Frontiers Fall 2011

Although medical science has made great strides in many areas of cancer research and treatment, progress in cancer prevention has been far too slow and somewhat disappointing. Simply put, far too many people still get cancer.

The experimental agent selumetinib showed promising results in people with advanced biliary cancer in a multi-institutional study led by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC – James).

An interim analysis of a phase II clinical trial indicates that an experimental agent for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is highly active and well tolerated both in previously treated patients and in those who have relapsed and are resistant to other therapy.

OSUCCC – James researchers have identified characteristic patterns of microRNA molecules (miRNA) in the blood of lung cancer patients that might reveal the presence and aggressiveness of the disease, and perhaps who is at risk of developing it.

Adding low doses of the targeted agent sorafenib to the chemotherapy and radiation now often used to treat head and neck cancer might significantly improve patient care and quality of life, a preclinical study at the OSUCCC – James suggests.

New research proves that a change in the MGMT gene can identify which patients with glioblastoma will respond better to treatment. Testing for this gene can distinguish patients with a more- or less-aggressive form of this disease – the most common and deadliest type of primary brain cancer – and help guide therapy.

The active ingredient in a traditional Chinese herbal remedy might help treat deadly brain tumors, according to a study by OSUCCC – James researchers.

A listing of the recent recognitions of OSUCCC – James physicians and researchers.

When President Nixon signed the National Cancer Act in 1971, he made the conquest of cancer a national crusade. It soon came to be called the “War on Cancer,” a name that promotes cancer as a single disease that affects many parts of the body.

Tumors of the skull base are rare, but when they arise, they occupy an area of the body that few people know exists—the area inside the head that forms the floor of the cranium and the roof of the sinus cavities. It is an anatomical terrain that is dense, complex and delicate.

In the early 1990s, Kathleen Boris-Lawrie, PhD, was working in the laboratory of Nobel Prize laureate Howard Temin at the University of Wisconsin. She’d constructed a simpler form of bovine leukemia virus (BLV) as a step toward developing a retrovirus vaccine against infectious cancers and AIDS.

Each year, Pelotonia funds fellowship grants for undergraduate, graduate, medical school and postdoctoral students who want to help cure cancer at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute.

An estimated 80 percent of the U.S. population is affected with gum disease, and 30,000 individuals are newly diagnosed with oral cancer annually.

Mouse modeling is a powerful, highly effective tool for understanding cancer etiology and investigating novel experimental therapeutics.

The JamesCare Comprehensive Breast Center, which opened in April, now has its own TrueBeam linear accelerator and began offering radiation therapy for breast cancer patients in July.

A wrap-up of the other news that happened in the last six months.