OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to replicate and extend an earlier study carried out in the UK of lay understanding of cancer-related terms in a Dutch sample, by (i) examining understanding of common terms relating to diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment and (ii) experimentally exploring the effect of medical ...

American Indians have one of the lowest colorectal cancer (CRC) screening rates for any racial/ethnic group in the U.S., yet reasons for their low screening participation are poorly understood. We examine whether tribal language use is associated with knowledge and use of CRC screening in a community-based sample of American ...

Our concept of Enzyme-Mediated Cancer Imaging and Therapy aims to use radiolabeled compounds to target hydrolases over-expressed on the extracellular surface of solid tumors. A data-mining approach identified extracellular sulfatase 1 (SULF1) as an enzyme expressed on the surface of pancreatic cancer cells. We designed, synthesized, and characterized 2-(2'-sulfooxyphenyl)-6-iodo-4-(3H)-quinazolinone (IQ(2-S) ...

OBJECTIVE: We initiated a prospective study of very young children with cancer, in comparison with matched healthy children, to investigate neurodevelopmental consequences of non-CNS cancers and treatment. METHODS: A total of 61 children (≤42 months) with non-CNS cancers and 61 matched controls underwent an identical age-appropriate neuropsychological test battery. RESULTS: ...

Objective: This study examined cancer survivors' experience of and responses to challenges and stressors associated with everyday living. The impact of daily stressors on quality of life concerns and cortisol patterns was also investigated. Method: Participants included 111 cancer survivors who participated in a national telephone diary study of daily ...

The adrenal gland is a common location for metastasis from a primary tumor in another organ. This study evaluated the properties of adrenal lesions in cancer and non-cancer patients and investigated what variables may help predict adrenal metastasis. This retrospective study used 18fluorodeoxyglucose PET/CT on 371 patients with adrenal lesions (N = ...

BACKGROUND: Although long-term implications of cancer in childhood or adolescence with regard to medical conditions are well documented, the impact on mental health and on response to stress, which may be an indicator of psychological vulnerability, is not yet well understood. In this study, psychological and physiological responses to stress ...

Stress can play an important role in development of cancer-related fatigue (CRF) by activating the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), and altering the immune system. This study examined the influence of catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) Val158Met genotypes on salivary markers of HPA axis (cortisol), SNS (α-amylase) and immune (IgA) ...

Cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is one of the most common symptoms reported by patients and is defined as the feeling of extraordinary exhaustion associated with a high level of distress, disproportionate to the patients' activity, and is not relieved by sleep or rest. Prevalence rates range from 59 to nearly 100% ...

Systemic chemotherapy can be complicated by colonic toxicity, which usually determines the onset of pseudomembranous colitis and, rarely, of ischemic colitis in patients with cancer. This report describes the case of a 45-year-old man with advanced gastric cancer who developed severe ischemic colitis after chemotherapy with cisplatin and capecitabine. The ...

Fatigue, one of the most common symptoms experienced by cancer patients, is multidimensional and is associated with significant impairment in functioning and overall quality of life. Although the precise pathophysiology of cancer-related fatigue (CRF) is not well understood, a number of metabolic, cytokine, neurophysiologic, and endocrine changes have been described ...

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), a microaerophilic Gram negative bacterium, is known to cause chronic gastritis, peptic ulcer, and gastric cancer. Genes that are present in certain isolates may determine strain-specific traits such as disease association and drug resistance. In order to understand the pathogenic mechanisms of gastric diseases, identify molecular ...

Germline allele-specific expression (ASE) of the TGFBR1 gene has been reported as a strong risk factor for colorectal cancer (CRC) with an odds ratio close to 9. Considering the potential implications of the finding, we undertook the task of validating the initial results in this study. Allele-specific expression was measured ...

The causes of metastasis remain unknown, however it has been proposed for nearly a century that metastatic cells are generated by fusion of tumor cells with tumor-associated leukocytes such as macrophages. Indeed, regardless of cell or tissue origin, when cancer cells in the original in situ tumor transform to malignant, ...

Chemotherapies for colon cancer have recently advanced. However, there is still a need to develop agents and identify effective regimens for better treatments of colon cancer. Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACIs) have shown potential as anti-cancer agents. We investigated the anti-tumor effects of CG2 (an HDACI) in combination with irinotecan, 5-FU, ...

Histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACIs), such as PXD101 and suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid, inhibit proliferation and stimulate apoptosis of tumor cells. The enhanced effectiveness of chemotherapy or radiotherapy when combined with HDACIs has been observed in several cancers. In this study, we investigated the antitumor effect of PXD101 combined with irinotecan in ...

Colorectal cancer is one of the leading malignancies in the world. The mortality is mainly caused by tumor metastasis. It is urgent to find new therapeutics against metastatic colorectal cancer. We constructed an adenovirus carrying a Survivin targeted shRNA, tested its effects alone or with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) both in vitro ...

Drugs targeting angiogenesis are rapidly being incorporated into cancer treatment regimens. Bevacizumab was the first antiangiogenesis agent to gain approval by the Food and Drug Administration and is now approved for use in five tumor types. This brief review highlights important recent advances in our understanding of bevacizumab and the ...

Evaluation of: Fujimoto-Ouchi K, Sekiguchi F, Yamamoto K et al.: Preclinical study of prolonged administration of trastuzumab as combination therapy after disease progression during trastuzumab monotherapy. Cancer Chemother. Pharmacol. 66, 269-276 (2010). Trastuzumab, a humanized antibody targeted against human epidermal receptor (HER)2, is used in combination with chemotherapy to treat ...

Despite advances in cancer biology, chemotherapy remains the backbone of treatment approaches for many patients with metastatic breast cancer (MBC). Halichondrins, derived from marine sponges, have significant potential as potent antimicrotubule agents. Eribulin, with proven preclinical activity, is a synthetic halichondrin analog with novel actions on tubulin including suppression of ...

MORAb-009 is a chimeric monoclonal antibody that targets mesothelin, a tumor differentiation antigen overexpressed in pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer, mesothelioma, and other malignancies. We conducted a phase I clinical trial of MORAb-009 in patients with advanced mesothelin-expressing cancers to determine its safety, dose-limiting toxicity (DLT), and maximum tolerated dose (MTD). ...

The purpose of this study was to determine the anticancer efficacy of 1,1-bis (3'-indolyl)-1-(p-biphenyl) methane (DIM-C-pPhC₆H₅) by inhalation delivery alone and in combination with i.v. docetaxel in a murine model for lung cancer. An aqueous DIM-C-pPhC₆H₅ formulation was characterized for its aerodynamic properties. Tumor-bearing athymic nude mice were exposed to ...

To determine the risk of cardiotoxicities in association with trastuzumab with/without anthracycline-containing chemotherapy in a large nationwide population-based cohort of patients with breast cancer. We studied 47,806 women with breast cancer ages ≥65 in 1998-2005 from 16 cancer registries in the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)-Medicare data and 16,092 ...

Our aim was to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of docetaxel versus weekly paclitaxel regimen in patients with metastatic breast cancer previously treated with anthracycline from the Spanish National Health Service (NHS) perspective. A Markov model with a 21-day cycle duration was developed to estimate total treatment-related costs and clinical benefits over ...

Cabazitaxel is a new taxane characterized by convenient administration, a favorable pharmacokinetic and safety profile and a decreased propensity for P-glycoprotein (Pgp)-mediated drug resistance. In preclinical studies cabazitaxel inhibited cell growth in a wide range of human cancer cell lines, including tumor models expressing Pgp. Phase I clinical trials established ...

Patients with metastatic breast cancer (MBC) who develop resistance to anthracyclines and taxanes have limited therapeutic options. There is an unmet need for agents that can overcome tumor resistance and are effective in treating drug-resistant disease. The novel epothilone B analog, ixabepilone, binds to β-tubulin and stabilizes microtubules, leading to ...

To evaluate the feasibility of paclitaxel (PTX) radiosensitization for colon cancer, we investigated the cytotoxic and G2/M checkpoint protein (Chk1, Wee1, Bub1, MAD2) effects of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) or PTX combined with radiation in the human colon cancer cell line LoVo. Cytotoxicity and radiocytotoxicity were evaluated for each drug by the ...

BACKGROUND: It has been demonstrated that NK012, a novel 7-ethyl-10-hydroxycamptothecin (SN-38)-incorporating polymeric micelle, exerts significantly more potent antitumor activity against various human tumor xenografts than irinotecan (CPT-11) (a water-soluble prodrug of SN-38). Combination therapy of anticancer agents with bevacizumab (Bv), an anti-vascualr endothelial growth factor humanized monoclonal antibody, has more ...

Histone deacetylase inhibitors represent a new class of anticancer therapeutics and the expectation is that they will be most effective when used in combination with conventional cancer therapies, such as the anthracycline, doxorubicin. The dose-limiting side effect of doxorubicin is severe cardiotoxicity and evaluation of the effects of combinations of ...

Chemotherapy with docetaxel remains the standard first-line treatment in patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). To date there is no recommended second-line therapy in case of progression after docetaxel treatment. Knowledge of the molecular and cellular changes that occur during the transition of hormone-native to CRPC is increasing rapidly opening ...

BACKGROUND: Docetaxel is one of the few chemotherapeutic drugs that are considered highly effective when used to treat prostate cancer patients that have relapsed and/or metastatic disease, it is therefore reasonable to expect further improvements in treatment outcomes when it is combined with other therapeutic agents active in prostate cancer. ...

The authors demonstrated previously that the combination of topotecan (TPT) and carboplatin (CBP) was more effective than current chemotherapeutic combinations used to treat retinoblastoma in an orthotopic xenograft model. However, systemic coadministration of these agents is not ideal, because both agents cause dose-limiting myelosuppression in children. To overcome the toxicity ...

Aberrant DNA methylation is a hallmark of cancer, and DNA methyltransferase inhibitors have demonstrated clinical efficacy in hematologic malignancies. On the basis of preclinical studies indicating that hypomethylating agents can reverse platinum resistance in ovarian cancer cells, the authors conducted a phase 1 trial of low-dose decitabine combined with carboplatin ...

Fluoropyrimidines, in particular 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), have been the mainstay of treatment for several solid tumors, including colorectal, breast and head and neck cancers, for > 40 years. This article reviews the pharmacology and efficacy of capecitabine with a special emphasis on its safety. The reader will gain better insight into ...

Capecitabine is an orally available fluoropyrimidine carbamate that selectively delivers fluorouracil (5-FU) to tissues expressing high levels of thymidine phosphorylase (TP) such as tumors. The drug has demonstrated efficacy in metastatic breast cancer, colorectal, and pancreatic cancer. Although these are considered safe drugs, a growing body of literature reports adverse ...

The prognosis of metastatic colorectal cancer remains poor despite advances made in recent years, particularly with new treatments directed towards molecular targets. Cetuximab, a chimeric immunoglobulin (Ig)G1 monoclonal antibody that targets the ligand-binding domain of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), is active in metastatic colorectal cancer. As an IgG1 ...

Gemcitabine (2',2'-difluorodeoxycytidine) is an anticancer drug, which is effective against solid tumours, including non-small-cell lung cancer and pancreatic cancer. After gemcitabine is transported into cells by equilibrative and concentrative nucleoside transporters, it is phosphorylated by deoxycytidine kinase (DCK) and further phosphorylated to its active diphosphorylated and triphosphorylated forms. Gemcitabine is ...

Accurate description of current practice within advanced colorectal cancer (CRC) specialties were needed to inform an economic evaluation of the UGT1A1 pharmacogenetic test for irinotecan in the United Kingdom. The study was based on a literature review and elicitation of expert opinion. The expert panel comprised 44 consultant oncologists in ...

We examined how chemotherapy-induced myelotoxicity and the associated leukopaenia affect cancer metastasis in an animal model. Myelotoxicity was induced by a single injection of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) or Cisplatin, administered to 7-week-old BALB/c mice. CT-26 murine colon carcinoma cells were injected into the lateral tail vein on days 0, 1, 3, ...

Combination chemotherapy has become increasingly important as synergistic drugs enable to achieve therapeutic effects at substantially lower doses and limited spectrum of side effects. Irinotecan as a one of the camptothecin analogues has shown a broad spectrum of antitumor activity against various malignancies. It is commonly used in treatment of ...

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer diagnosed in women. Anthracyclines and taxanes are the most active and widely used chemotherapeutic agents in the treatment of both early-stage and advanced breast cancer. In the past decade, novel formulations of these cytotoxic agents have been developed to improve efficacy ...

BACKGROUND: Cancer-related acute disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC) is uncommon, but it is a severe complication resulting in a very dismal prognosis. Choosing the appropriate chemotherapy agents to treat the underlying cancer and stop the acute DIC process effectively, while avoiding chemotherapy-induced myelosuppression which may contribute to bleeding-related mortality, is difficult. ...

Neoadjuvant cisplatin-based combined chemotherapy is an established standard for muscle-invasive bladder cancer and pathological complete remission is an excellent intermediate surrogate endpoint for survival. Phase III trials are ongoing to elucidate the role of neoadjuvant combined androgen deprivation and docetaxel-based chemotherapy for localized high-risk prostate cancer. Neoadjuvant therapy with biological ...

1,25 dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25D3) potentiates the cytotoxic effects of several common chemotherapeutic agents. The combination of gemcitabine and cisplatin is a current standard chemotherapy regimen for bladder cancer. The authors investigated whether 1,25D3 could enhance the antitumor activity of gemcitabine and cisplatin in bladder cancer model systems. Human bladder cancer ...

The effect of trastuzumab on patients with HER-2/neu (HER2)-positive gastric cancer has been confirmed in a phase III clinical trial (ToGA study). However, the optimized sequence and synergic mechanism of trastuzumab and chemotherapy are not clear. Our study investigated the effects and mechanisms of trastuzumab in combination with 5-Fluorouracil (5-Fu) ...

Cisplatin is a first line chemotherapy for most types of cancer. However, its use is dose-limited due to severe nephrotoxicity. Here we report the rational engineering of a novel nanoplatinate inspired by the mechanisms underlying cisplatin bioactivation. We engineered a novel polymer, glucosamine-functionalized polyisobutylene-maleic acid, where platinum (Pt) can be ...

Irinotecan and S-1, an oral fluoropyrimidine composed of tegafur, gimeracil, and oteracil potassium, have demonstrated antitumor activity against advanced gastric cancer. We performed a phase 1/2 study to determine the recommended dose, antitumor activity, and safety of a combination of S-1 and irinotecan in patients with advanced gastric cancer. Patients ...

Overexpression, or gene amplification, of the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) is evident in 20% to 25% of breast cancers. The biologic agent trastuzumab is an HER2-targeted monoclonal antibody that inhibits the proliferation of tumor cells and induces tumor cell death through multiple mechanisms of action. Currently, trastuzumab ...

Elevated Src family kinase (SFK) activity is associated with tumor invasion and metastasis. The SFK inhibitor saracatinib (AZD0530) is currently in phase II trials in patients including those with colorectal cancer (CRC), where links between SFK activity and poor prognosis are particularly striking. Saracatinib is likely to be used clinically ...

IMPORTANCE OF THE FIELD: Fluoropyrimidines with oxaliplatin or irinotecan, bevacizumab, cetuximab and panitumumab constitute the drugs currently approved by the FDA for the treatment of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). Patients who have progressed on the approved drugs pose a major challenge for medical oncologists, as the therapeutic choices ...