Single dose palonosetron is effective and safe in preventing chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) in patients with aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphomas who undergo moderately emetogenic chemotherapy. New data presented today at the EHA (European Haematology Association) Congress in Berlin show that a single dose of palonosetron, a second generation 5-HT3 receptor antagonist, is effective and safe in preventing chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. (CINV) in patients with aggressive non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL), treated with cytotoxic agents. The result comes from a study conducted in Italy on behalf of the Italian Group of Study on Lymphomas (GISL) by a multicentric team coordinated by Dr. Nicola Di Renzo of the Vito Fazzi Ho...

ChemGenex Pharmaceuticals Limited, announced that the results of pre-clinical research that demonstrated that omacetaxine kills model human leukemic stem cells were presented at the 14th Congress of the European Hematology Association (EHA) in Berlin, Germany on Sunday. Human leukemic stem cells are known to be insensitive to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), the drug family currently approved to treat Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML). The work was carried out in collaboration with Professor Tessa Holyoake at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK. Ms. Elaine Allan, Clinical Scientist of the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service working at the Paul O'Gorman Leukaemia Research Centre, University of Glasgow in Scotland, UK delivered...

Seattle Genetics, Inc. reported data from a phase I clinical trial of SGN-35 administered every three weeks to patients with Hodgkin lymphoma and other CD30-positive hematologic malignancies. Data highlights include longer median duration of response than previously reported and concordance between investigator-assessed and independent review of responses. The data were presented at the 14th Congress of the European Hematology Association (EHA) being held in Berlin, Germany. "These maturing phase I data continue to reinforce our belief in the therapeutic potential of SGN-35," said Thomas C. Reynolds, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer of Seattle Genetics. "The lengthening duration of responses and the high level of concordance between in...

Women continue to be under-enrolled in cancer clinical trials, according to a new review, published in the July 15, 2009 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The study's results suggest that greater efforts are needed to ensure that oncologists know the true effects of treatments and medical procedures in female patients. In 1993, the National Institutes of Health called for clinical trials to include adequate representation of women. To define better the representation of women as subjects in the full range of high-impact, clinical cancer research published currently, Reshma Jagsi, MD, DPhil of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and colleagues reviewed cancer clinical research appearing in eight...

"Chronic inflammation may play an etiologic role in endometrial cancer. Nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) reduce inflammatory activity by inhibiting the proinflammatory cyclooxygenase enzymes and, therefore, may decrease cancer risk," scientists writing in the journal Cancer Prevention Research report. "However, few studies have examined the association between NSAID use and endometrial cancer. We conducted a prospective study among 72,524 women in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. Women completed a questionnaire in 1996-1997 on lifestyle and health-related factors, including type and frequency of NSAID use within the past year, and were followed through 2003 by linkages to cancer registries and vital status databases. Durin...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Nanoparticles specially engineered by University of Central Florida Assistant Professor J. Manuel Perez and his colleagues could someday target and destroy tumors, sparing patients from toxic, whole-body chemotherapies. Perez and his team used a drug called Taxol for their cell culture studies, recently published in the journal Small, because it is one of the most widely used chemotherapeutic drugs. Taxol normally causes many negative side effects because it travels throughout the body and damages healthy tissue as well as cancer cells. The Taxol-carrying nanoparticles engineered in Perez's laboratory are modified so they carry the drug only to the cancer cells, allowing targeted cancer treatment without harming healt...

PETACH-TIKVA, ISRAEL -- An imaging agent used during PET scans to highlight apoptosis (programmed cell death) appears to help oncologists detect the effect of radiation treatment on brain metastases (tumors from elsewhere in the body that have spread to the brain) early in treatment, according to new data presented today at the 56th Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, taking place June 13-17 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. "Patients with brain metastases have a poor prognosis. The sooner we know if a tumor is responding the more we can help these patients. These results have the potential to radically change the way we as oncologists think about monitoring treatment response," said Aaron Allen, MD, a radiati...

NORTH BRUNSWICK, N.J. -- Advaxis, Incorporated, has updated survival data for its Phase I clinical trial (Trial) of its live Listeria vaccine ADXS11-001 (formerly named Lovaxin-C) in the treatment of advanced, metastatic cervix patients who have failed first line cytotoxic therapy. As of June 12, 2009 three (3) of the thirteen (13) evaluable patients in the Trial, approximately twenty-three percent (23%), are still alive at 981 days, 949 days and 850 days, respectively. The Trial's median patient survival was 347 days. Of the 15 patients treated in the trial, eight patients (53%) survived at least one year. These figures significantly exceed the median survival rate established by the National Cancer Institute's Gyneco...

NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. -- More pre-cancerous polyps were found in colonoscopies performed with deep sedation primarily using Propofol than with milder sedation in which patients remained conscious, according to a recent study conducted by Katherine Hoda, M.D. of Oregon Health and Science University. This improvement in cancer detection will save lives and reduce the number of patients requiring surgery and chemotherapy. The retrospective review of nearly 105,000 procedures shows doctors found polyps larger than 9mm or suspected colorectal tumors at a 25% higher rate in patients under deep sedation. This research further bolsters the near identical findings of two studies completed by the University of Pennsylvania and State U...

TORONTO -- Immunomedics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing monoclonal antibodies to treat cancer and other serious diseases, today reported that TF2, a proprietary pretargeting antibody, produced tumor-specific PET imaging and prolonged survival in a human colorectal cancer model. Results from two studies were presented at the 56th annual meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine. TF2 is an antibody constructed using the Company's proprietary protein engineering platform technology, called Dock-and-Lock (DNL). It specifically targets the carcinoembryonic (CEA or CEACAM5) antigen expressed in many human cancers, including colorectal cancer. Unlike conventional antibodies which can only attach to one...