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EuroScience Open Forum, Turin, 2010
27/07/2010
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
The IFOM-IEO campus and the challenges to democratic participation in scientific progress Who decides which scientific projects should be funded? And on what basis? And what happens if scientific projects go awry? Who should be held responsible: the scientists, the politicians, both or none of them? The public accountability of scientific-technological innovation is the key issue of contemporary democracies, as pointed out by Giuseppe Testa, principal investigator at the IFOM-...
Open access publishing - the latest initiatives
27/07/2010
Posted by Press Officer, ecancermedicalscience
e cancer Managing Director, Professor Gordon McVie, gives his views on open access publishing and the latest OA initiatives. Watch the video on PMLiVe - Unlocking the door .
EACR 21st Workshop on Grant Opportunities: Marie Curie Actions from Europe to the world and back
14/07/2010
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
After four full days devoted to genomics, epigenomics and other kinds of -omics, together with the role of environment and microenvironment in cancer, I spent the last lunch break at the 21st EACR meeting listening to a lovely Dutch lady, Elisabeth Schermer, coming all the way from Brussels to Oslo to present young researchers with opportunities offered by the Marie Curie Actions within the 7th Framework Programme (FP7). Schermer's youngest son – apparently not so happy that mum would ...
EACR 21: Mina Bissell and the Role of the Microenvironment in Cancer
06/07/2010
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
Not only Cancer Genomes: Part 3 The AIRC Plenary Lecture on “the microenvironment and the genome in breast cancer: how tissue architecture informs” was given by an outstanding (despite jet-lag) keynote speaker on the closing day of the 21 st EACR 21 meeting, namely Mina Bissell. For those of you that are not familiar with the name, Mina Bissell is a Theran-born American biologist and a world-recognized leader in the extracellular matrix (ECM) and microenvironment ...
EACR 21: The importance of underlying assumptions: Duncan Odom and Evolution of Genome Regulation
02/07/2010
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
Assumptions and premises are of fundamental importance when making inferences. We often discuss them -if at all- just the once, and afterwards take them for granted in our reasoning. It may be the case, though, that they are not correct, which can potentially invalidate the inferences we make on the basis of those premises. For instance, when walking in Karls Jonas Gate, the main street of the shopping downtown in Oslo, I happened to notice many unusually dressed young people. The inference ...
EACR 21: GeneSapiens and the importance of transcription in cancer
01/07/2010
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
Not only cancer genome: Part 2 At April's AACR meeting, NIH Director Francis Collins stressed the relevance of the Cancer Genome Atlas (TGCA), a project that aims to understand the genetics of cancer using innovative genome analysis technologies [1]. Following the launch of comprehensive cancer genome projects such as TGCA in the US and the Cancer Genome Project in the UK [2], genome scientists and funding agencies met in Toronto in October 2007 to discuss setting up an international co...
EACR 21: The 1,600 methylome project and the importance of the epigenome in cancer
01/07/2010
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
Not only cancer genome: Part 1 You may have heard about the 1,000 Genomes Project*, an international research project launched in January 2008 with the aim of establishing the most detailed catalogue of human genetic variation.[1] The project unites multidisciplinary research teams from institutes around the world, including the UK, China and the USA, and aims to sequence the genomes of at least one thousand anonymous participants from different ethnic groups, using next-generation sequ...
EACR 21: Not only telomere shortening: DNA damage, senescence and ageing
01/07/2010
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
We are used to thinking that our cells will try every attempt to repair DNA damage, and escape the apoptosis fate that awaits them if they do not do so. We are also used to thinking that evolution works against those cells that dont attemp to escape their fate. That is not always the case, though. This classic view may not be valid for all kinds of DNA breaks, as shown in the talk by Fabrizio d'Adda di Fagagna (receiver of the prestigious EACR young researcher award in 2009) during the sess...
EHA 2010 Ageism in oncology: are elderly cancer patients getting the treatment they deserve?
15/06/2010
Posted by Press Officer, ecancermedicalscience
Over 50% of newly diagnosed cancers occur in the over 65s and the percentage of this population is steadily increasing, with an estimated 30% of the population over the age of 65 years by 2025. However, there is clear evidence that older patients with haematological cancers are undertreated, frequently being offered suboptimal therapy or best supportive care, and are frequently excluded from clinical trials. This is largely fuelled by the misperception that older patients are too frail or unwil...
The 'Dandelion' problem: IFN-a, imatinib and reactivation of dormancy
15/06/2010
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
Andreas Trumpp keynote lecture at the International PhD students meeting in Milan As dandelions represent a problem for the gardener who wants to keep the garden clean and neat, so are dormant cancer stem cells, which are able to give rise to metastasis, for the management of oncological patients. With this insightful parallelism, Andreas Trumpp (Heidelberg Institute for Stem Cell Technology) started off his keynote lecture at the international PhD students meeting organised by the studen...
EHA press briefing: Lymphoma and Leukaemia
14/06/2010
Posted by Press Officer, ecancermedicalscience
Press briefing At the press breifing on June 11th at the EHA meeting in Barcelona, two exciting developments were presented in the areas of lymphoma and leukaemia. Dr Gilles Salles presented data from the PRIMA study, which investigated 2-year maintenance therapy with rituximab in patients with follicular lymphoma. The study was conducted in 25 countries in almost 1200 patients. Post-induction therapy patient were randomised to observation or rituximab maintenance (375 mg/m2 IV every 8...
Comparative cost-effectiveness analysis for making decisions about end-of-life cancer treatment
12/05/2010
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
5th Annual International Bioethics Conference, Harvard University, April 22-23, 2010 If you or one of your loved ones were seriously sick with cancer, with a prognosis of only a few weeks left to live, would you want to spend them receiving aggressive chemotherapy or spending those at home or in a hospice, receiving palliative care? Probably, if you knew that the probability of therapeutic benefit given by a 3 rd or 4 th line chemotherapy would be minimal (the much heralded targ...
AACR 2010: 'Inglourious Basterds' and the clinical relevance of dormant tumour cells
22/04/2010
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
"If one makes a movie on WW II changing how it ended, that does not change the outcome of WW II". With these words George W. Sledge (Division of Hematology / Oncology School of Medicine, Indiana University) started off his talk, which concluded the very excellent session of tumour metastasis and microenvironment the last plenary session of AACR 101st meeting. Sledge did not explicitly quote the last movie by Quentin Tarantino, 'Inglourious Basterds' (2009), but the reference was qu...
AACR 2010: Cancer genetics: Looking back before looking forward
22/04/2010
Posted by Linda Cairns, ecms
Bert Vogelstein: "What we have learned from cancer genetics research should influence future cancer therapies" In a plenary session of the AACR annual meeting in Washington, D.C., Bert Vogelstein, M.D. discussed how cancer genetics research should influence the future anti-cancer drug discovery programs. There are more than 300 genes whose mutations play a causative role in cancer onset. They belong to the small number of core pathways through which all of these genes operate ...
AACR 2010: You need to make the case for your research
21/04/2010
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
The Head of National Institute of Health addresses the 101st AACR Meeting Francis Collins, President of the National Institute of Health, made his address to AACR, on Monday April 19th. It turned out to be much more scientific than expected, and in a positive way. Indeed, I was expecting to hear something about NIH resource allocation, scarcity of funding and challenges for the future of cancer research. While this was present, it was intermingled with some good info about sc...
AACR 2010: Volcanic ash and the rhetoric of cancer: Opening Ceremony and Award Presentation
20/04/2010
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting gets underway despite Iceland's best efforts Who could have predicted that the annual AACR conference would start off half-deserted due to a natural unlikely event like a volcano's eruption? But reality often can exceed imagination, and that is exactly what happened at the 101st AACR conference, which opened today at the Convention Center in Washington DC. The opening ceremony, chaired by AACR director Tyler Jackson, took place ...
AACR 2010: The second wave of synthetic lethality
20/04/2010
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
Prof Alan Ashworth updates on the phenomenon of synthetic lethality Among the notable absences at the first day of the 101st AACR meeting, there was the one of Alan Ashworth (Cancer Research Institute, London), whose talk on innovative synthetic lethal strategies in cancer therapy was supposed to close the first plenary session devoted to "Innovations in translational medicine". Alan, as many others, has been stuck on the other side of the ocean due to Iceland and its volcanic antic...
AACR 2010: The art is the 'BATTLE'? A prospective biopsy-driven adaptive study in NSCLC
20/04/2010
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
BATTLE trial personalises lung cancer therapy Clinical trial acronyms are not chosen by chance, and are important in conveying a message to the participants, sponsors and public alike. The message conveyed by the first prospective, biopsy driven adaptive study in NSCLC, aptly named 'BATTLE' (Biomarker Integrated Approaches of Targeted therapy for Lung cancer Elimination) falls within the military rhetoric of cancer that characterizes the 101st AACR conference, and more in general cancer res...
Oral cancer in Malaysia
16/04/2010
Posted by Dr. Clare Sansom, freelance
Cancer of the oral cavity is the sixth most common malignancy worldwide, with over 400,000 new cases diagnosed annually, and its incidence is rising in many countries. It is more common in developing than in developed countries and is particularly prevalent in South and South-East Asia, where it has been associated with the common habit of chewing a stimulant known as betel quid. Although it can be fairly easily treated, death rates are higher than for many other cancer types, mainly because i...
Sir James Black, the passing of a great man
29/03/2010
Posted by Gordon McVie, ecancer
Sir James Black was one of the greatest drug discoverers of the twentieth century. He died last week, aged 85, and although I hadn't seen him in a year or two, I never thought of him as anything other than sixty-ish! He was an extraordinary man in many ways, not just as the umpteenth Scots inventor, but as an intensely modest man, immune to the spotlights thrust upon him after his Nobel Laureate. He didn't merely invent one blockbuster, propranalol, but two - the second was cimetidine. Can any...
Counting the carbon cost of cancer care, 5th March 2010
17/03/2010
Posted by Jonathan Birch, ecancermedicalscience
Good to see the NHS leading the climate change cause as the UK’s biggest area of care limbers up to do its bit for the future. An initiative of the Campaign for Greener Healthcare, a charity run by Dr Frances Mortimer, Rachael Stancliffe and Muir Gray amongst others, started with the reasoning that: “Because fossil fuels are finite, and because of carbon capping to minimise climate change, it follows that this component of cost is set to rise. Indeed, it has been predicted that at som...
Cuban cancer immunotherapy
12/03/2010
Posted by Dr. Clare Sansom, freelance
If there is one aspect of the policy of Castro’s Cuba that has attracted almost universal worldwide approval, it is its free, publicly funded health system. And, as all universally collected outcome statistics show, this is a very successful one. The life expectancy of a Cuban national at birth, for example, is now higher than that of a citizen of any other country in the Americas except Canada. Cuba’s infant mortality is among the lowest in the world, and its universal vaccination programme ha...
NO SMOKING DAY
12/03/2010
Posted by Gordon McVie, ecancer
This week featured No Smoking Day in the UK. It is difficult to judge if the effort put in to raising awareness about the dangers of smoking has had a significant impact. There’s no sign of the tobacco companies filing for bankruptcy, and smoking now kills more women than breast cancer. True there is a decline in men smoking in Western Europe, and a consequent slight drop in lung cancer mortality. But is this due to No Smoking Day? Or has society changed its attitudes to the habit, and banished...
Weekly Review of oncology literature compiled by Giuseppe Curigliano, Division of Medical Oncology, Istituto Europeo di Oncologia, Milan, Italy
08/03/2010
Posted by Giuseppe Curigliano, Istituto Europeo di Oncologia
Comparative Effectiveness of Minimally Invasive vs Open Radical Prostatectomy J. HU et al, JAMA. 2009; 302(14):1557-1564 Men with prostate cancer who underwent MIRP (n = 1938) vs RRP (n = 6899). Men undergoing MIRP vs RRP experienced shorter length of stay, fewer respiratory and miscellaneous surgical complications and strictures, and similar postoperative use of additional cancer therapies but experienced more genitourinary complications, incontinence, and erectile dysfunct...
Robotic surgery - time to reassess?
05/03/2010
Posted by Gordon McVie, ecancer
Robotic surgery for prostate cancer has taken off to the dismay of those stuffy academics who think randomised trials are the only gateway to acceptance of novel treatments. But overjoyed and disbelieving urologists are laughing all the way to their banks. Can you really earn 100,000 dollars a week, just doing a bit of Play Station on a few dozen willing (or gullible?) well heeled men? Apparently so. Without a randomised trial in sight? So why do we do trials if it’s that easy? Well JAMA must h...
Diagnostic pathology - the way ahead
26/02/2010
Posted by Gordon McVie, ecancer
It's a worrying paradox that just as molecular pathology is transforming patient management, recruitment to pathology jobs is slowing down. Pathologists don't sell themselves well, however, and many are steadfastly refusing to adapt to the reality of targeted treatment of, not only cancer, but also other common conditions where the application of the new genetic approaches to unravelling the pathogenesis of disease is lagging behind oncology. Medical oncologists do not, in contrast, hide their ...
Weekly Review of oncology literature compiled by Giuseppe Curigliano, Division of Medical Oncology, Istituto Europeo di Oncologia, Milan, Italy
24/02/2010
Posted by Giuseppe Curigliano, Istituto Europeo di Oncologia
Expression of androgen receptors in primary breast cancer S. Park et al, Annals of Oncology, March 3 2010 652 breast cancer patients. AR expression was observed in 35% of triple-negative cancers. Metaplastic, medullary and mucinous types of carcinomas showed less AR expression. In the ER-negative subgroup, AR was significantly correlated with human epidermal growth factor receptor type 2 (HER-2) overexpression AR potential target in treatment of triple negative breast cancer ...
Castration resistant prostate cancer
19/02/2010
Posted by Gordon McVie, ecancer
Another bit of dogma bites the dust….. “Castration resistant prostate cancer” I don’t use the word paradigm, as I can’t be sure of the spelling, and I’m not totally confident about its meaning! I suspect I’m not alone in this. Should you have been brought up to think of prostate cancer being of two sorts, hormone sensitive and hormone resistant (just like breast cancer), and thought about care plans along the same lines, that might be a paradigm. Though it might not! My thinking was tradition...
Weekly Review of oncology literature compiled by Giuseppe Curigliano, Division of Medical Oncology, Istituto Europeo di Oncologia, Milan, Italy
17/02/2010
Posted by Giuseppe Curigliano, Istituto Europeo di Oncologia
Neratinib, an Irreversible ErbB Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor, in Patients With Advanced ErbB2-Positive Breast Cancer Harold J. Burstein et al, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Feb 8 2010 Oral neratinib 240 mg once daily. The 16-week PFS rates were 59% for patients with prior trastuzumab treatment and 78% for patients with no prior trastuzumab treatment. Median PFS was 22.3 and 39.6 weeks, respectively. Objective response rates were 24% among patients with prior trastuzumab trea...
Can the reputation of the medical community recover?
12/02/2010
Posted by Gordon McVie, ecancer
It's difficult to recall a worst time for the reputations of scientists, medicine, government health departments, the WHO and the media, intertwined as they are in a seemingly never-ending series of disasters. We all look for blame after a tragedy, and we all develop extremely acute retrospective eyesight. But which of the following will have deemed to have done most damage to society, and to the aforementioned reputations ten years from now? Comments please? The disasters are (put VCJD an...
What is the future for medical publishing?
11/02/2010
Posted by Claire Lorimer, ecancermedicalscience
Dr Richard Smith, former Editor of the British Medical Journal, was invited to give a presentation, by MedComms Networking in Oxford on Wednesday 10th February, on the future of medical publishing. His presentation raised the issue of what the problems are with the traditional process, and what the future for the industry is. The trouble with medical journals, as Dr Smith sees it, are that there are too many, they don't meet information needs, are not relevant, do not add value, are too ex...
Stem cells and cancer drug discovery
02/02/2010
Posted by Dr. Clare Sansom, freelance
Stem cells are defined as those "generalist" cells that are uniquely capable both of self-replicating through mitotic division and of differentiating into a wide variety of functional cell types, and thus they share some of the key characteristics of tumour cells. Thus, almost self-evidently, cancer can be thought of a stem cell disease. Yet the media focus of the undoubted medical potential of stem cells tends to focus on other applications, particularly on degenerative disease, and on "blue s...
The UK Cancer Reform Strategy - asessing the impact so far and next steps
28/01/2010
Posted by Jonathan Birch, ecancermedicalscience
26th January 2010, BMA House, London Following the launch of the Cancer Reform Strategy in December 2007, this seminar examined how effective the strategy has been at improving the early detection of cancer, delivery of cancer services, patient experience and outcomes. It was timed to coincide with the second annual report on the Cancer Reform Strategy, available here . Topics covered included: Has the Cancer Reform Strategy changed the way in which cancer ca...
Genesis conference highlights innovative UK cancer research
06/01/2010
Posted by Dr. Clare Sansom, freelance
The high-profile Genesis conference is held in London each December to showcase the best of the UK’s research in biotechnology and provide opportunities for industrial and academic scientists working in the field to build new contacts. The ninth Genesis took place in the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre in Westminster on December 10 and 11, 2009. As always, it was organised by London First and the London Biotechnology Network, and LBN’s director, Tony Jones, must take credit for assembling ...
Crucial differences between cancer and normal stem cells
18/12/2009
Posted by Dr. Clare Sansom, freelance
The traditional model of a tumour as a homogenous mass of abnormal cells has now largely been replaced by the view that tumours contain a subset of cells with stem cell-like properties. These cancer stem cells share with normal stem cells the properties of self-renewal and of generating progeny that can differentiate into a variety of cell types. They also divide more slowly than other tumour cells. Therefore, drugs that are active against "normal" tumour tissue – particularly those that targe...
Credentialing biomarkers in early phase clinical trials
25/11/2009
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
Credentialing biomarkers in early phase clinical trials The “Proof of Concept Clinical Trial Design” session of the AACR-EORTC-NCI conference was chaired by Jaap Verweij, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, and focused on biomarkers and development of other molecular assays in early clinical trials. Lillian L. Su (Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada) discussed about the role played by different biomarkers in early clinical trial design. Su started o...
Predictive biomarkers and lessons from targeted drug resistance in prostate cancer
25/11/2009
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
Charles Sawyers (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, USA), opened the AACR-NCI-EORTC session on drug resistance in targeted agents with a keynote lecture on prostate cancer acquired drug resistance to antiandrogen agents, as a paradigmatic case study of targeted resistance drugs in cancer. The unresolved issues with prostate cancer are still manifold. First, prostate cancer is a highly heterogeneous disease, and currently there is still no clinically rel...
Cellular reprogramming: clues to establishing, and targeting, the cancer epigenome.
25/11/2009
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
The VI plenary session of Wednesday, November 18, at the AACR-NCI-EORTC conference in Boston, was chaired by Peter A. Hones (USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, Los Angeles, CA) and focused on cellular reprogramming in cancer, and on research aimed at targeting the cancer epigenome. Stephen B. Baylin, (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA) discussed the role played by cell stress - at the levels of aging, chronic injury, and inflammation- in tumorigenes...
Metformin out of context: an example of paradigm shift in the drug development process?
16/11/2009
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
Bernardo Bonanni of the European Institute of Oncology (IEO) in Milan is one of those investigators who are trying out different strategies to get a better insight into cancer. As one of the keynote speakers of the “Emerging targets in cancer prevention” session at the AACR-NCI-EORTC conference in Boston ( http://www.aacr.org/home/scientists/meetings--workshops/molecular-targets-and-cancer-therapeutics.aspx) , he presented the preliminary results of a two arm Phase II clinical ...
NCRI 2009: Positron Emission Tomography
30/10/2009
Posted by Dr. Clare Sansom, freelance
Positron emission tomography (PET) is a relatively new imaging technique that is increasingly used in oncology. It involves introducing into the body a biologically relevant tracer molecule that contains a positron-emitting radioactive isotope. Positrons are “anti-electrons” and when one encounters an electron both particles destroy each other, emitting two gamma rays in opposite directions that can be detected. As positron-electron encounters occur essentially as soon as the positr...
Barret's Oesophagus: The Latest
28/10/2009
Posted by Dr. Clare Sansom, freelance
Barrett's Metaplasia Meeting 17th-18th September 2009, University of Bath, UK Cancer of the oesophagus is still uncommon, but its prevalence, and particularly that of the adenocarcimona subtype, is increasing rapidly in many Western countries. This may even be the fastest-growing of all tumour types. The main risk factor for developing this condition is gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD), which is characterised by chronic reflux and heartburn. The damage to the oesophageal...
'A Hole in the Wall' Camps and other initiatives to erase the 'stigma' of cancer
16/10/2009
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
In their 1979 famous song entitled “Another brick in the wall”, Pink Floyd protested against the walls of rigid schooling that were curtailing the freedom and future of kids. Luckily, it is not always the case that 'bricks are added to walls', sometimes, real holes are made, as happened to the Berlin wall twenty years ago. In other circumstances, metaphorical holes can be made into walls that rob children of their childhood and freedom, walls that were raised by severe and life-threat...
A brave new way to fund cancer research. Grant System Leads Cancer Researchers to Play It Safe
05/09/2009
Posted by Gianmarco Contino, AICF fellow, Harvard Medical School and European Institute of Oncology
It is time to think different, forty years of cancer funding have produced disappointing results overall. This is a common feeling in the cancer community. Obviously, this is not completely true. Even if we stand far away from winning the war, we can now thinking of cancer as many different genetic diseases, rationally design drugs, and prolong lives for years as for a chronic illness. In some case, we can definitely cure it, but prevention, rather then treatments helped. Anyhow, results we see...
A claim for physician-scientist training in Europe
05/09/2009
Posted by Gianmarco Contino, AICF fellow, Harvard Medical School and European Institute of Oncology
While everybody is talking about translational research, Europe is just ignoring the issue of training translational researchers. Oversea, despite a climate of economic uncertainty, United States are carrying on a huge effort in order to train physician-scientists feeding a brilliant new generation of researchers who will have the responsibility to lead translational projects and radically change our approach to cancer. They are training as MD/PhD, during residencies of surgery, hemato/oncology...
A Problem with Screening?
27/08/2009
Posted by Dr. Clare Sansom, freelance
“Cancer screening programs are about mass populations, but we make decisions as individuals”. The implications of this statement for policy and for public understanding of cancer screening were discussed in a workshop on attitudes to and beliefs about cancer held at the World Conference of Science Journalists in London in June, and ably led by Anna Wagstaffe and Peter McIntyre of Cancer World magazine. Cancer World, published by the European School of Oncology, examines cancer care from a ...
Gender Specific Oncology
11/08/2009
Posted by Dr. Clare Sansom, freelance
Some of the most prevalent cancers are those that are specific to – or, in the case of breast cancer, almost specific to – one or other of the genders. In all developed countries, the breast and prostate are among the four most common cancer sites, and testicular, cervical, ovarian and uterine cancers are also relatively frequent. The options available for early detection and treatment of many gender-specific cancers have expanded greatly in recent years, but there are still unmet med...
"Enhancing Knowledge, Promoting Quality" – ICCN 2010
06/07/2009
Posted by Yumi Koiso, Malachite Management Inc
The International Society of Nurses in Cancer Care (ISNCC) is pleased to announce that its 16th International Conference on Cancer Nursing (ICCN), the premier international educational opportunity for cancer nurses, will be held in the vibrant city of Atlanta, Georgia, USA, from Sunday 7 March - Thursday 11 March 2010. The theme of the 16th ICCN will be "Enhancing Knowledge, Promoting Quality". The exciting scientific program is soon to be released. The International Society of Nurses...
Bubbles of optimism from ASCO
24/06/2009
Posted by Gordon McVie, ecancer
It is refreshing to come from one of the big meetings on cancer with optimism and faith in the future relevance of our translational research efforts. Too many bright bubbles surrounding "personalised medicine" have burst on subsequent tests of the underlying hypotheses. Last month’s ASCO meeting in Orlando was the usual bustle of gossip, educational snippets and bright bubbles, but one of those hasn’t burst. Two landmark studies focused on PARP inhibitors in women with bad prognosis advanced c...
Institute of Cancer Research Centenary Conference 2009
22/06/2009
Posted by Dr. Clare Sansom, freelance
From Genes to Drugs The UK’s Institute of Cancer Research is celebrating its centenary in 2009, under the slogan “Help make our first centenary our last”. Pre-eminent among events held to celebrate this anniversary was a three-day conference held in June 2009 at the prestigious Queen Elizabeth II conference centre in Westminster. Scarcely more than a century after William Bateson first coined the word “genetics”, the conference theme, Cancer Genes: Discovery and Exploitation, i...
Cancer care: underplayed or overlooked?
17/06/2009
Posted by Sharon Morrison, Freelance writer
As a breast cancer patient I wanted to write a book that was relevant for both cancer professionals and patients. As Prof McVie commented when he reviewed the book, 'I recommend newly diagnosed patients read ' even the eyebrows ?' and newly qualified doctors, too!" As a single parent, running a busy household (Richard 8, Jenny 10, Merlyn 14) as well as a PR consultancy, I really didn’t have time for illness. So, in 2004, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, my first thought was the ter...
Improving cancer care in Poland
16/06/2009
Posted by Dr. Clare Sansom, freelance
Cancer is responsible for much of the health differential that still exists between eastern and western Europe. Citizens of former communist countries are still more likely to contract, and die from, many types of cancer than their counterparts in the west. Yet many of these countries have maintained, throughout a century’s political turmoil, a good record of cancer treatment and care. Poland, for example, is home to one of the first specialist cancer institutes in Europe. The Institute of...
A term for a group of oncologists
18/03/2009
Posted by Gordon McVie, ecancer
Brussels is buzzing with oncologists and cancer meetings. I counted six, and attended three. Not a bad average.Oncotourism is widely used as a scurrilous term to describe the frequent flying cancer doctors chasing around the globe from meeting to meeting. Who meantime looks after their patients one might ask? Anyway a whole lot (is there a collective noun for oncologists ?oncoclone?) had more or less randomly planned gatherings in the same city on the same day. By far the most import...
Surgery under-appreciated in cancer care?
11/03/2009
Posted by Dr. Clare Sansom, freelance
It is common knowledge that the three most important approaches to cancer treatment are surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Of these, surgery is responsible for the largest number of complete cures; if a tumour is small enough, and in an appropriate position, to be removed surgically, and if there are no distant metastases, the prospects for the patient are excellent. Yet in recent years almost all the ‘buzz’ about new advances in cancer treatment has revolved around the pharmacy. The ...
ESGO 2009 Gynaecological Cancer Meeting
04/03/2009
Posted by Elizabeth Jeanne le Roux, ESGO Society
Improving outcomes for patients; communicating research and care Gynaecological cancers are the world’s fourth largest cancer killer of women. Each year, around one million women are diagnosed with gynaecological cancers worldwide compared to other major cancer killers such as lung cancer (1.4 million) and breast cancer (1.2 million). Together, these cancers (ovarian, cervix, womb and vulva) account for 10% of all cancers and have a mortality rate in excess of 65%. 1 The Euro...
Best of Oncology 2008, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
26/02/2009
Posted by Gordon McVie, ecancer
An astonishing 1500 oncologists and cancer nurses are attending a three day update meeting , in a very crowded Jeddah, crowded because half of Riyadh has decamped during the school half term to see the sea, and to visit Mecca. Also astonishing is that the cancer conference is free of charge, despite the all star international panel of speakers, thanks to brilliant organisation by the King Faisal Oncology team in Jeddah. Very high quality meeting, well tuned to the needs of cancer patien...
A new era of engagement
23/02/2009
Posted by Emma Darcy, MyPhID
On February 04th 2009 a year long Working Party convened by the Royal College of Physicians in the UK came to some conclusions about the relationships between the medical community and the pharmaceutical industry. There were, in fact, 42 recommendations to try to re-position patients in the centre of a polemical storm about the value of relationships that has been raging for a decade -- and during which the most airtime (and media space) has been given to the perspective that intera...
VIBevents Molecular Imaging in Drug Development Conference 2009
06/01/2009
Posted by VIB events, VIBevents
Maximising drug development with the latest on imaging application. Successfully utilising molecular imaging technologies in preclinical and clinical drug development can provide vital information which drug candidates are likely to be successful and reveal candidates that are likely to fail, enabling early decision making to reduce time and costs. Molecular imaging allows the non-invasive assessment of biological and biochemical processes in living subjects. With the potential t...
Partnerships in Oncology Clinical Trials
09/12/2008
Posted by Sarah Ide, ExL Pharma
Investment in the development of oncology therapeutics has grown steadily in recent years, but attrition rates have remained high. Because the need for experience in conducting these trials has outpaced training, it is more important than ever to improve partnerships among stakeholders to ensure that these trials are operationally sound, produce quality data and are designed to aid in the recruitment and retention of patients. The Partnerships in Oncology Clinical Trials meeting, to be hel...
e-Oncology - The Future of Cancer Data
27/11/2008
Posted by Press Officer, ecancermedicalscience
A bi-lateral Italy-UK workshop at the Italian Cultural Institute, London, Monday 27th October 2008 A crisp clear morning greeted the attendees at 39 Grovesnor Square as Italian and British scientists and health database experts alike gathered to exchange ideas regarding the online sharing of cancer data: Not just within their respective countries, but also internationally. Italian ambassador to the UK Giancarlo Argona kicked off proceedings with an explanation of the series ...
7th Annual BTOG Meeting 2009
25/11/2008
Posted by Dawn Mckinley, British Thoracic Oncology Group
BTOG aims to improve the care of patients with thoracic malignancies through multidisciplinary education and clinical and scientific research. In its 7th year, BTOG continues to go from strength to strength. The collaborative nature of the annual meeting has facilitated further strengthening of the links with the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC), the EORTC, NCI Canada lung cancer groups, British Thoracic Society (BTS), National Lung Cancer Forum for Nurses, th...
VIBevents Validating Biomarkers for Effective Drug Development Conference 2008
11/11/2008
Posted by VIB events, VIBevents
Implementing biomarkers for faster, more accurate and efficient clinical trials. Biomarkers represent the future of drug development with analysts predicting growth in the market from an estimated $5.6bn in 2007 to $12.8bn by 2012, a massive compound average growth rate of 18 percent. The discovery and effective use of new biomarkers is expected to benefit each stage of the R&D process, from accelerating decision making to improving accuracy of clinical trials and minimising w...
International Conference of Anticancer Research, Kos, Greece, 17th-23rd October 2008
03/11/2008
Posted by Dr. Clare Sansom, freelance
The eighth International Conference of Anticancer Research was held on the beautiful Greek island of Kos from October 17th – 23rd, 2008. This conference series is organised under the auspices of the International Institute of Anticancer Research (IIAR), also based in Greece. The meetings have grown steadily since the first conference in 1985; well over a thousand oncologists and basic cancer researchers took part, and over seven hundred papers and posters were presented. Every continent w...
Temozolomide 30 Years On
23/10/2008
Posted by Jonathan Birch, ecancermedicalscience
Leading brain cancer drug celebrated Scientists gathered from across the world last week to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the start of the research project which led to the discovery of Temodal, at Aston University, Birmingham, UK. The event comes with the news that in 2008 the drug is set to break sales of over 1 billion US dollars per year. In 1978 Robert Stone (pictured right), a local Aston graduate, joined the research project under instruction...
The World Cancer Conference, 27-31 August 2008, Geneva
04/09/2008
Posted by Jonathan Birch, ecancermedicalscience
UICC’s 2008 meeting may prove an instigator for great success in the global struggle against cancer. Where many cancer conferences cover mainly the latest science, legislation, and progress in their country or economic block, the UICC congress had a greater emphasis on implementing scientific progress in worldwide political fields; incorporating global policy. Representatives from the World Health Organisation ( WHO ), met researchers, doctors, nurses, policy makers and media from ar...
From the bedside to the bench, and back?
01/09/2008
Posted by Silvia Camporesi, IFOM-IEO campus
Pharmacogenomics, the rescue of failed drugs and phase 0 trials: Pharmacogenomics, or PGx, has been defined as “the individualisation of drug therapy through medication selection or dose adjustment based upon direct (e.g. genotyping) or indirect (e.g. phenotyping) assessment of a person’s genetic constitution for drug response”. [1] This broad definition takes pharmacogenomics to be a synonym for pharmacogenetics, and includes tests operating at protein, metabolite, or other ...
VIBevents Clinical Trials Oncology Conference 2008
23/07/2008
Posted by VIB events, VIBevents
How can we improve clinical trials in oncology? With cancer clinical studies in oncology being more complex than for other therapeutic areas and the continuing differentiation into various cancer subtypes causes logistical but also research and development challenges. With 3,000 people dying of cancer every day within the EU, more anti-cancer drugs are being tested than ever before. The oncology market is currently valued at $34 billion/year and is expected to top $55 billi...
Drugs News
30/05/2008
Posted by Jonathan Birch, ecancermedicalscience
Pharmatimes has reported on new cancer drugs this month: European regulators have recommended conditional approval of GlaxoSmithKline’s new breast cancer drug Tyverb (lapatinib). The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use issued a revised positive opinion after being asked by regulators to look at the drug again after clinical data suggested it could raise liver enzyme levels. Meanwhile GSK has won approval in Sweden for its 5 alpha-reductas...
Do Dogs Cause Cancer?- Risk Perception and the Media
19/05/2008
Posted by Ian Lewis, Tenovus
Whilst out for dinner with my parents recently, my mother leaned over the table and slipped me an article that she had cut out of that week’s Sunday paper. The headline read, “Contraceptive coil increases risk of ovarian cancer by 76%”. She then revealed to me that she had used the coil for contraception through the 1980’s (as she had obviously already achieved perfection with her two existing sons) and was concerned that this action had massively increased her risk of cancer. Once I got over t...
European Oncology Nursing Society (EONS) Spring Convention March 2008
15/05/2008
Posted by ecancer editor, ecancer
New ways of working: Innovation in cancer nursing practice Change is happening rapidly in cancer care. But with so many changes bombarding the daily practice of the cancer nurse it is often difficult to reframe a situation and move toward keeping pace with change by implementing new trends that really make a difference in patient care. The fresh crisp early spring weather which greeted participants to the 6 th EONS Spring Convention held in Geneva in late March provided ju...
IPOS 10th World Congress of Psycho-Oncology
06/05/2008
Posted by ecancer editor, ecancer
The 10th World Congress of Psycho-Oncology will take place in Madrid 9 - 13 June 2008 organized by IPOS’s Board of Directors 2008 Congress Committee members and the Spanish Psycho-Oncology Society (SEPO). Many years have passed since the first world Congress of psycho-oncology took place in Beaune France in 1992. Valuable advances have been made in both clinical and research areas of the field since then contributing to the growth of IPOS as well as the development of new national psycho-o...
Making patient-centred healthcare a reality for patients worldwide
01/04/2008
Posted by ecancer editor, ecancer
'Patients should be seen as a catalyst for change and a compass, giving direction to our efforts to reduce unsafe care' said Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer for England and Chair of the WHO World Alliance for Patient Safety. London, United Kingdom, 26 February 2008 - The 3rd Global Patients Congress of the International Alliance of Patients‘ Organisations (IAPO) highlighted the progress being made worldwide to address the role of the patient as an essential partner in the de...
New drugs this month
11/03/2008
Posted by Jonathan Birch, ecancermedicalscience
Pharmatimes has reported several new products coming to market this month: In the UK Alimta (pemetrexed) developed by Eli Lilly has been cleared for sale by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). It will be used to treat malignant pleural mesothelioma a type of aggressive lung cancer associated with asbestos exposure in cases where the patient cannot be operated on. In Europe the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has given Roche perm...
Oncology Summit Europe: 30-31 January 2008
18/02/2008
Posted by Jonathan Birch, ecancermedicalscience
Oncology Summit Europe 30-31 Jan A wet and windy London greeted pharma representatives from across Europe, along with key opinion leaders, physicians and media. On the agenda: Successful marketing in the upcoming oncology drugs explosion and chemotherapy in the next decade. A good range of speakers was introduced by conference chairman Sean McGrath, MD of Succinct Healthcare Communications. He started by outlining topics set to become issues in the next few years, such as a much great...
Pharmas aren't the enemy
09/01/2008
Posted by Gordon McVie, ecancer
While pharmas can often be seen to put profit before patients it must be remembered that many of the advanced life changing drugs which we take for granted nowadays would not exist without the huge capital reserves offered by large multinationals. Without their cutting-edge research in many cases we wouldn't have breakthroughs in cancer or heart disease which allow us to live longer happier lives. Problems may arise however when pharmas try to pass the financial risk of unsuccessful dru...
ESMO Cancer Patient Advocacy Forum (26-27 Nov. Brussels)
10/12/2007
Posted by Linda Cairns, ecancer
This meeting brought together international cancer patient associations to encourage exchange of best practices facilitate network building amongst the groups and to provide a foundation for the development and implementation of effective advocacy strategies. The meeting opened with a session which discussed patients needs immediately followed by one on how policy makers take decisions at different levels. “In order to bring about change in the battle against cancer we need...
Transatlantic Fallout
05/11/2007
Posted by Gordon McVie, ecancer
Two European Court rulings caught the eye recently. Each has dragged on so long that most observers have assumed that the European cases were lost to the might of the super power of America! But not so. First Bill Gates and Microsoft have had to yield in their defence of the charge of unfair “monopoly” in the wars of the Internet. Remarkable decision in the eyes of the disbeliever in EU clout. Less importantly for the man on the autobahn or the woman on the boulevard but crucial for the researc...
Shock news: being unhealthy raises the risk of dying
31/10/2007
Posted by Jonathan Birch, ecancermedicalscience
Scientists have also discovered that eating healthy food and exercising more increases your likelihood of living. The latest research from the Institute of the Blindingly Obvious (IBO) has found that obesity and a diet of high fat foods increases your risk of cancer. Bacon, amongst others, came under fire from the report which the media have jumped on with great enthusiasm. “Obesity worse for cancer than smoking” cried the Daily Mail, patently misrepresenting the report wh...
European Cancer Conference and NCRI
03/10/2007
Posted by claudia mcvie, tenovus
As Chief Executive of Tenovus I give you two observations of the ECCO congress this year. Given that charities pay for half of all cancer research in Europe and a fair bit of cancer care where are all their Chief Execs? Looking at the delegate list there are very few. If the sector is going to be responsible for innovation and a certain amount of risk taking perhaps the organisers of ECCO should consider that market in 2009. Second observation: patients still go to patients’ workshops nurs...
PRISM and the American Association of Publishers - The last gasp of the anti-open access lobby?
20/09/2007
Posted by Gordon McVie, ecancer
PRISM: Fighting Against Open Access Open Access (OA), made possible by the advent of the internet , is immediate, free and unrestricted online access to scholarly material; primarily peer-reviewed research articles in journals. This can be read, downloaded, copied, distributed, and used (with attribution) in any way. Promoted by groups such as Public Library of Science (PLOS) and the Max Planck Institute, the debate over its benefits has also recently been taken up b...
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