A recent study by Bristol-Myers reveals hopeful news for Head and Neck Cancer patients.

In patients whose head and neck cancers had returned and worsened following chemotherapy, scientists reported that the immunotherapy drug nivolumab (brand name Opdivo) doubled chances of survival for at least a year and led to a 30% reduction in the risk of death. The disease can typically kill such patients less than six months after it recurs.

“No therapy has been shown to improve survival for this patient population,” said Maura Gillison, lead investigator of Ohio State University Cancer Cancer. “New treatment options are desperately needed, this is the first randomized clinical trial to clearly demonstrate improved overall survival.”

Dr. Gillison presented the data at the American Association of Cancer Research meeting in New Orleans. “The most important thing is the difference in the proportion of patients who survived to a year,” said Gillison in an interview.  “In a disease that was uniformly rapidly fatal, we’re seeing a subset of the population clearly benefiting.”

The data likely paves the way for approval for Opdivo to be used in head and neck treatment, which is currently approved to treat advanced melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer and kidney cancer.

Merck & Co’s rival drug, Keytruda, received a priority review for head and neck cancer from U.S. regulators and could be approved for that use by August.

Both drugs belong to a class called PD-1 inhibitors that block a mechanism that tumors use to avoid detection from the immune system.

We know that a defective BRCA gene can increase a woman’s risk of getting breast, ovarian and other cancers. These same gene changes can also increase a man’s risk of dying from prostate cancer.

A recent study published in The New England Journal of Medicine says that men diagnosed with prostate cancer who test positive for BRCA gene mutations can benefit from a drug developed for BRCA-positive women with ovarian cancer. Based on this study, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will be reviewing the drug, called olaparib as a possible prostate cancer treatment as well. They are accelerating their review process because of the favorable findings in this study.

The number of tumor cells in the blood dropped significantly in 50 of the men in the study, and several had their tumors size shrink by a third or more. In addition, the drug olaparib improved pain control and quality of life, with some responses lasting more than a year.

Olaparib works by killing BRCA-positive cancer cells by interfering with PARP, which is a DNA repair protein.  Since Olaparib-treated cancer cells are unable to repair damage that happens naturally in their DNA, those cells die.

Harvard Health Blog posted that the findings of this study are promising for those men with advanced prostate cancer that have DNA defects, which is around 30% of men diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer.

Not all men diagnosed with prostate cancer get symptoms, so it’s important to talk to your doctor about screening. The most common symptoms for prostate cancer are listed below as described by the CDC.

• Difficulty starting to urinate.
• Weak or interrupted flow of urine.
• Frequent urination, especially at night.
• Difficulty completely emptying the bladder.
• Pain/burning during urination.
• Blood in the urine or semen.
• Pain in the back, hips, or pelvis that doesn’t go away.
• Painful ejaculation.

If you have any questions or would like a consultation with one of our medical oncologists, please call our scheduling line at 386-774-1223.

Even with better treatment options and targeted drugs for breast cancer, a recently reported Dutch study confirms catching breast cancer early through screening mammograms saves lives.

The Netherlands study, led by Sepideh Saadatmand at Erasmus University Medical Center, studied every breast cancer case registered in the country from 1999-2012, which was nearly 174,000 cases.  The findings support regular screenings so that tumors are detected at the earliest possible stage. The research also reassures that less invasive surgery saves lives as well as radical mastectomies.

The Dutch study also confirmed that consistent, high-quality care matters. Breast cancer survival rate in the Netherlands is 96 percent, and up to 100 percent for the smallest tumors. The five-year breast cancer survival rate in the United State is 90 percent.

This research reported that before 2006 the survival rate was 91 percent. After 2006, smaller tumors were detected and removed.  Less invasive lumpectomies became more common than mastectomies.

It also strongly suggests that, even after accounting for the biological variation in tumors and more enhanced treatments, tumor stage at the time of diagnosis still matters, which is a powerful though indirect argument in favor of screening mammograms.

Please encourage all the women in your life to get a mammogram screening. You could save their life.

When seeking high-quality, consistent care for cancer treatment, Mid Florida Cancer Centers offers some of the highest technology available in radiation therapy, as well as enhanced targeted chemotherapy treatment options and compassionate physicians. Call for a consultation today, 386-774-1223.

An article this morning in R&D Magazine online revealed that researchers have developed a technique to coat anticancer drugs in membranes made from blood platelets of the patient. Doing so allows drugs to last longer in the body and attack both primary cancer tumors as well as cells that may be circulating tumors that can cause cancer to metastasize (spread to the other parts of the body). The research was successfully tested in an animal model.

There are 2 key factors that make this important for cancer research.
One is that cancer cell surfaces have an affinity for platelets. They will “stick to” each other. Second, the patient’s own platelets are used which means the drug carriers are not identified as foreign objects in the body, and can last for up to 30 hours in the bloodstream compared to up to 6 hours for carriers with out the coating.

The researchers in North Carolina hope to get more pre-clinical testing. Quanyin Hu is lead author of the paper and a PhD student in the joint biomedical engineering program at Chapel Hill and N. Carolina State U.

A recent study was published in “Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention” that shows there is an increased risk of cancer for  women who sit too much during their leisure time. This is the latest study showing that the so called “sitting disease” negatively impacts our health.

Though it may seem obvious that sitting too much is bad for your health, the risks are far worse than just needing exercise. This recent study conducted on 184,000 adults had participants answer a questionnaire about their work, exercise, activities, chores, TV watching habits, as well as computer, and other electronics used while sitting. The study followed the 69,260 men for around 13 years and the 77,462 women for around 16 years. Then compared their behaviors to their health.

The women who sat more than six hours a day had a 10 percent greater risk of getting any cancer compared to ladies who sat for less than three hours per day. For women sitting for more than six hours daily had a 65 percent increased risk for multiple myeloma, a 10 percent increased risk for invasive breast cancer, and a 43 percent higher risk for ovarian cancer than their peers sitting for three hours or less.

Men, in general, did not have an increased risk of cancer. However, the study did find that obese men who sat for long periods of time experienced an 11 percent higher risk of cancer.

Have you heard “sitting is the new smoking?”  That’s because sitting raises the risk of not just cancer, but disability, diabetes, heart disease and, of course, obesity.

Another study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute revealed some specific numbers on the different types of cancer that might be associated with too much sitting. This study claims for every two hours spent sitting in front of the computer or television, the average person raises his or her risk of colon cancer by 8 percent, of endometrial cancer by 10 percent and of lung cancer by 6 percent.

Stay healthy, reduce your risk of cancer, get up and get moving. Call your doctor to help you with an exercise plan or advise you on how you can specifically reduce your risk. In the mean time, get up and get moving.

Stay tuned for more news from Mid Florida Cancer Centers.

Mid Florida Cancer Centers has top radiation oncologist Dr. Gary Graham.

Dr. Graham has practiced in West Volusia for 15 years. Patients at Mid FL are both confident and comforted knowing Dr Graham is doing their radiation therapy.

Here is a clip of what the Deland Beacon News Paper wrote in their interview with Dr Graham about him and our radiation therapy services.

“We’re really excited to be able to offer patients this excellent treatment option,” says Dr. Graham. “RapidArc technology will enable us to target multiple types of cancer more accurately while sparing healthy tissue.”

Mid Florida Cancer Center’s RapidArc technology delivers image-guided IMRT (intensity-modulated radiation therapy) very quickly, in a single rotation of the treatment machine around the patient.

“RapidArc will be much easier on the patient,” says Graham “It’s hard for people to hold still for long periods of time. By delivering doses more quickly and precisely, we can simultaneously improve the quality of care and make our patients more comfortable.”

RapidArc treatments at Mid Florida Cancer Center will be delivered using a Clinac Trilogy medical linear accelerator from Varian Medical Systems, outfitted with a system for generating and using images to guide patient placement and treatment delivery.

During a RapidArc treatment, the radiation is shaped and reshaped as it is continuously delivered from virtually every angle in a 360-degree revolution around the patient. An important device with 120 computer-controlled mechanical “leaves” or “fingers” will shape the beam by moving to create apertures of different shapes and sizes. During a RapidArc treatment, specializedsoftware will vary three parameters simultaneously: the speed of rotation around the patient, the shape of the MLC aperture, and the dose delivery rate.

By reducing the time it takes to deliver IMRT and other precise forms of radiation therapy, RapidArc has the potential to improve the quality of care and of patient comfort for many types of cancer, while making radiation oncology a more affordable treatment. That is a huge win for everybody.

DeLand Beacon article written by Joe Crews.

This post entered by Jill Jordan, Executive Director of Marketing & Public Relations. Any comments or questions can be sent to Jordan@MFHOC.com.