LungBlog

Pharmaceuticals, Inc.  today announced that the company will advance the small-cell lung cancer trial in treatment-sensitive patients to Stage 2.

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) is pleased to announce new updates to the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology(TM) for Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. These changes highlight leading developments in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer and represent the recognized standard for clinical care in oncology in both the community and the academic practice settings.

Doctors say there is an “urgent need” for more research into the differences among men and women that may cause the disease.

A rationally designed small molecule inhibitor can specifically
bind with Dishevelled protein, a key modulator in the Wnt signaling pathway that is overexpressed in the majority of lung cancer. This binding blocks the protein-protein interaction between Dishevelled and the Wnt receptor Frizzled protein suppresses the Wnt signaling pathway
in lung cancer, decreasing proliferation and inducing apoptosis. This is the first evidence that a non-peptide small molecule can specifically inhibit Wnt signaling.

Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that the company will advance the small-cell lung cancer trial in treatment-sensitive patients to Stage 2. The company reported initial results from the first stages of two Phase 2 clinical trials of SNS-595, a novel cell-cycle inhibitor, in first- line relapsed/refractory small cell and non-small cell lung cancers. Anti- tumor activity was observed, including evidence of stable disease, minor responses and partial responses reported in one arm of the small cell lung cancer study, and minor and mixed responses and stable disease in the non- small cell lung cancer trial.

Approximately half of patients with advanced small cell lung cancer responded to Introgen Therapeutics, Inc.’s INGN 225 molecular cancer vaccine in combination with subsequent chemotherapy.

Among patients with advanced unresectable cancer, the presence of a mutation strongly corresponded with response to targeted therapy, but not to chemotherapy. Mutation-positive patients achieved a median survival of 3.6 years as compared with 1.6 years for mutation-negative patients.

An international study is under way to prove that yearly Computed/Tomography (CT) scans can detect lung tumors when they’re as small as a grain of rice and, more important, before they’ve spread.

Wilson, 55, died at home in Charlotte on Friday after a long battle with lung cancer. Though he had left public office in 1990, he remained an active player in state and local politics, recruiting people to run for office and making sure candidates ran honest campaigns.

SID said the former Hamburg politician and president of Hamburg SV had died at home on Saturday in the north German city after a long fight against lung cancer.