Cyber Seminar On Modeling Impact On Cancer Intervention and Surveillance From NCI's CISNET

CISNET is a NCI-sponsored consortium investigating using statistical modeling to improve the understanding of cancer control interventions in prevention, screening, and treatment and their effects on population trends in incidence and mortality.
The models from CISNET could be used in wide variety of needs. They could range from, gaining support for establishment of policies, guidelines, evidence-based cancer control interventions and guide public health research and priorities.
These models could also used to project future trends, and to find the optimal cancer control strategies. CISNET modelers are looking to engage with cancer control planners on local and regional questions amenable to modeling.
So as a part of this engagement, the cyber-seminar for this month will include a panel of the leaders from the five CISNET Coordinating Centers, each with a focus on a specific cancer site (Breast, Colorectal, Esophageal, Lung and Prostate), as well as programmatic leaders from the NCI and CDC.

NCI’s Dr. Eric (Rocky) Feuer, CISNET Director, will provide an overview of the CISNET Consortium..  CISNET modelers will then discuss how modeling tools and data can be used by cancer control practitioners and planners to drive evidence-based interventions and provide current examples of modeling applications.  During the cyber-seminar, CDC ‘s Dr. Laura Seeff, will also announce a new exciting joint NCI-CDC opportunity  for comprehensive cancer control practitioners to work with CISNET researchers in addressing public health problems relevant to their communities through modeling.

Some examples of questions that you could answer using modeling include:

- What is your region’s anticipated need for colonoscopy and if that need was met how would it impact mortality?

- What is the comparative effectiveness of traditional mammogram vs. digital mammogram in your region?

- What would be the impact on lung cancer incidence given specific interventions?

Interested callers will be invited to follow up with the CISNET consortium members to outline possible questions for collaboration (proposal submission form available on Research to Reality).

You can register for the cyber-seminar here.
More information about CISNET

Afinitor (Everolimus) Approved By FDA To Treat Rare Type Of Pancreatic Cancer

FDA approves new treatment for rare type of pancreatic cancer

On Thursday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Afinitor (everolimus) to treat patients with progressive neuroendocrine tumors located in the pancreas (PNET) that cannot be removed by surgery or that have spread to other parts of the body (metastatic). 

Neuroendocrine tumors found in the pancreas are slow-growing and rare. It is estimated that there are fewer than 1,000 new cases in the United States each year.

“Patients with this cancer have few effective treatment options,” said Richard Pazdur, M.D., director of the Office of Oncology Drug Products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “Afinitor has demonstrated the ability to slow the growth and spread of neuroendocrine tumors of the pancreas.”

The safety and effectiveness of Afinitor was established a clinical trial in 410 patients with metastatic (late-stage) or locally advanced (disease that could not be removed with surgery) disease. Patients in the study were selected to receive Afinitor or placebo (sugar pill). The trial was designed to measure the length of time a patient lived before their disease spread or worsened (progression-free survival).

In patients treated with Afinitor, the median length of time they lived without the cancer spreading or worsening was 11 months compared with 4.6 months in patients who received placebo. Patients who received placebo were able to receive Afinitor if their disease worsened. 

In patients treated with Afinitor for neuroendocrine pancreatic tumors, the most commonly reported side effects included inflammation of the mouth (stomatitis), rash, diarrhea, fatigue, swelling (edema), stomach (abdominal) pain, nausea, fever, and headache.

Afinitor is also approved to treat patients with kidney cancer (advanced renal cell carcinoma) after they fail treatment with Sutent (sunitinib) or Nexavar (sorafenib); and  patients with subependymal giant cell astrocytoma (a type of brain cancer) associated with tuberous sclerosis (a disease that causes tumors in various parts of the body), who cannot be treated by surgery.  

Afinitor has another trade name, Zortress, and is approved to treat certain adult patients to prevent organ rejection after a kidney transplant. Zortress has a different safety profile in these patients. 

Afinitor is marketed by East Hanover, N.J.-based Novartis.

For more information:

FDA: Office of Oncology Drug Products

FDA: Approved Drugs: Questions and Answers

NCI: Pancreatic Cancer

More Accurate Biomarkers Need To Be Developed For Detecting Early Ovarian Cancer

A long-awaited assessment of potential biomarkers for detecting early ovarian cancer shows that blood levels of the CA-125 protein remain the best predictor of the disease. But if there is to be any hope that screening will reduce deaths from this disease, then more accurate markers would have to be developed, researchers concluded in the March Cancer Prevention Research.

None of the 28 potential serum markers tested in the study out performed CA-125. But for screening, the researchers noted, doctors would need a test that could detect a signal from tumors more than 6 months before diagnosis; CA-125 had its strongest signal within 6 months of diagnosis.


Although the results may seem disappointing, the findings can inform future efforts to detect the disease early, the study authors wrote. This idea was echoed by several biomarker experts who were not involved in the work but who stressed the importance of the findings.

“This is a landmark study,” said Dr. Mark H. Greene of NCI’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, who co-authored an accompanying editorial. “For the first time, we have a rigorous analysis of years of ovarian cancer biomarker research to determine whether these markers represent an improvement over where the field began, with CA-125.”

The results, he continued, show that a new approach is needed to find an effective screening strategy for ovarian cancer. (Preliminary results from the study were presented in 2009.)


NCI Cancer Bulletin

RANKL, A Key Factor In Breast Cancer Metastasis.

When doctors discover high concentrations of regulatory T cells in the tumors of breast cancer patients, the prognosis is often grim, though why exactly has long been unclear.
Now new research at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine suggests these regulatory T cells, whose job is to help mediate the body’s immune response, produce a protein that appears to hasten and intensify the spread of breast cancer to distant organs and, in doing so, dramatically increase the risk of death.
The findings are reported in the Feb. 16 advance online edition of the journal Nature.
The researchers found that mice with breast cancer were more likely to develop metastatic lung cancer due to elevated levels of RANKL, an inflammatory protein normally involved in bone remodeling. Regulatory T cells were found to be the primary source of RANKL in these tumors. However, the same increase in metastasis was seen when synthetic RANKL was injected directly into tumors, suggesting that RANKL was the key to the ability of regulatory T cells to promote the spread of breast cancer. The scientists also determined that interfering with the ability of RANKL to interact with cancer cells seemed to block tumor progression, and may represent a potential target for drug therapy.

“What is exciting about this study is that now that we understand an increase in RANKL translates to an increase in metastasis, we can get to work on figuring out ways to stop or slow the production of RANKL in breast cancer patients,” said Michael Karin, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology and Pathology at UCSD's Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Signal Transduction and Moores Cancer Center.

RANKL is a well-known factor in a variety of degenerative bone diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis and bone metastasis. In June 2010, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first RANKL-inhibiting drug for use in postmenopausal women at risk for osteoporosis.

“When we were able to control the RANKL production in the mice, we were able to slow or stop the spread of the cancer,” Karin said. “The next logical step is to turn to drugs that block RANKL production to see how they might affect the spread of breast cancer.”

Other breast cancer studies have linked RANKL to early stages in the development of synthetic progestin-driven breast tumors. According to the Women’s Health Initiative and the Million Women Study, hormone replacement therapy and contraceptives with progestin significantly increase the risk of developing breast cancer. The findings from these studies and the new UCSD research suggest that drugs that block RANKL may be effective in preventing both the early stages of breast cancer and the advanced progression of the disease.
Collaborators on the study are first authors Wei Tan and Weizhou Zhang, Amy Strasner and Sergei Grivennikov, UCSD Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Signal Transduction; Jin Q. Cheng, Department of Molecular Oncology, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, Tampa, Fla.; and Robert M. Hoffman, AntiCancer Inc, San Diego.
The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America.
The journal Nature.

Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) Global Clinical Trials Review, Q1, 2011

This report provides in-depth information and data relating to the clinical trials on Coronary Artery Disease. It includes an overview of the trial numbers and their recruitment status as per the site of trial development throughout the world, focusing on the status of participation by the developing nations. It offers coverage of disease clinical trials by their phase, trial status, prominence of the sponsors and also provides information pertaining to the number of trials for the key drugs for treating Coronary Artery Disease).

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/b90ca9/coronary_artery_di) has announced the addition of GlobalData's new report "Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) Global Clinical Trials Review, Q1, 2011" to their offering. 

The clinical trial report, "Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) Global Clinical Trials Review, Q1, 2011" provides data on the Coronary Artery Disease clinical trial scenario. This report provides in-depth information and data relating to the clinical trials on Coronary Artery Disease. It includes an overview of the trial numbers and their recruitment status as per the site of trial development throughout the world, focusing on the status of participation by the developing nations.

It offers coverage of disease clinical trials by their phase, trial status, prominence of the sponsors and also provides information pertaining to the number of trials for the key drugs for treating Coronary Artery Disease).

This report is built using data and information sourced from proprietary databases, primary and secondary research and in-house analysis by Our team of industry experts.

Scope

* Data on the number of clinical trials conducted in North America, South And Central America, Europe, Middle-East and Africa and Asia-pacific and top five national contributions in each, along with the clinical trial scenario in BRIC nations

* Clinical trial (complete and in progress) data by phase, trial status and trial success rate
* Review of key discontinued trials (suspended, withdrawn and terminated)
* Overview of the enrollment pattern by phase for the past decade
* Number of clinical trials segmented by key drugs
* Clinical trial overview of top 20 companies, which include Pfizer Inc., AstraZeneca PLC, Eli Lilly and Company, and so on.
* Clinical trial overview of top 20 Universities / Institutes / Hospitals including National Cancer Institute, Cancer Research UK, Cancer Research Institute , and others

Reasons to buy:

* Understand the dynamics of a particular indication as a whole
* Examine the performance of the trials in terms of their status, recruitment, success rates and others
* Obtain discontinued trial information for trials across the globe
* Understand the commercial landscape of the major Universities / Institutes / Hospitals or Companies

To view the reports full table of contents and for more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/b90ca9/coronary_artery_di

In Their Own Words, Translating Clinical Care For Callers To Cancer Information Service :NCI

NCI’s Cancer Information Service (CIS), a resource which handles approximately 100,000 calls, e-mails, and live chat sessions annually, where more than 70 information specialists, who are trained and monitored by experienced oncology nurses, tackle these requests for help and information, often engaging in lengthy discussions about treatment options with someone who has just been diagnosed with cancer, or with the spouse of a cancer patient who’s having a hard time taking care of their loved one and needs some help or guidance on what to do or where to turn.
“My background in oncology and as a bedside nurse really helps to bring some of the clinical aspects of cancer care to the information specialists, who often don’t have that intimate level of knowledge,” said Randy Jacobs, an oncology nurse educator with the CIS.

Read more at  NCI’s Cancer Information Service: Providing Information and Assistance Nationwide

February Fourth Is World Cancer Day!

On February 4, 2011, we are joining many many people and  organizations from around the world in supporting World Cancer Day to promote ways to reduce the burden of cancer. The World Health Organization estimates that 84 million people will die of cancer between 2005 and 2015 without intervention. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States, exceeded only by heart disease; it kills more than half a million Americans every year.
Please To help fight the global cancer epidemic, the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) is urging individuals to take action and support the World Cancer Declaration - at www.worldcancerday.org/signdeclaration

 Millions of cancer cases are preventable - lifestyle factors key to saving lives

Latest cancer preventability data released to mark World Cancer Day


GENEVA, Switzerland, 04 February 2011 – On World Cancer Day, new independent evidence confirms that the increasing global trend of unhealthy and sedentary lifestyles is responsible for putting millions at an unnecessarily high risk of cancer.

New estimates released today by the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) global network suggest that across a range of countries, making lifestyle changes including maintaining a healthy weight, eating a healthy diet and taking regular physical activity can reduce the risk of common cancers by up to a third.i

These findings are further supported by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) new Global Recommendations on Physical Activity for Health.ii This landmark report reinforces that regular physical activity has the potential to prevent many diseases such as breast and colon cancers, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. The report addresses three age groups (5-17 years old, 18-64 years old, and 65 years old and above) and provides concrete recommendations for levels of physical activity needed for health;Error: Reference source not found these recommendations are especially helpful for low- and middle-income countries, where few national guidelines for physical activity exist.
"Physical activity is recommended for people of all ages as a means to reduce risks for certain types of cancers and other non-communicable diseases," says Dr Tim Armstrong, from WHO's Department of Chronic Diseases and Health Promotion. "In order to improve their health and prevent several diseases, adults should do at least 150 minutes moderate physical activity throughout the week. This can be achieved by simply walking 30 minutes five times per week or by cycling to work daily".
There is also consistent evidence that other healthy living initiatives are vital in reducing the risk of cancer including stopping tobacco use, avoiding exposure to passive smoke, avoiding excessive sun exposure and protecting against cancer-causing infections.  And to help fight the global cancer epidemic, the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) is urging individuals to take action and support the World Cancer Declaration - at www.worldcancerday.org/signdeclaration
Signing the Declaration will help UICC in its effort to motivate global leaders to set realistic and achievable directives for preventing cancer during the United Nations Summit for Non-Communicable Diseases in September 2011. There has only been one UN General Assembly special session focused on health since 1947; the announcement of the 2011 summit is an unprecedented step in the battle against cancer.

Dr Eduardo Cazap, President of UICC summarised, “Support World Cancer Day by signing the World Cancer Declaration and help us achieve the goal of one million supporters for a Cancer Free World.  With individuals, governments and policy makers of the world working together, we have the ability to ease the global burden of cancer now and for future generations.”
Background information

About cancer
Cancer is a leading cause of death around the world and its incidence continues to rise.  Each year 12.7 million people discover they have cancer and 7.6 million people die from the disease.
Evidence shows that 30-40% all cancers deaths can be prevented,i and one-third can be cured through early diagnosis and treatment.

There are about 200 known types of cancer.ii  As with most illnesses cancer is multifactorial which means that there is no single cause for any one type of cancer. However, certain largely controllable or avoidable lifestyle and environmental factors are also known to be causes of cancer. For more information on health living initiatives please visit: www.worldcancerday.org/prevention

About UICC
The Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) is the leading international non-governmental organisation dedicated to the global prevention and control of cancer. UICC’s mission is to eliminate cancer as a life-threatening disease for future generations. Founded in 1933, UICC unites 400 member organisations, specialised and engaged in cancer control, in more than 120 countries across the world. UICC is non-profit, non-political and non-sectarian. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland. For more information please visit www.uicc.org or join our join us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Cancer-Free-World/134386073255136 

About the World Cancer Declaration
The World Cancer Declaration is a tool to help bring the growing cancer crisis to the attention of government leaders and health policymakers in order to significantly reduce the global cancer burden by 2020. It represents a consensus between government officials, public health experts and cancer advocates from around the world who are committed to eliminate cancer as a life-threatening disease
for future generations.

The Declaration outlines 11 targets to be achieved by 2020 including: significant drops in global tobacco consumption, obesity and alcohol intake, universal vaccination programmes for hepatitis B and human papilloma virus (HPV) to prevent liver and cervical cancer, universal availability of effective pain medication and dispelling myths and misconceptions about cancer. As the custodian of the Declaration, UICC encourages priority actions to achieve the Declaration’s targets locally and nationally and promotes a comprehensive response across the globe. For more information please visit – www.uicc.org/declaration

About the UN high level meeting on non-communicable diseases
In May 2010, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously passed a resolution on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), calling for a UN Summit on NCDs to be held on the 19-20 September 2011 in New York.  The Summit will address the prevention and control of cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease and diabetes, which together account for 60% (35 million) of global deaths. The largest burden - 80% (28 million) - occurs in low- and middle- income countries, making NCDs a major risk to global development and economic growth. For more information on the NCD summit visit: www.ncdalliance.org

For more information, please contact:
UICC Press Relations
Leah Peyton
Email: leah.peyton@toniclc.com
Tel: 0044 207 798 9923 / 0044 7788 191 434