A new breast cancer vaccine candidate, (GP2), provides further evidence of the potential of immunotherapy in preventing disease recurrence. This is especially the case for high-risk patients when it is combined with a powerful immunotherapy drug. These findings were presented by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center at the 2014 American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Breast Cancer Symposium in San Francisco.
Yale Cancer Center researchers used a new molecular analysis tool to accurately detect the level of an important target for immunotherapy in early-stage breast cancers. The diagnostic test, using RNAScope, measures the amount of PD-L1 (programmed death ligand 1) mRNA in routine formalin-fixed cancer tissues and is devoid of many of the technical issues that plague antibody-based detection methods that have yielded conflicting results in the past. PD-L1 is the target of several novel immune stimulatory therapies in clinical trials. The findings were published recently in the Journal of Clinical Cancer Research.Continue reading
A combination of two new therapies already in clinical trials for the treatment of primary malignant brain tumors may also be effective in the treatment of breast cancer that has spread to the brain, according to US researchers.
The team demonstrated their new approach, which combines immunotherapy with gene therapy, in mice. They write about their findings in the most recent issue of the journal Clinical Cancer Research.Continue reading
Researchers in Australia have found that breast stem cells and their “daughters” have a longer life than previously believed. This newly discovered longer lifespan suggests that these cells could carry damage or genetic defects earlier in life that eventually lead to cancer decades later.Continue reading