus: Gamma-ray flashes from plasma filaments

Novel highly efficient and brilliant gamma-ray source: Based on model calculations, physicists of the Max PIanck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg propose a novel method for an efficient high-brilliance gamma-ray source. A giant collimated gamma-ray pulse is generated from the interaction of a dense ultra-relativistic electron beam with a thin solid conductor. Energetic gamma-rays are copiously produced as the electron beam splits into filaments while propagating across the conductor. The resulting gamma-ray energy and flux enable novel experiments in nuclear and fundamental physics.

The typical wavelength of light interacting with an object of the microcosm scales with the size of this object. For atoms, this ranges from visible light to...

Im Focus: Basel researchers succeed in cultivating cartilage from stem cells

Stable joint cartilage can be produced from adult stem cells originating from bone marrow. This is made possible by inducing specific molecular processes occurring during embryonic cartilage formation, as researchers from the University and University Hospital of Basel report in the scientific journal PNAS.

Certain mesenchymal stem/stromal cells from the bone marrow of adults are considered extremely promising for skeletal tissue regeneration. These adult stem...

Im Focus: Like a wedge in a hinge

Researchers lay groundwork to tailor drugs for new targets in cancer therapy

In the fight against cancer, scientists are developing new drugs to hit tumor cells at so far unused weak points. Such a “sore spot” is the protein complex...