Provenge, an experimental treatment vaccine for advanced prostate cancer, met researchers’ goal in a key trial needed for FDA approval.
That news comes from Dendreon, the company that makes Provenge.
“We believe this is truly a breakthrough for the prostate cancer community and a testament to the promise of the field of cancer immunotherapies,” Dendreon’s president and chief executive officer Mitchell Gold, MD, said in a conference call today.
Taiwan recorded 73,293 new cancer cases in 2006, with the largest number being colorectal cases, according to the latest cancer incidence report released yesterday by the Department of Health=.
The figures mean that on average, a new cancer patient was being diagnosed in the country every 7 minutes, 10 seconds in 2006, up slightly from the average of 7 minutes, 38 seconds in 2005, when 68,907 new cases were recorded, according to Chao Kun-yu, deputy chief of the DOH’s Bureau of Health Promotion.
The report showed that for the first time, colorectal cancer replaced liver cancer as the most common type among new cases recorded in a single year.
A late-stage clinical study of Pfizer Inc’s (PFE) Sutent was halted early after the drug showed significant benefit in patients with a rare form of cancer, the drugmaker said on Thursday, sending its shares up 3.5%.
An independent committee monitoring the study recommended halting it after concluding that patients on Sutent stayed free of disease progression for longer than those on placebo plus best supportive care.
The patients in the study had advanced pancreatic islet cell tumors, a rare cancer with limited treatment options, according to Pfizer.
Nanotechnology has been used for the first time to destroy cancer cells with a highly targeted package of “tumour busting” genes.
The technique, which leaves healthy cells unaffected, could potentially offer hope to people with hard-to-treat cancers where surgery is not possible.
Although it has only been tested in mice so far, the researchers hope for human trials in two years.
The UK study is published online by the journal Cancer Research.
In seeming contradiction to previous studies where findings supported the benign or beneficial effects of alcohol consumption, a current study by researchers at the University of Oxford in Great Britain has linked even minimal alcohol use and cancer in women. The type of alcohol consumed was irrelevant.
The so-called Million Women Study of middle-aged women in the United Kingdom found that low to moderate consumption of alcohol increased the risk of and might be responsible for 13 percent of breast, liver, rectal and certain digestive tract cancers.
A man who may be the biological father of Nadya Suleman’s octuplets says he is willing to help the single mother of 14, even though he is not certain it was his donated sperm that she used to become pregnant.
In an exclusive interview airing this Monday on “Good Morning America,” the possible father said Suleman brought him to the clinic at which she received in vitro fertilization to donate sperm, and that he made donations on two other occasions. He now believes Suleman was married at the time.
Tune in to ABC News’ “Good Morning America” Monday, Feb. 23 to learn the identity of the man who possibly fathered the Suleman octuplets.
A new drug that blocks cancer’s main source of growth has been created in the lab and proven effective in mice, cientists are reporting. It is now being readied for clinical trials in patients.
Far more potent than similar compounds already in clinical trial, the drug short-circuits the normal ability of cells to sense the need to grow and divide — a signal that cancer cells exploit to spread in the body.
The scientists are working with clinicians to test the drug’s effectiveness against a range of cancers that have proven difficult to treat.
London, UK, and Cambridge, MA, 12 February 2009 – Antisoma plc (LSE: ASM; USOTC:ATSMY) announces that its Tumour-Vascular Disrupting Agent, ASA404, will be evaluated by Novartis as a treatment for HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer. This indication is being prioritised ahead of prostate cancer, in which a phase II trial has been completed. Details of the plans for trials in breast cancer will be available later this year.
A drug of a class commonly used to combat bone loss may reduce by a third the chance that some breast cancers will spread or recur, a large study has found.
While it may sound odd to treat cancer with a drug that acts on bone, evidence is accumulating that such drugs may do more than just prevent the loss of bone. Other studies are testing the drugs in patients with prostate or lung cancer.
Marijuana use could increase the risk of testicular cancer, according to a study by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center out this week.
If a man has smoked marijuana on a weekly basis or has been exposed to hashish for an extended period of time, the chances of testicular cancer double compared to someone who has never smoked marijuana.
The study found that marijuana could also decrease sperm quality, decrease testosterone levels and cause impotency, since these are similar side effects of testicular cancer.
