Focused Radiation May Control Some Cancers
Posted on: Wednesday, 13 August 2008, 09:01 CDT
U.S. medical scientists say they've discovered precisely targeted radiation therapy can eradicate all evidence of cancer in some patients.
Researchers from the University of Chicago Medical Center said their ongoing clinical trial found targeted radiation therapy completely controlled all signs of cancer in 21 percent of the trial's patients who had five or fewer sites of metastatic disease.
"This was proof of principle in patients who had failed the standard therapies and had few, if any, remaining options," said the study's senior author, Dr. Ralph Weichselbaum, a professor of radiation and cellular oncology. "We had encouraging results, including several long-term survivors, in patients with stage-IV cancers that had spread to distant sites."
In 1994, Weichselbaum and colleague Samuel Hellman proposed there was an intermediate state between cancer that had not spread at all and cancer that had spread extensively. They named that state "oligometastases," meaning cancer that had spread to a few distant sites.
The researchers said the new technique could also be applied after chemotherapy, in cases in which the drugs had eliminated most the smaller cancer, leaving only a few larger tumors behind.
The trial's latest results are reported in the journal Clinical Cancer Research,
Source: United Press International
Related Articles
- Groundbreaking Clinical Trial at Mary Crowley Significantly Increases Survival in End-Stage Head and Neck Cancer Patients
- CAPHOSOL(R) Relieves Oral Mucositis (OM) and Improves Quality-of-Life in Cancer Patients Receiving Chemoradiation
- TRACON Pharmaceuticals Announces Dosing of Initial Three Cancer Patients in a Phase 1 Clinical Trial With TRC105, a Human Chimeric Antibody
- Geron's Telomerase Inhibitor Drug May Benefit Breast Cancer Patients Receiving Radiation Therapy
- Most Cancer Patients Satisfied With Clinical Trial Experience, Yet Few Aware of Opportunity
- New Hope For Prostate Cancer Patients Where Radiation Treatment Has Failed
- Long-term hormone use helps prostate cancer patients live longer
- Help for Cancer Patients Displaced By Hurricane Katrina; Radiation Oncologists Around the Country Open Their Doors to Gulf Coast Patients
- BioAlliance Pharma Presents Results From Phase III Study of Miconazole Lauriad Bioadhesive Buccal Tablets for Treatment of Oropharyngeal Candidiasis in Head & Neck Cancer Patients
- BioAlliance Pharma Announces Preliminary Phase III Data On Miconazole Lauriad Bioadhesive Buccal Tablets For Local Treatment of Oropharyngeal Candidiasis in Head and Neck Cancer Patients Following Radiation Therapy
 |
 |
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds