Latest news with #DanaFarberCancerInstitute
The Independent
a day ago
- Health
- The Independent
Exercise as important as drugs in keeping cancer at bay, suggests major new study
A new international study has found that a three-year exercise programme improved survival rates in colon cancer patients, as well as keeping the disease at bay. Experts have said that the benefits of the programme rival some drugs, and that cancer centres and insurance plans should consider making exercise coaching a new standard of care for colon cancer survivors. In the meantime, patients can increase their physical activity after treatment, knowing that they are helping to prevent the cancer from returning. 'It's an extremely exciting study,' said Dr. Jeffrey Meyerhardt of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who wasn't involved in the research. It's the first randomized controlled trial to show how exercise can help cancer survivors, Meyerhardt said. Prior evidence was based on comparing active people with sedentary people, a type of study that can't prove cause and effect. The new study — conducted in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Israel and the United States — compared people who were randomly selected for an exercise program with those who instead received an educational booklet. 'This is about as high a quality of evidence as you can get,' said Dr. Julie Gralow, chief medical officer of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. 'I love this study because it's something I've been promoting but with less strong evidence for a long time.' The findings were featured Sunday at ASCO's annual meeting in Chicago and published by the New England Journal of Medicine. Academic research groups in Canada, Australia and the U.K. funded the work. Researchers followed 889 patients with treatable colon cancer who had completed chemotherapy. Half were given information promoting fitness and nutrition. The others worked with a coach, meeting every two weeks for a year, then monthly for the next two years. Coaches helped participants find ways to increase their physical activity. Many people, including Terri Swain-Collins, chose to walk for about 45 minutes several times a week. 'This is something I could do for myself to make me feel better,' said Swain-Collins, 62, of Kingston, Ontario. Regular contact with a friendly coach kept her motivated and accountable, she said. 'I wouldn't want to go there and say, 'I didn't do anything,' so I was always doing stuff and making sure I got it done.' After eight years, the people in the structured exercise program not only became more active than those in the control group but also had 28% fewer cancers and 37% fewer deaths from any cause. There were more muscle strains and other similar problems in the exercise group. 'When we saw the results, we were just astounded,' said study co-author Dr. Christopher Booth, a cancer doctor at Kingston Health Sciences Centre in Kingston, Ontario. Exercise programs can be offered for several thousand dollars per patient, Booth said, 'a remarkably affordable intervention that will make people feel better, have fewer cancer recurrences and help them live longer.' Researchers collected blood from participants and will look for clues tying exercise to cancer prevention, whether through insulin processing or building up the immune system or something else. Swain-Collins' coaching program ended, but she is still exercising. She listens to music while she walks in the countryside near her home. That kind of behavior change can be achieved when people believe in the benefits, when they find ways to make it fun and when there's a social component, said paper co-author Kerry Courneya, who studies exercise and cancer at the University of Alberta. The new evidence will give cancer patients a reason to stay motivated. 'Now we can say definitively exercise causes improvements in survival,' Courneya said. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
The Independent
2 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
Exercise ‘rivals drugs' in bid to stop cancer returning after treatment
A new international study has found that a three-year exercise programme improved survival rates in colon cancer patients, as well as keeping the disease at bay. Experts have said that the benefits of the programme rival some drugs, and that cancer centres and insurance plans should consider making exercise coaching a new standard of care for colon cancer survivors. In the meantime, patients can increase their physical activity after treatment, knowing that they are helping to prevent the cancer from returning. 'It's an extremely exciting study,' said Dr. Jeffrey Meyerhardt of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who wasn't involved in the research. It's the first randomized controlled trial to show how exercise can help cancer survivors, Meyerhardt said. Prior evidence was based on comparing active people with sedentary people, a type of study that can't prove cause and effect. The new study — conducted in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, Israel and the United States — compared people who were randomly selected for an exercise program with those who instead received an educational booklet. 'This is about as high a quality of evidence as you can get,' said Dr. Julie Gralow, chief medical officer of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. 'I love this study because it's something I've been promoting but with less strong evidence for a long time.' The findings were featured Sunday at ASCO's annual meeting in Chicago and published by the New England Journal of Medicine. Academic research groups in Canada, Australia and the U.K. funded the work. Researchers followed 889 patients with treatable colon cancer who had completed chemotherapy. Half were given information promoting fitness and nutrition. The others worked with a coach, meeting every two weeks for a year, then monthly for the next two years. Coaches helped participants find ways to increase their physical activity. Many people, including Terri Swain-Collins, chose to walk for about 45 minutes several times a week. 'This is something I could do for myself to make me feel better,' said Swain-Collins, 62, of Kingston, Ontario. Regular contact with a friendly coach kept her motivated and accountable, she said. 'I wouldn't want to go there and say, 'I didn't do anything,' so I was always doing stuff and making sure I got it done.' After eight years, the people in the structured exercise program not only became more active than those in the control group but also had 28% fewer cancers and 37% fewer deaths from any cause. There were more muscle strains and other similar problems in the exercise group. 'When we saw the results, we were just astounded,' said study co-author Dr. Christopher Booth, a cancer doctor at Kingston Health Sciences Centre in Kingston, Ontario. Exercise programs can be offered for several thousand dollars per patient, Booth said, 'a remarkably affordable intervention that will make people feel better, have fewer cancer recurrences and help them live longer.' Researchers collected blood from participants and will look for clues tying exercise to cancer prevention, whether through insulin processing or building up the immune system or something else. Swain-Collins' coaching program ended, but she is still exercising. She listens to music while she walks in the countryside near her home. That kind of behavior change can be achieved when people believe in the benefits, when they find ways to make it fun and when there's a social component, said paper co-author Kerry Courneya, who studies exercise and cancer at the University of Alberta. The new evidence will give cancer patients a reason to stay motivated. 'Now we can say definitively exercise causes improvements in survival,' Courneya said. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Medscape
3 days ago
- Health
- Medscape
Sacituzumab or Chemo in First-Line TNBC: Which Is Better?
Treatment with pembrolizumab and the antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) sacituzumab govitecan improved progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with PD-L1-positive locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) compared with treatment with pembrolizumab and chemotherapy, the results of ASCENT-04/KEYNOTE-D19 showed. Swapping in sacituzumab govitecan for chemotherapy led to a 3.4-month improvement in PFS and an almost twofold longer duration of response, with potentially fewer adverse events and a lower rate of discontinuations. Currently, pembrolizumab with chemotherapy is the standard of care for PD-L1-positive TNBC, but the 3-year survival rate remains low at about 36%. These findings support sacituzumab govitecan and pembrolizumab as the new standard for previously untreated patients in this setting, said lead investigator Sara Tolaney, MD, MPH, who presented the results at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2025 annual meeting. Once the new combination with sacituzumab govitecan, which targets the Trop-2 protein on tumor cells, is approved, 'I would recommend it in the first-line setting,' said Tolaney, a breast medical oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, Massachusetts. 'I think this really does change the game for' PD-L1-positive metastatic TNBC, said study discussant Jane Meisel, MD, a breast medical oncologist at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. 'I look forward to seeing this potentially make its way into clinical practice.' The study included 443 women who had either de novo metastatic disease or were at least 6 months away from completing systemic therapy for early-stage disease. Patients had a combined positive PD-L1 score of 10 or higher, and about 40% of TNBC tumors expressed the Trop-2 protein. Half of the patients were randomly assigned to 10 mg/kg sacituzumab govitecan on day 1 and day 8, plus pembrolizumab 200 mg on day 1 of 21-day cycles for a maximum of 35 cycles (n = 221). The other half were randomly assigned to pembrolizumab on the same schedule plus investigators' choice of gemcitabine plus carboplatin or paclitaxel/nab-paclitaxel (n = 222). Approximately 5% of patients had received a prior checkpoint inhibitor for earlier-stage disease; 43% of women in the chemotherapy arm crossed over to sacituzumab govitecan monotherapy after progression. At a median follow-up of 14 months, median PFS was 11.2 months in the sacituzumab govitecan group vs 7.8 months in the chemotherapy group, which translated to a 35% lower risk of cancer progression during follow-up (hazard ratio [HR], 0.65; P = .0009). Tolaney noted that PFS in the ADC group increased with higher Trop-2 expression, but the ADC group also did better than the chemotherapy arm regardless of Trop-2 levels, suggesting that 'you didn't need to preselect patients for use of sacituzumab by Trop-2.' Median duration of response was 16.5 months with sacituzumab govitecan vs 9.2 months with chemotherapy. Although overall survival follow-up is ongoing, the trend favors the ADC group (HR, 0.89). Commenting on the study, Julie Gralow, MD, a breast medical oncologist at the University of Washington, Seattle, noted that sacituzumab govitecan is already indicated as monotherapy in the third or later lines for metastatic disease. The ASCENT-04 results 'will likely move this drug, this regimen, earlier in the metastatic setting' for TNBC, Gralow agreed. On the side effect front, the most common (≥10% of patients) grade 3 and 4 adverse events in the sacituzumab govitecan group were neutropenia (43%) and diarrhea (10%); in the chemotherapy group, the most common adverse events were neutropenia (45%), anemia (16%), and thrombocytopenia (14%). Serious adverse events were numerically more common in the ADC arm (38 vs 31), but there were fewer dose reductions and fewer treatment discontinuations than with chemotherapy. 'The nice thing is that many of us have used both of these agents, sacituzumab and pembrolizumab, quite a bit,' and with no new safety signals, breast oncologists will 'feel comfortable with [the combination] once it makes its way into the clinic,' Meisel said. The work was funded by Gilead Sciences, maker of sacituzumab govitecan. Tolaney disclosed research and travel funding from Gilead and is a Gilead advisor. Gralow and Meisel reported no relevant financial relationships.
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Cranston native running in his first Boston Marathon
CRANSTON, R.I. (WPRI) — The 129th Boston Marathon is three weeks away. Every year, tens of thousands of athletes make the 26.2 mile journey from Hopkinton to Copley Square. This year, Cranston native Keegan Reilly will be among them. Reilly told 12 News that, while he's never run in a marathon before, he's excited to be doing so for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute — a cause that's become close to his heart. The 23-year-old is specifically raising money for 'Team Christine' — a Dedham-based nonprofit honoring his boss' late wife who died from pancreatic cancer. Reilly is running not only in memory of his boss' wife, but also for his grandmother, who is currently batting the disease. 'It feels great to be a part of something,' he said. Reilly said he's been training for months. 'Until I started training, the most I ever ran was six miles,' he said. 'So far, the longest run I've completed was 21 miles with a friend of mine.' Despite the challenges he's faced, Reilly said he's inspired by those he's supporting. 'The battle the people who are diagnosed with these diseases fight everyday is insurmountable, and they seem to do it,' Reilly said. 'My own grandma has such a can-do attitude and has never complained once, so when you're running up a hill and it gets hard, it's easier to push through.' Reilly said he and his fellow runners set a goal to raise $10,000 each, and he believes they'll surpass that. Download the and apps to get breaking news and weather alerts. Watch or with the new . Follow us on social media: Close Thanks for signing up! Watch for us in your inbox. Subscribe Now Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
