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First-line treatment with the triplet combination of encorafenib, cetuximab and mFOLFOX6 significantly improved survival compared to the standard of care in patients with BRAF V600E-mutated metastatic colorectal cancer, according to data from the Phase III BREAKWATER trial. The findings demonstrated significantly longer progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) compared to standard chemotherapy-based regimens. The median PFS was 12.8 months with the triplet combination compared to 7.1 months in the standard-of-care group, and the median OS was 30.3 months compared with 15.1 months, respectively. "The latest data from the BREAKWATER trial further confirms that targeting the BRAF V600E mutation up...

Nan Zhang, Ph.D., and colleagues have discovered a new approach to treating ovarian cancer, that in preclinical laboratory testing, shrinks tumors and improves survival rates while simultaneously making tumors more receptive to chemotherapy treatment. The danger of metastasis (when cancer spreads throughout the body) is exacerbated in ovarian cancer for two main reasons: —-Ovarian cancer is naturally resistant to chemotherapy, so its presence anywhere is difficult to combat. —-Ovarian cancer tends to metastasize through peritoneal fluid into the peritoneal cavity, which is the larger space in the body that houses the stomach and intestines. Cancer in the peritoneal cavity is...

Researchers have published a case report that signifies a potential breakthrough in the treatment of an aggressive type of prostate cancer. The report centers around a 60-year-old Air Force Veteran diagnosed with stage four metastatic prostate cancer and the positive outcomes of being treated with trastuzumab deruxtecan (T-DXd), an antibody drug conjugate. The patient did not respond to multiple lines of therapy and experienced persistent tumor progression. As a last resort, the researchers tested for HER2 by immunohistochemistry, which came back positive and the patient was treated off-label in February 2024 with T-DXd. The antibody drug conjugate, which is FDA...

Extended prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-targeted radiopharmaceutical therapy (177Lu-PSMA) beyond six cycles is an effective and well-tolerated treatment for metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer patients, according to new research. Selected patients who received extended treatment—either continuously or following a treatment break—experienced a favorable median survival of 31.3 months from the first administration. Said Wolfgang P. Fendler, MD., "It may be beneficial to extend the use of 177Lu-PSMA, however, systematic data on safety and the antitumor effect of 177Lu-PSMA radiopharmaceutical therapy beyond six cycles is scarce." The multicenter retrospective analysis included 111 metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer patients who received more than six cycles...

A team of researchers have found a new therapeutic strategy for patients with a specific subtype of metastatic prostate cancer resistant to standard chemotherapy treatment with docetaxel. In this study, they propose a new treatment based on a combination of kinase inhibitors in patients who inevitably stop responding to docetaxel. The team found that resistance to this drug is associated with the hyperactivation of the cellular pathways PI3K/AKT and MEK/ERK and have explored the possibility of inhibiting these pathways as a new therapeutic strategy in patients who maintain the function of PTEN, a negative regulatory protein of the PI3K/AKT pathway....

Aspirin is an inexpensive and readily available medication that could benefit cancer treatments, preventing metastatic cancer spread and reducing vascular complications, finds a new meta-analysis study. The research looked at the results of 118 observational studies based on around 1 million patients with a wide range of cancers, finding that taking a daily low-dose (75 or 81 mg/day) aspirin was associated with a 20% reduction in deaths from cancer and in deaths from all causes. "Aspirin was shown in 1968 to be of benefit in the treatment of cancer, as it targets a number of key biological mechanisms of cancer,...

Dr. Niklas Klümper and Dr. Jonas Saal demonstrated a significant improvement in predicting the response to therapy in metastatic renal cell carcinoma by incorporating the level of inflammation, which was assessed using two straightforward blood parameters, alongside the conventional imaging-based approach. The research group led by Dr. Klümper has now been able to show that the investigation of two inexpensive and widely available inflammatory markers in the blood (C-reactive protein (CRP) and albumin) significantly improves the prediction of therapy response in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma, especially in the large group of patients with disease control in the first...

Cancer that spreads to the brain from another part of the body such as lung or breast is called a metastatic brain tumor. In some patients, surgery and stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) can help alleviate these symptoms in patients who have a limited number of tumors. Despite what its name implies, SRS isn't actually a surgery but instead involves highly focused radiation that targets tumors while minimizing the effects on surrounding healthy tissue. The treatment is often used after a patient undergoes surgery to remove brain tumors in a process called postoperative SRS. However, SRS can also be given before surgery,...

New clinical research shows that lamivudine, a reverse transcriptase inhibitor widely used in HIV therapy, stopped disease progression in 25% of patients with fourth-line metastatic colorectal cancer. Findings from the trial raise the possibility of an unexpected promising direction in cancer treatment, not just colorectal cancer. The trial included 32 patients with advanced metastatic colon cancer whose disease progressed despite four lines of previous cancer treatments. The first nine patients received the standard HIV-approved dose of lamivudine. "After giving them only this one drug—nothing else—we saw signs of disease stability," says co-senior author David T. Ting, MD, of the Mass...

Chemotherapy is known for its painful side-effects. It also has limitations when the cancer has metastasized to the lymph nodes. The lymphatic drug delivery system (LDDS), where anticancer drugs are injected directly into the sentinel lymph nodes under ultrasound guidance, offers an alternative to conventional chemotherapy. Researchers found the optimal osmotic pressure and viscosity ranges, significantly improving the antitumor effect. Cancer often transfers from its primary lesion to other lesions—clinically referred to as metastasis. In early metastasis, cancer cells invade lymphatic vessels, reach lymph nodes, and proliferate. Conventional chemotherapy for metastatic lymph nodes has limitations because only part of anticancer...

Woman with breast cancer had metastatic lesions in chest wall (top, left) and liver (bottom, left). After receiving the immunotherapy, tumors shrank completely. Recent scans (R) show she is cancer free more than 5 years later. Credit: The National Cancer Institute (NCI) ========================================================================================== An experimental form of immunotherapy that uses an individual’s own tumor-fighting immune cells could potentially be used to treat people with metastatic breast cancer, according to results from an ongoing clinical trial led by researchers at the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Center for Cancer Research, part of the National Institutes of Health. Many people with metastatic breast...

I just found out that my sister has metastatic breast cancer that has spread to her spine. She had no problems with her mammogram last year so this makes me worry that it is aggressive. She is 62. Any prayers for her would be very much appreciated.

President of Queens Firm Found Guilty of Criminal Contempt For Violating Court Order Not to Market Bogus Cancer Cure Over the Internet ROSLYNN R. MAUSKOPF, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and MARK B. McCLELLAN, M.D., Ph.D., Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), announced today that a federal jury in Brooklyn, New York has convicted Jason Vale, president of the Queens based company Christian Brothers Contracting Corporation ("Christian Bros."), of three counts of criminal contempt in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 401(3). On April 20, 2000, in a civil suit brought...