Welcome once again to the Cancer Research Blog Carnival! I’m pleased to be hosting the fourth edition. There were a ton of great submissions, so without further ado, let’s get started.

Sure, smoking is bad for you, but could it also be bad for businesses? Devon Carlson at Ask The CareerCounselor thinks so, and she’s citing some data to back it up:

[A] study of more than 14,000 workers found that nonsmokers took an average of 25 sick leave days per year while their smoking colleagues who took 36 sick days annually. … “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, employee tobacco use costs companies an estimated $167 billion annually. In other words, for a company that employees 10,000 people, if just 20% of those workers smoke that company spends over $15 million per year on healthcare and other costs associated with the habit.”

Now, I’m no mathologist, but it seems to me that companies should have at least some interest in reducing smoking prevalence among their workers. It’ll not only save lives but also save them a nice chunk of change in the end. It’s a win-win.

Keith Robison over at Omics! Omics! offers a nice overview of the VEGF-targeted therapies that are currently in use and introduces us to a relatively new treatment known as VEGF Trap:

VEGF-Trap is a pastiche of carefully chosen protein parts: pieces of two different human VEGF receptors plus a bit from a human antibody (IgG1) constant region.”

When this protein construct latches onto free VEGF, its binding to its receptor is inhibited, which in theory reduces tumor-induced blood vessel formation. According to a recent study investigating the efficacy of this therapy, precise dosing via comparison of free vs. “trapped” VEGF in the bloodstream may be employed, in contrast with typical dosing schedules based on body weight, age, etc. that are often highly variable from individual to individual.

VEGF-Trap forms stable, inert, monomeric complexes with VEGF which remain in circulation. By measuring the amount of free and VEGF-complexed VEGF-Trap in circulation they can measure VEGF levels and identify a dose which ensures that maximal trapping occurs.”

Walter, the genius behind the fantastic Highlight Health, blogs about recent papers in Cancer Research that presented some alarming news about one common treatment for prostate cancer: We may be shooting ourselves in the foot. (Or the crotch?) It appears that androgen deprivation therapy, thought to slow growth of cancerous prostate cells and halt progression of prostate cancer, may also be upregulating Nestin, a protein that appears to play a role in metastasis:

[The reseachers] examined Nestin gene expression in prostate cancer samples from 254 patients that encompassed the entire clinical spectrum of the disease, from untreated localized tumors to lethal metastatic cases. Increased levels of Nestin gene expression were found exclusively in lethal cases following androgen deprivation therapy. … “…another study in a genetically engineered mouse model of human prostate cancer demonstrated that prolonged exposure of the mice to reduced levels of androgen accelerated prostate tumor development compared to mice exposed to physiologically normal levels of androgen.”

Doctor David tells us about an exciting new drug that is being used in treating a type of soft tissue sarcoma and offers up a few reasons that this is totally awesome.

In addition, he gives a really nice review of the different types of cancer vaccines out there:

A peptide vaccine is most like the flu shot—a patient is injected with a piece of a protein that comes from a cancer cell in the hopes that this will trigger the immune system to respond to the protein and kill whatever cells (cancer cells in this case) have the protein… A dendritic cell vaccine, in contrast, involves taking immune system cells from the patient, putting the piece of protein that is being targeted by the vaccine into these cells in the lab, and then injecting the manipulated cells into the patient.”

Good stuff to know. The research in this area is booming. Why not, after all, let your body attack cancer for you?

Good thing we have these vaccines, too, because as Ian York writes on his blog Mystery Rays From Outer Space, it’s commonly thought that overt cancers have already escaped surveillance by the immune system:

The present model is that the immune system is just one checkpoint (though probably a fairly significant barrier) that the developing cancer cell must overcome. That means that by the time we can detect a cancer, it’s already been selected to be immune resistant. The cancers that were susceptible to the immune system were killed off when they were just a little cluster of cells, long before there was anything we could identify.”

Cancer vaccines, then, just give the immune system a little nudge.

As a follow-up, Ian also has a two-part series on cancer immunity in-depth: the three Es of cancer immunity (elimination, equilibrium, and escape), and another looking more specifically on the balance between tumor cells and the immune system. Together they’re a very nice explanation of a fascinating paper.

Abel Pharmboy over at Terra Sigillata highlights an unfortunate state of governmental and financial affairs for lymphoma patients that may prevent them from receiving a highly effective treatment, radioimmunotherapy. He quotes a recent Newsweek article that sheds light on the situation and also adds his own commentary:

‘What if they found a cure for a cancer that afflicts half a million people, but a combination of stupid bureaucrats and greedy doctors kept patients from getting it? ‘It’s the kind of scenario that seems like the province of conspiracy theorists or alternative-medicine wackos–but is actually happening right now with a proven treatment for certain common types of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, the sixth-most frequently occurring cancer in the United States.’ [The Newsweek author] does a fabulous job in describing the whole backstory on the potential loss of a truly disease-altering therapy that is among the most effective drugs in producing long-term cancer remissions.”

Deplorable.

Kamel of Bayblab fame (the godfathers of this prestigious and ubiquitous carnival) recently wrote about a novel drug currently in clinical trials that may abrogate the effects of commonly mutated players in cancer by encouraging cells to “ignore” nonsense mutations:

The p53 gene is mutated in over 50% of human tumours and of those mutants, almost 8% are nonsense mutations. Research has shown that reactivation of p53 has therapeutic potential in mouse models of cancer, leading to growth arrest and regression of tumours.”

(Incidentally, the Bayblab crew will be discussing these carnival inclusions in greater depth on the next episode of the wonderful Bayblab Podcast. Be sure to check it out.)

Finally, Matthew Zachary, the force behind I’m Too Young For This, tells us the emotional story of his battle with medulloblastoma and also tells us what he thinks of the word that gets thrown around all too often:

‘Cure’ has unfortunately become nothing more than a catchy, exploited, arbitrary and abstract health marketing term that has lost all sense of meaning and purpose — and I am not alone in this sentiment. Perhaps someday down the road a ‘cure’ may take the form of individualized genetic vaccines, which enable our bodies to manage cancer cells more effectively and prevent them from spreading. But we’re still going to get cancer. It just won’t be nearly as life threatening or life altering as it is today.”

Word to your mother. This is good reading.

That’s it! Hope you enjoyed the fourth edition. Look for #5 in early January.

Want to host a future edition? Get in touch with these folks.