The Latest Cancer Research News to Cheer About

Here's some good news: Death rates from cancer have dropped 25 percent over the past two decades, according to the American Cancer Society. And across the country and around the world, researchers are studying new ways to prevent, detect, diagnose and treat the disease.

“We already cure a lot of cancers,” says Daniel F. Hayes, M.D., president of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), which presented new research at its annual meeting this month. “There is so much more hope than there used to be.” Here is a sampling of the latest news in cancer research gathered from the ASCO meeting, medical journals and labs.

Breast Cancer

At the ASCO meeting, researchers reported that breast cancer survivors who became pregnant had the same odds for recurrence or death as survivors who did not get pregnant. What's more, women whose cancer was estrogen receptor–negative and who became pregnant appeared to have a better chance for survival than women with ER-negative tumors who did not. The researchers followed 333 survivors who had become pregnant and 874 who had not for 12 years.  Now a trial is studying whether women with ER-positive cancer can safely stop anti-estrogen therapy during the time it takes to become pregnant and deliver, adds Hayes.

Many cancer patients turn to integrative practices, such as meditation and yoga, to weather the rigors of treatment. Now the Society for Integrative Oncology has published clinical guidelines to help doctors recommend an evidence-based practice to breast cancer patients grappling with treatment-related issues, from anxiety to quality of life. Among the findings: music therapy, meditation, stress management and yoga may ease anxiety and stress; meditation and yoga may improve quality of life; electro-acupuncture and acupressure may reduce nausea and vomiting; meditation, relaxation, yoga, massage and music therapy can help with depression and mood disorders. The guidelines are published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

Cervical Cancer

Women 65 and older should not assume they can stop cervical cancer screenings, despite current recommendations. The reason: Cervical cancer remains a real concern as a woman ages, and, in women who haven't had a hysterectomy, rates don't taper off until around age 85, reports a recent study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Guidelines recommend a Pap smear screening every three years for women in their 20s and after that a combined Pap and HPV test every five years until age 65, provided all screenings have been negative for 10 consecutive years. But many women are not up to date with screenings and don't understand their risk. What's more, about five percent of women age 66–70 report they've never been screened. Stopping screening too soon could result in cases of invasive cervical cancer and death that could have been prevented, according to the researchers. The ACS estimates that 12,820 women will be diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer this year and 4,210 will die from it.

Ovarian Cancer

Underway at the University of Connecticut Health is the first-ever clinical trial of a potential vaccine that would use a woman's immune system to prevent a recurrence of ovarian cancer. Initially the 15 women in the study—all with stage 3 or 4 ovarian cancer—will undergo traditional surgery and chemotherapy. During surgery a tumor sample will be taken in order to produce a customized vaccine designed to stimulate the woman's immune cells. If a woman is cancer-free after three months of treatment, she'll receive the vaccine monthly for six months and her response will be monitored via blood samples. The hope is that the vaccine will “increase the time to recurrence of ovarian cancer, if not cure the disease,” says vaccine developer Pramod K. Srivastava, M.D., director of the Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center at UConn Health.  More research is needed before the vaccine is available, but “this trial is the first step in the journey,” he says.

So-called “guideline care” ups survival odds for women with ovarian cancer, but many patients don't receive stage-appropriate surgery and chemo. Now researchers at the National Cancer Institute and National Institutes of Health report that while the number of women undergoing stage-appropriate surgery stayed at 46 percent from 2002 until 2011, the percentage who consulted a gynecologic oncologist, associated with a better outcome, increased from 43 to 77 percent. Of these, 53.6 percent received stage-appropriate surgery. The number of women with stage I-C and IV ovarian cancer who received both stage-appropriate surgery and chemo rose from 31 to 38 percent, a significant rise. According to the researchers, the modest progress in the delivery of guideline care may explain the equally modest improvement in survival rates for ovarian cancer. “We are not yet where we should be,” when it comes to treating ovarian cancer, says Hayes. “ASCO feels strongly that guideline-directed care will help standardize care.”

Head and Neck Cancer

People with head and neck cancer whose tumors have grown may live longer if they continue treatment with an immunotherapy drug that blocks a molecule that prevents T cells in the immune system from going after cancer cells, according to a recent study. Researchers are optimistic that immunotherapy, already showing promise for melanoma and lung cancer, could also lead to better outcomes for head and neck cancer patients.

Skin Cancer

Basal cell and squamous cell carcinoma are on the rise, especially in women, according to a recent study. From 2000 to 2010, diagnoses of basal cell skin cancer jumped 145 percent and those of squamous cell cancer soared by 263 percent compared to rates from 1976 to 1984—and the increase of basal cell carcinoma among women in their 30s and 40s was especially high. Sun exposure and tanning bed use are the likely culprits—even if UV exposure occurred years earlier.

“There is typically a delay between UV exposure and the development of skin cancer, so we may be starting to see the effects now,” says researcher John G. Muzic, M.D., a dermatology resident at the Mayo Clinic. “We know what causes skin cancer, and preventive strategies are easy to implement, but we need to get everyone on board.”

In the pipeline is a noninvasive imaging test that may one day let doctors diagnose basal cell carcinoma as well as deadlier melanoma right away without a biopsy. The procedure, called multiphoton microscopy, uses short pulses of laser light to obtain high-resolution images so a physician can quickly and accurately identify abnormal cells. While more research is needed, “we hope that in the next five years this type of microscopic imaging at the bedside will become widely used,” says researcher Irene Georgakoudi, Ph.D., of the department of biomedical engineering at Tufts University.

Colorectal Cancer

People treated for stage III colon cancer who ate two or more ounces of almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, cashews or pecans per week lowered their chance of a recurrence by 42 percent and the likelihood of dying by 57 percent compared to people who didn't eat nuts, researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston reported.

In another study, researchers found that over seven years, people who exercised the most and had the healthiest diets during and after treatment lowered their risk for death by 42 percent and for recurrence by 22 percent.

Pancreatic Cancer

About one-fifth of pancreatic cancers evolve from cysts, but there's no easy way to determine if a cyst is benign, pre-cancerous or malignant. Even if a doctor suspects cancer, a biopsy detects only about half of pancreatic cancers. Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston have developed a tool called light scattering spectroscopy that bounces light off the cyst, analyzing it for structural changes that may signal cancer. While more testing is needed, the technology “could potentially transform the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer by enabling doctors to confirm a malignancy quickly, early and noninvasively and follow cysts that could potentially become cancerous,” says Lev T. Perelman, Ph.D., director of the Center for Advanced Biomedical Imaging and Photonics at Beth Israel.

Prostate Cancer

A new blood test called IsoPSA is more accurate than the PSA test—which measures levels of a blood protein called prostate specific antigen—at finding prostate cancer and detecting more advanced cancer, according to preliminary research.

While PSA levels are elevated in men with prostate cancer, PSA also can climb if a man has a benign condition, such as an inflamed or enlarged prostate, leading to unnecessary procedures including a biopsy. By contrast, the IsoPSA test detects structural changes in PSA protein that are associated with cancer. Though more research is needed, IsoPSA has the potential to slash the rate of unnecessary biopsies by almost half, say the researchers.