Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues at the University of South Florida and The Ohio State University have published a paper in the September issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention that provides an overview on preventing invasive cervical cancer.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have discovered that the micro ribonucleic acid miR-214 plays a critical role in regulating ovarian cancer stem cell properties. This knowledge, said the researchers, could pave the way for a therapeutic target for ovarian cancer.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center, concerned that women who quit smoking during their pregnancies often resume smoking after they deliver their baby, tested self-help interventions designed to prevent postpartum smoking relapse.
Robert A. Gatenby, M.D., senior member of Moffitt Cancer Center’s Department of Diagnostic Imaging and Integrated Mathematical Oncology, and his colleagues have received a four-year, $2.1 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to carry out pre-clinical research focused on cancer cell drug resistance. Researchers will examine cancer’s evolutionary mechanisms of drug resistance and focus on prevention strategies.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues have discovered that changes in the physical characteristics of the effector memory regulatory T cell can predict the progression risk of myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) to acute myeloid leukemia. The finding could improve prognostication for patients with MDS and better inform therapeutic decision making.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues have published a study describing the greater difficulty in finding matched, unrelated donors for non-Caucasian patients who are candidates for hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT).
The physicians and staff at Moffitt Cancer Center have a special interest in melanoma and related conditions occurring in childhood, and recently published results of their experience with cases of pathologically confirmed childhood melanoma. They found evidence that the disease manifests differently in children than in adults, particularly with regard to the likelihood and significance of lymph node metastases.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues at the University of South Florida and Wayne State University have discovered that tumor cell survival relies on adaptation to acidic conditions in the tumor microenvironment. Their research investigating the effects of acidity on breast and pancreatic cancer cell lines revealed the importance of autophagy in acidic microenvironments and suggests that a successful treatment strategy might be based on this autophagic dependence.
A large meta-analysis conducted by researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center has concluded that breast cancer patients treated with chemotherapy are at risk for mild cognitive deficits after treatment. The meta-analysis, or analytic review of previously published studies, found that study participants on average had mild impairments in verbal abilities (such as difficulty choosing words) and visuospatial abilities (such as getting lost more easily). The study noted that cognitive functioning varies across survivors, with some reporting no impairments and others reporting more severe or pervasive deficits.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues have identified PHF20, a novel transcriptional factor, and clarified its role in maintaining the stability and transcription of p53, a gene that allows for both normal cell growth and tumor suppression. PHF20, the researchers found, plays a previously unknown and unique role in regulating p53.
An internationally recognized melanoma researcher at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues at the University of Kiel in Germany, including Axel Hauschild, M.D. and Katharina C. Kähler, M.D., have published an article in the current issue of The Journal of Clinical Oncology that describes immune-related adverse events for patients receiving either tremelimumab or ipilimumab, the latter a drug approved last year by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treating metastatic melanoma and other cancers.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center, working with colleagues in Sweden, the Netherlands and Puerto Rico, have validated a radiosensitivity molecular signature that can lead to better radiation therapy decisions for treating patients with breast cancer.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have found that when breast cancer patients are offered pre-test genetic counseling before definitive breast cancer surgery, patients exhibited decreases in distress. Those offered pre-test genetic counseling after surgery improved their informed decision-making. Patients in both groups showed increases in their cancer knowledge with pre-test genetic counseling.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues at the University of South Florida have discovered a mechanism that explains how some cancer cells “hijack” a biological process to potentially activate cell growth and the survival of cancer gene expression.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center who surveyed employees and patients about a ban on outdoor smoking at the cancer center found that 86 percent of non-smokers supported the ban, as did 20 percent of the employees who were smokers. Fifty-seven percent of patients who were smokers also favored the ban.
A researcher at Moffitt Cancer Center and his international team of colleagues have reported study results on a novel multireceptor-targeted somatostatin analogue called pasireotide (SOM230) manufactured by Novartis Pharma AG. The Phase II, open-label, multicenter study in patients with advanced neuroendocrine tumors (NET) whose symptoms were no longer responsive to octreotide LAR therapy found that the drug was effective and well tolerated in controlling patient symptoms.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues have demonstrated that the inhibition of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) in mouse models of mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), an aggressive and incurable subtype of B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma that becomes resistant to treatment, can harness the immune system to eradicate residual malignant cells responsible for disease relapse.
High risk and better outcome for glioma wrapped up in rare gene variant.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues at the University of South Florida, the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, conducted a case control study and found associations between having antibodies to certain types of cutaneous human papillomavirus (HPV) and a kind of skin cancer called squamous cell carcinoma (SCC).
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have conducted a clinical trial aimed at preventing graft vs. host disease (GVHD) in patients who have received hematopoietic (blood) cell transplants (HCT). The study, comparing the drug tacrolimus (TAC) in combination with either methotrexate (MTX ) or sirolimus (SIR), found that the sirolimus/tacrolimus (SIR/TAC) combination was more effective in preventing grades II-IV acute GVHD and moderate-severe chronic GVHD after allogeneic blood cell transplantation.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues at the University of South Florida and the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg have found that having antibodies for cutaneous types of human papillomavirus (HPV), coupled with sun exposure (ultraviolet radiation) or poor tanning ability, can act “synergistically” in the development of non-melanoma skin cancers such as basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC).
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues at six other institutions have recently tested a treatment for patients with myelodysplastic syndrome, or MDS, a blood-related malignancy that involves the ineffective production of blood cells, leaving patients anemic and in need of frequent blood transfusions. Because the body has no natural means to reduce iron that accumulates from repeated transfusions, patients’ organs can become iron overloaded, leading to heart failure, liver injury, susceptibility to infection, and other complications. Bone marrow failure and conversion to acute leukemia may occur in patients with MDS, necessitating bone marrow transplantation. The disease can be caused by chemotherapy and radiation treatment for cancer.
According to researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center, cancer is subject to the evolutionary processes laid out by Charles Darwin in his concept of natural selection. Natural selection was the process identified by Darwin by which nature selects certain physical attributes, or phenotypes, to pass on to offspring to better “fit” the organism to the environment.
A unifying theory on the causes of cancer metastases has been proposed by Alexander R.A. Anderson, Ph.D., chair of Integrated Mathematical Oncology at Moffitt Cancer Center, and Jacob Scott, M.D., a Moffitt Radiation Oncology Program resident that is studying for his Ph.D. at the University of Oxford Centre for Mathematical Biology.
A national research collaboration of senior researchers, including a researcher from Moffitt Cancer Center, has found that 20 to 25 percent of “heavily pre-treated” patients with a variety of cancers who enrolled in a clinical trial had “objective and durable” responses to a treatment with BMS-936558, an antibody that specifically blocks programmed cell death 1 (PD-1). PD-1 is a key immune “checkpoint” receptor expressed by activated immune cells (T-cells) and is involved in the suppression of immunity.
Seeking ways to change cancer patients’ perceptions and negative attitudes towards clinical trials participation, researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center conducted a study offering two different kinds of intervention to two groups of adults with cancer who had not previously been asked to participate in clinical trials. They found a multimedia psychoeducational intervention to be more effective in changing patients’ perceptions and negative attitudes toward clinical trials than standard educational literature.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have found that in African-American families where men are diagnosed with prostate cancer, they have unmet psychosocial needs that affect their survivorship, as well as family and social relationships.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have developed and tested in mice a synthetic vaccine and found it effective in killing human papillomavirus-derived cancer, a virus linked to cervical cancers among others. The research was published in a recent issue of Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy.
In a recent article published in MELANOMA RESEARCH and a subsequent commentary in British medical journal THE LANCET, researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center discussed new therapeutic options for the management of melanoma brain metastases. Patients with advanced melanoma are at high risk for developing brain metastases. Once brain metastases are present, these patients tend to have poor outcomes.
What doctors wanted everyone to know about their concerns and attitudes, parents concerns and attitudes.
Using mathematical models, researchers in the Integrated Mathematical Oncology (IMO) program at Moffitt Cancer Center are focusing their research on the interaction between the tumor and its microenvironment and the “selective forces” in that microenvironment that play a role in the growth and evolution of cancer.
To better understand the signaling pathways active in sarcomas, researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center used state-of-the-art mass spectrometry-based proteomics to characterize a family of protein enzymes that act as “on” or “off” switches important in the biology of cancer. The tyrosine kinases they identified, the researchers said, could act as “drivers” for the growth and survival of sarcomas.
After celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2011, Moffitt Cancer Center is continuing its mission “to contribute to the prevention and cure of cancer.” “As one of 41 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers nationwide, we are continuing to lead in scientific discovery and cancer research and also in translating research and discovery into state-of-the-art patient care,” said William S. Dalton, Ph.D., M.D., president and CEO of Moffitt.
M. Catherine Lee, M.D., breast cancer researcher and assistant member at Moffitt Cancer Center, has received a $100,000 grant from General Electric’s $100 million healthymagination Challenge to develop genetic tools to investigate an individual’s genetic makeup to determine if they are predisposed to develop or resist breast cancer metastasis.
Nagi B. Kumar, Ph.D., R.D., F.A.D.A., a senior member and director of Cancer Chemoprevention at Moffitt Cancer Center, is the author of a landmark book Nutritional Management of Cancer Treatment Effects, published by Springer International (2012).
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have placed new emphasis on gathering data on cancer patient quality of life during both treatment and survivorship. Their focus is on gathering and using that data to develop interventions to improve the quality of life for patients in treatment and for cancer survivors.
At Moffitt Cancer Center, patients with stage III and IV unresectable melanoma are now routinely genetically profiled for several gene mutations, including the BRAF gene, a known driver oncogene for melanoma. Research has shown that mutations in the BRAF gene determine sensitivity or resistance to a class of drugs that are BRAF inhibitors.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center are in the first phase of creating “designer lymph nodes.” Designer lymph nodes are built with specialized gene-modified cells that are injected into patients and produce a pre-planned immunologic response for cancer patients locally and then throughout their bodies. The researchers are examining a cancer vaccine “boosting” effect of the manufactured lymph nodes in patients with advanced melanoma.
Anna R. Giuliano, Ph.D., director of the newly created Center for Infection Research in Cancer at Moffitt Cancer Center, is world renowned for her research on the human papillomavirus (HPV) and the variety of cancers linked to it that affect both men and women. She was recently appointed to lead this new center to expand Moffitt’s efforts to find other links between infections and cancer.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues have found that adolescents newly diagnosed with cancer have strong concerns about their ability to have children as cancer survivors. They also found that standard health-related quality-of-life survey tools used to elicit answers from teens with cancer did not accurately reflect these concerns. Parents, who often answer survey questions as proxies, often inaccurately relayed their child’s reproductive concerns.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues at the University of South Florida and University of Kentucky have found that breast cancer survivors who have had chemotherapy, radiation or both do not perform as well on some cognitive tests as women who have not had cancer.
“Cancer worry” is the fear that cancer will return, said researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center who studied cancer worry among breast cancer survivors and published their findings in Psycho-Oncology. They found that even three years after successful treatment, two-thirds of the 202 breast cancer survivors who participated in their study said they had “a moderate level of worry.”
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have carried out a study to validate the utility of new tumor classification systems for staging and predicting relapse-free survival for patients with neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) and who may be candidates for surgery.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., and colleagues from the UF Shands Cancer Center in Gainesville, Fla., have found that cases of myeloid malignancies are being underreported since a change in registry protocols and laboratory practices starting in 2001.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have found – contrary to previous studies linking inferior outcomes in patients with gastrointestinal malignancies to higher body mass index (BMI) – that in their study of BMI and negative outcomes, there was no such link. They concluded that BMI was not associated with either surgical complications or esophageal cancer patient survival.
Studying the role of social stigma in depression for lung cancer patients, researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., have found that depression can be heightened by a lung cancer patient’s sense of social rejection, internalized shame and social isolation. These factors may contribute to depression at rates higher than experienced by patients with other kinds of cancer.
An international group of researchers, including those from Moffitt Cancer Center, have published a paper in the March 14 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine reviewing the results of a study that analyzed mutations in 18 genes of 398 patients who had acute myeloid leukemia (AML). They found that several mutated genes predicted improved outcomes when patients with certain gene mutations were given high-dose induction chemotherapy.
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., have found that when they deplete a smoker’s self control, smoking a cigarette may restore self-control.
An international team of researchers from the United States and Australia, including researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center, have found that the oral BRAF inhibitor vemurafenib (PLX4032) when tested in a phase II clinical trial offered a high rate of response in patients with previously treated metastatic melanoma and who had the BRAF mutation. More than 50 percent of the patients in the trial had positive, prolonged responses and a median survival of almost 16 months.
Researchers from Moffitt Cancer Center are participating in the 18th Annual Meeting of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT) from March 13-16 at the Hilton Americas Houston Hotel in Texas.
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