A new analysis has found that while clinical trial data support omitting radiation treatments in elderly women with early stage breast cancer, nearly two-thirds of these women continue to receive it. The findings are published early online in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. Results published in 2004 from a large, randomized clinical trial showed that adding radiation therapy to surgery plus tamoxifen does not reduce 5-year recurrence rates or prolong survival in elderly women with early stage tumors. Despite the findings, many doctors still ...

DURHAM, N.C. - Women over the age of 70 who have certain early-stage breast cancers overwhelmingly receive radiation therapy despite published evidence that the treatment has limited benefit, researchers at Duke Medicine report. The study suggests that doctors and patients may find it difficult to withhold treatment previously considered standard of care, even in the setting of high quality data demonstrating that the advantages are small. "The onus is on physicians to critically analyze data to shape our treatment recommendations for patients, weighing the potential ...

Dublin, IRELAND Monday December 8th, 2014 - Millions of documents stored in archives could provide scientists with the key to tracing agricultural development across the centuries, according to new research completed at Trinity College Dublin and the University of York. Amazingly, thanks to increasingly progressive genetic sequencing techniques, the all-important historical tales these documents tell are no longer confined to their texts; now, vital information also comes from the DNA of the parchment on which they are written. Researchers used these state-of-the-art ...

Metabolic syndrome is linked with an increased frequency and severity of lower urinary tract symptoms, but weight loss surgery may lessen these symptoms. The findings, which come from two studies published in BJU International, indicate that urinary problems may be added to the list of issues that can improve with efforts that address altered metabolism. Lower urinary tract symptoms related to urinary frequency and urgency, bladder leakage, the need to urinate at night, and incomplete bladder emptying are associated with obesity in both men and women. To see if these ...

HANOVER, N.H. - December 8, 2014 - With health systems in the U.S., U.K., and around the world trying to increase vaccination levels, it is critical to understand how to address vaccine hesitancy and counter myths about vaccine safety. A new article in the journal "Vaccine" concludes, however, that correcting myths about vaccines may not be the most effective approach to promoting immunization among vaccine skeptics. The study, which was co-authored by Brendan Nyhan, an assistant professor of government at Dartmouth College, and Jason Reifler, a senior lecturer of politics ...

SAN FRANCISCO - The latest results of clinical trials of more than 125 patients testing an investigational personalized cellular therapy known as CTL019 will be presented by a University of Pennsylvania research team at the 56th American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition. Highlights of the new trial results will include a response rate of more than 90 percent among pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia patients, and results from the first lymphoma trials testing the approach, including a 100 percent response rate among follicular lymphoma patients and ...

Although it is among the most highly metastatic of all cancers, multiple myeloma is driven to spread by only a subset of the myeloma cells within a patient's body, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have found in a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH). The study suggests that attacking those subsets with targeted drugs may degrade the disease's ability to spread throughout the bone marrow of affected patients, the authors say. The discovery was made by developing a mouse model of the disease that enabled researchers ...

An oral targeted drug has shown encouraging activity and tolerable side effects in patients with treatment-resistant or relapsed acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) - a poor-prognosis group with few options - report investigators from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.   Of 32 patients treated with the oral inhibitor ABT-199, five had eradication of their leukemia and several more had stable disease, according to Anthony Letai, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber, senior author of the report.     The phase 2 multicenter trial was the first ...

A phase two study that investigated the potential of the drugs azacitidine (AZA) and lenalidomide (LEN), demonstrated that the two therapies in combination may be an effective frontline treatment regimen for patients with higher-risk forms of myelodysplastic syndrome and acute myeloid leukemia. Myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) is a type of cancer in which the bone marrow does not make enough healthy blood cells, resulting in abnormal (blast) cells in the blood and/or bone marrow. Higher-risk patients experience an unusually large percentage of blasts in their blood. Patients ...

HOUSTON - (Dec. 7, 2014) - An international consortium of researchers led by Baylor College of Medicine has identified for the first time a gene associated with familial glioma (brain tumors that appear in two or more members of the same family) providing new support that certain people may be genetically predisposed to the disease. "It is widely thought amongst the clinical community that there is no association between family history and development of glioma. Because we know very little about the contributing genetic factors, when cases occur in two or more family ...

Patients who relapse in their battle with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) may benefit from a phase three study of therapies that combine an existing agent, cytarabine, with a newer compound, vosaroxin. The study, led by Farhad Ravandi, M.D, professor of medicine, department of leukemia at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, demonstrated increased survival rates, particularly in AML patients over age 60. Ravandi's study results were presented today at the 56th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual conference in San Francisco and ...

Results from a large, prospective clinical trial add to mounting evidence that adolescent and young adult patients--aged 16 to 39 with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)--tend to fare better when treated with high-intensity pediatric protocols than previous patients who were treated with standard adult regimens. The intergroup trial, presented at the 56th annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology, enrolled 296 adolescent and young adult patients with ALL. All participants were treated by adult hematologists-oncologists on a pediatric protocol, including four ...

SAN FRANCISCO (DECEMBER 7, 2014) - Researchers at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center report promising outcomes from a clinical trial with patients with a rare form of bone marrow failure who received a hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) after pre-treatment with immunosuppressive drugs only. This is the first trial reporting successful transplant in dyskeratosis congenita (DC) patients without the use of any radiation or conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy beforehand. The trial's data were presented by study authors Leslie Lehmann, MD, ...

(SAN FRANCISCO, DECEMBER 7, 2014) - Recognizing that leukemia cannot be conquered with a "one-size-fits-all" approach, researchers are pursuing novel targeted therapies and combinations of existing treatment regimens with new agents for patient populations with historically poor prognoses, according to data presented today during the 56th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition. In recent years, outcomes for patients with leukemia have steadily improved with the emergence of numerous therapies that target specific genetic drivers of disease, ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, December 7, 2014--A new type of cancer therapy that targets an oncometabolite produced dramatic results in patients with advanced leukemia in an early-phase clinical trial. The study, led by Eytan M. Stein, MD, a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, was presented today at the 56th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology. Approximately 15 percent of acute myeloid leukemia patients have a mutated form of the IDH2 gene. IDH2 normally makes a protein that plays a critical role in cell metabolism. However, when the gene ...

UNSW Australia's solar researchers have converted over 40% of the sunlight hitting a solar system into electricity, the highest efficiency ever reported. The record efficiency was achieved in outdoor tests in Sydney, before being independently confirmed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at their outdoor test facility in the United States. The work was funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and supported by the Australia-US Institute for Advanced Photovoltaics (AUSIAPV). "This is the highest efficiency ever reported for sunlight conversion ...

The "molecular mail" sent by multiple myeloma cells provides clues to how well patients with the disease are likely to respond to treatment, according to a study being presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.   The findings - to be presented in poster form on December 6, from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM, in the West Building, Level 1 - may ultimately guide doctors in deciding which therapies are best for individual patients with myeloma, the study authors say.   The study focused on ...

An innovative cell therapy against a highly aggressive form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) continues to show highly promising results in children treated in a pilot study. Ninety-two percent of the 39 children receiving bioengineered T cells had no evidence of cancer at one month after treatment, with this complete response persisting in some cases for more than two years. The personalized cell therapy reprograms a patient's immune system and offers the potential of long-term success. "As we continue to follow children in this study, we see exciting results for ...

SAN FRANCISCO - A therapy that liberates the immune system to attack cancer cells drove Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) into complete or partial remission in fully 87 percent of patients with resistant forms of the disease who participated in an early-phase clinical trial, investigators at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and partnering institutions report in a study published today in the New England Journal of Medicine and simultaneously presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) in San Francisco. The results provide some of the most dramatic evidence ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, December 6, 2014--In recent years, a number of scientific breakthroughs have led to the development of drugs that unleash the power of the immune system to recognize and attack cancer. Studies presented today at the 56th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) highlight the enormous potential these novel treatments have for patients with a variety of hematologic disorders. For Classical Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) patients, two phase I studies are already demonstrating dramatic results. A study led by Craig H. Moskowitz, MD, Clinical ...

PHOENIX -- In the treatment of multiple myeloma, the addition of carfilzomib to a currently accepted two-drug combination produced significantly better results than using the two drugs alone, according to a worldwide research team led by investigators from Mayo Clinic. Their findings will be reported online Dec. 6 in the New England Journal of Medicine, and presented on Dec. 7 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), held in San Francisco. Interim analysis of the ASPIRE clinical trial, which enrolled 792 patients with relapsed multiple myeloma ...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, December 6, 2014--In a late-stage clinical trial, Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) patients who received brentuximab vedotin (BV) post-transplant lived longer without disease progression than patients who received only supportive care. This is the first time a study has demonstrated that adding a maintenance therapy after transplant can improve outcomes. The study, led by Craig H. Moskowitz, MD, Clinical Director of the Division of Hematologic Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, was presented today at the 56th Annual Meeting of the American Society ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Unconventional oil and gas (UOG) operations combine directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," to release natural gas from underground rock. Recent discussions have centered on potential air and water pollution from chemicals used in these processes and how it affects the more than 15 million Americans living within one mile of UOG operations. Now, Susan C. Nagel, a researcher with the University of Missouri, and national colleagues have conducted the largest review to date of research centered on fracking byproducts and their effects ...

Researchers from the University of Hawai'i (UH) and NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries today announced the discovery of an intact "ghost ship" in 2,000 feet of water nearly 20 miles off the coast of Oahu. Sitting upright, its solitary mast still standing and the ship's wheel still in place, the hulk of the former cable ship Dickenson, later the USS Kailua, was found on the seabed last year on a maritime heritage submersible mission with the UH Hawai'i Undersea Research Laboratory's (HURL) Terry Kerby and Drs. James Delgado and Hans Van Tilburg of the maritime ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY - Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have devised a powerful algorithm that improves the effectiveness of an important research technology harnessing RNA interference, or RNAi. Discovered in the late 1990s, RNAi is a naturally occurring biological mechanism in which short RNA molecules bind to and "interfere" with messages sent by genes that contain instructions for protein production. Such interference can prevent a gene from being expressed. In addition to helping regulate gene expression, the RNAi pathway in many species, ...