The Link Between Diabetes and Breast Cancer

Both diabetes and cancer have long preoccupied public-health concerns, strained national budgets, and are associated with complications that may affect quality of life. They also share some of the same risk factors, such as age, smoking, weight gain, and a diet poor in fruits and vegetables. The earliest link between diabetes and cancer was alluded to in the 1930s,[1,2] however, convincing epidemiological evidence has emerged only recently proving an association between diabetes and cancer.[3]

Personalized Medicine: Moore's Law Brings $1000 Genomes Within Reach

The promise of personalized medicine has long hinged on faster, cheaper and ubiquitous availability of whole genome sequencing.  

In order to make effective health care decisions to manage or fight cancer using personalized medicine strategy, oncologists ought to be able to follow the chameleonistic genome of cancer cells, and stay one step ahead by targeting strategies cancer cells employ to develop drug resistance, escape and metastasize.

Friday Grand Rounds: Susan Desmond-Hellmann Outlines Her Vision for UCSF and Teaches Us a Thing or Two About Leadership and Goals

Today, we are going to listen to an interview with Susan Desmond-Hellmann.  She is a UCSF-trained oncologist who, after spending 14 years at the helm of Genentech, is now back at UCSF as its first woman chancellor.

Zytiga is the Darling of the Day. Really!

Zytiga was in news today, but more so were its competitors, Provenge and MDV3100. The big news was early unblinding of Zytiga trial in metastatic prostate cancer patients due to significant improvement seen in progression-free survival (PFS) and other endpoints.

Nipping the Cancer Drug Counterfeit Problem in the Bud

The problem faced by cancer patients in the western countries is that of shortages and not counterfeit.  However, there was a recent scare of counterfeit Avastin almost entering the supply chain through Canada.  

Yesterday's passing of a bill co-sponsored by Senators Michael Bennet (R-CO), Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is designed to nip this problem by toughening up penalties.

Whacking the Hedgehogs in Basal Cell Carcinoma with Vismodegib

If the year 2011 was the year for the 5% of skin cancers, this is the year for the 95% majority.  Last year saw approvals of two new melanoma cancer drugs, vemurafenib and  ipilimumab.  But, this year may be dubbed as the year when the other skin cancer called basal cell carcinoma finally gets a new Erivedge loaded Webley.

Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in the western world—40% of all cancers are skin cancers with 80% of skin cancers being nonmelanoma, and primarily basal cell carcinoma.

Vemurafenib Seeks Wider Audience

Vemurafenib (Zelboraf ^®; Genentech/Daiichi Sankyo) is a BRAF V600E kinase inhibitor approved for metastatic melanoma.  Since its approval last year, vemurafenib has become the drug of choice for these patients.  BRAF V600E mutant gene is also found in several other solid cancer, including colon, ovarian and thyroid, and certain leukemias.  Zelboraf is making inroads in these cancer types.

One-Two Punch: Curbing HER-2 Positive Breast Cancer with Herceptin-Tykerb Combo

Using Tykerb (lapatinib; GlaxoSmithKline, U.K.) and Herceptin (trastuzumab; Genentech, South San Francisco, Calif.) anti-HER-2 drugs together doubles the odds of recovery compared to either drug alone in HER-2 positive early breast cancer patients, reports NeoALTTO trial investigators in the January 17th online publication at Lancet Oncology journal homepage.  This study provides a proof-of-concept that dual HER-2 block is better than using a single agent HER-2 blocker.

Meeting Report: AACR-IASLC Joint Conference on Molecular Origins of Lung Cancer

Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related death, accounting for one-third of all cancer deaths.  Lung cancer is also the second most common cancer in men (after prostate cancer) and women (after breast cancer).  Over 200,000 people are diagnosed with and about 150,000 people die from lung cancer every year in the United States [a, b].  While surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy are routine treatment choices, in the recent years, patients have benefited from the introduction of targeted therapies based on the discovery of mutations in the EGFR and KRAS genes, and EML/ALK translocations.   EGFR mutations are more commonly found in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tumors in Asian population (30-40%) than Caucasians (10-15%).   About 4% of the patients carry EML/ALK translocation.


The ongoing 2012 AACR-IASLC Joint Conference on Molecular Origins of Lung Cancer: Biology, Therapy and Personalized Medicine in San Diego highlights some of the recent advances in lung cancer biology, diagnosis and treatment (see below)

Most Common Somatic Mutations in Cancer

Here is a list of most common mutations in cancer genes.  This list is from a recent PLoS ONE article and it contains 60 most common mutations in 15 cancer genes.