(Press-News.org) DENVER — Targeting c-Met may be a promising personalized treatment method for approximately 45 percent of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) who have c-Met-positive tumors, according to study results presented at the Fourth AACR International Conference on Molecular Diagnostics in Cancer Therapeutic Development.
HCC is the most common primary malignant tumor of the liver; c-Met is a receptor for hepatocyte growth factor that appears to drive liver cancer growth, invasion and metastasis.
"Current therapies for HCC patients are 'one size fits all.' We propose that molecular profiling will enable better therapy for HCC patients with a c-Met positive tumor," said Hanning You, M.D., Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow working in the laboratory of C. Bart Rountree, M.D., in the departments of pediatrics and pharmacology, at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Hershey, Pa.
Using a preclinical translational study to validate c-Met as a target for HCC, You and colleagues found c-Met was highly overexpressed in metastatic liver cancer cells.
"By targeting c-Met we were able to suppress tumor growth in vivo and kill these metastatic liver cancer cells," said You.
Since c-Met inhibitor stopped proliferation and tumor growth of metastatic HCC cells, the researchers concluded that c-Met might be a potential personalized target of metastatic HCC. In addition, they found that results of a separate meta-analysis of six studies and 1,051 patients showed that c-Met activation is associated with poor prognosis in HCC.
###
Follow the AACR on Twitter: @AACR #AACR
Follow the AACR on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/aacr.org
The mission of the American Association for Cancer Research is to prevent and cure cancer. Founded in 1907, the AACR is the world's oldest and largest professional organization dedicated to advancing cancer research. The membership includes 32,000 basic, translational and clinical researchers; health care professionals; and cancer survivors and advocates in the United States and more than 90 other countries. The AACR marshals the full spectrum of expertise from the cancer community to accelerate progress in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer through high-quality scientific and educational programs. It funds innovative, meritorious research grants, research fellowships and career development awards. The AACR Annual Meeting attracts more than 18,000 participants who share the latest discoveries and developments in the field. Special Conferences throughout the year present novel data across a wide variety of topics in cancer research, treatment and patient care. The AACR publishes six major peer-reviewed journals: Cancer Research; Clinical Cancer Research; Molecular Cancer Therapeutics; Molecular Cancer Research; Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention; and Cancer Prevention Research. The AACR also publishes CR, a magazine for cancer survivors and their families, patient advocates, physicians and scientists, providing a forum for sharing essential, evidence-based information and perspectives on progress in cancer research, survivorship and advocacy.
END
Detection of acute HIV infection (the stage of disease immediately after HIV acquisition but before HIV antibodies are detectable) with pooled nucleic acid amplification testing (that detects the presence of HIV genetic material in the blood before antibodies are detectable) is feasible but not cost-effective in all settings. Rather, pooled nucleic acid amplification testing after testing for antibodies with third-generation enzyme immunoassays (which can detect the first antibody to appear after infection) or rapid testing is only cost-effective when targeted to settings ...
In research published this week in PLoS Medicine, Vincent Gajdos and colleagues report the results of a randomized trial conducted among hospitalized infants with bronchiolitis. The researchers enrolled nearly 500 children aged 15 days to 2 years who were admitted to seven French hospitals for a first episode of acute bronchiolitis. Their results show that a physiotherapy technique (increased exhalation and assisted cough) commonly used in France does not reduce time to recovery in this population. The researchers conclude "Our results did not support the recommendation ...
Biologists from The University of Texas at Arlington have uncovered virus fragments from the same family of the modern Hepatitis B virus locked inside the genomes of songbirds such as the modern-day zebra finch. The article, publishing next week in the online, open access journal PLoS Biology, marks the first time that endogenous hepadnaviruses have been found in any organism. An endogenous virus is one that deposits itself or fragments of itself into the chromosome of an organism, allowing it to be passed from generation-to-generation. Previously, most of these known "fossilized" ...
PHOENIX, Ariz. — Sept. 28, 2010 — The loss of a gene known as INPP5A could predict the onset, and track the progression, of an aggressive type of skin cancer, according to a study published today by the Arizona Cancer Center, Mayo Clinic and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen).
Targeting INPP5A could provide physicians with better ways to prevent and treat cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, or SCC, a skin cancer that often spreads to other parts of the body, according to a scientific paper published today in the journal Cancer Prevention Research.
"Loss ...
WASHINGTON, DC – September 28, 2010 -- Now that the H1N1 influenza pandemic is officially over, what will happen to the virus? In a perspective article published today in the online open-access journal mBio®, scientists from the National Institutes of Health delve into history and explore the fates of other pandemic influenza viruses in order to speculate on the future of the most recent pandemic virus.
"While human influenza viruses have often surprised us, available evidence leads to the hope that the current pandemic virus will continue to cause low or moderate mortality ...
MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. – Sodium gets a bad rap for contributing to hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Now biologists at Tufts University's School of Arts and Sciences have discovered that sodium also plays a key role in initiating a regenerative response after severe injury. The Tufts scientists have found a way to regenerate injured spinal cord and muscle by using small molecule drugs to trigger an influx of sodium ions into injured cells.
The approach breaks new ground in the field of biomedicine because it requires no gene therapy; can be administered after ...
In this week's PLoS Medicine, the Editors argue that drug companies should be held much more accountable for their human rights responsibilities to make medicines available and accessible to those in need. Despite decades of advocacy on the part of the access to medicines movement, and human rights guidelines developed in 2008 for pharmaceutical companies that make clear that their responsibilities go beyond stakeholder value to encompass human rights, there is inadequate accountability, say the Editors. "At the same time that the 825 billion dollar global pharmaceutical ...
Whither pandemic H1N1 virus? In a new commentary, scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, review the fates of previous pandemic influenza viruses in the years following a pandemic and speculate on possible future courses for the 2009 pandemic H1N1 (pH1N1) virus during the upcoming flu season and beyond.
The authors estimate that at least 183 million Americans (about 59 percent of the total U.S. population) have some immunity to pH1N1 because they were exposed to related viruses or vaccines ...
Average C-reactive protein (CRP) values vary in diverse populations — possibly impacting how doctors estimate cardiovascular risk and determine statin treatment, according to a new study in Circulation: Cardiovascular Genetics, a journal of the American Heart Association.
CRP is a marker of inflammation, and high levels of it in the blood have been associated with a higher risk for heart disease. But it's uncertain if the association is causal. Statins are a class of cholesterol-lowering drugs that reduce heart risk and CRP. Researchers aren't certain if CRP-lowering contributes ...
DURHAM, N.C. – The yellow monkeyflower, an unassuming little plant that lives as both a perennial on the foggy coasts of the Pacific Northwest and a dry-land annual hundreds of miles inland, harbors a significant clue about evolution.
Duke graduate student and native northern Californian David Lowry had become interested in how a single species could live such different lifestyles. He set out to find a gene or genes that would account for the monkeyflower (Mimulus guttatus) being a lush, moisture-loving, salt-tolerant perennial on the coast, but a shorter, faster-flowering, ...
