Nidhi Sharma - AHN News Writer

Washington D.C. (AHN) - A breast cancer vaccine currently being tested in a Phase II trial at various hospitals has yielded positive results and is targeted towards women who’ve already had metastatic breast cancer

By Kathleen Doheny
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, June 26 (HealthDay News) — Women with metastatic breast cancer who developed an immune response to an investigational vaccine lived twice as long as those who didn’t have an immune response, new research shows.

Among women with relapsed or metastatic breast cancer, the sites of cancer recurrence might have an estrogen-receptor (ER)/progesterone-receptor (PR) and/or HER2 status that is different than the primary tumor. Researchers here at the American Society of Clinical Oncology 44th Annual Meeting reported that a significant proportion (28%) of relapsed tumors had changes in either ER/PR or HER2-receptor status, and suggested that biopsies of relapsed sites should routinely be performed to determine optimal treatment options.

Primary tumors can encourage the growth of stray cancer cells lurking elsewhere in the body that otherwise may not have amounted to much, according to a new study in the June 13 issue of the journal Cell, a publication of Cell Press. As people age, most may have such indolent cancer cells given the sheer number of cells in the body, although their rarity makes them impossible to detect, the researchers said.

The primary tumors under study, which were derived from human breast cancers, seem to “instigate” the growth of other cancers by mobilizing bone marrow cells, which then feed the secondary tumors’ growth, they report.

One key to the process is the secretion of a substance known as osteopontin by the instigating tumor, a finding that may have therapeutic implications. Indeed, the researchers noted that osteopontin is present at elevated levels in women with metastatic breast cancer, supporting the notion that the new findings may hold clinical significance.

By Ed Susman

CHCAGO — June 5, 2008 — Treatment with the investigative tubulin inhibitor eribulin mesylate helped heavily pretreated metastatic breast cancer patients achieve more than a 4-month progression-free survival.

AstraZeneca’s Iressa took an FDA hit in 2005 as a lung cancer treatment, but a recent study showed its potential in breast cancer patients

by Catherine Arnst

 There may be a second life for Iressa, AstraZeneca’s once-promising cancer drug that came to symbolize the hype surrounding a new generation of targeted cancer treatments. Iressa won U.S. Food & Drug Administration approval for lung cancer in 2003 amid much fanfare, labeled by some as a “miracle drug.” Two years later, AstraZeneca (AZN) was forced to stop marketing the drug in the U.S. because it failed in a subsequent clinical trial to help patients live longer.

Doctors continued to experiment with the drug, however, which is how researchers at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston made the surprising discovery that Iressa can significantly delay the spread of breast cancer when given along with standard hormone therapy.

Cancerconsultants.com

Researchers from Canada reported that sites of relapse may have different molecular phentoypes than the primary tumor in breast cancer, and thus may require individual biopsies. However, further testing is necessary as the results presented were from a retrospective analysis of tumor samples. These results were recently reported at the 2008 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

Biopsies for breast cancer involve information including molecular phenotypes such as the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) status and hormone receptor status, to name a few. It has been assumed that sites of relapse possess the same molecular distinctions as primary tumors in breast cancer, and treatment options are derived under this consideration without biopsy of sites of relapse. However, a couple of small studies have indicated that in some patients, sites of relapse may actually display phenotypic molecular markers that differ from the primary tumor. As a result these sites of relapse may potentially benefit from different treatment than what is considered for the primary tumor.

By Martha Rosenberg, AlterNet. Posted June 10, 2008.

A GAO investigation has one drug industry insider squirming.

The “bully tactics” and “intimidation” of drug industry operatives could cause “thousands of additional cancer deaths,” cries an angry doctor in a May 29 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.