New on NCI’s Websites for December 2016

December 28, 2016 by NCI Staff

A breast tumor (green and blue) with a cluster of slow-growing treatment-resistant cells (red).

Credit: National Cancer Institute

NCI’s cancer information products are constantly evolving and growing, so periodically we provide updates on new content of interest to the cancer community.

Overcoming Cancer Treatment Resistance

For many patients, cancer drugs eventually stop working. Treatment resistance is a common occurrence that can lead to relapse and even death. This new research update explains how scientists are exploring combinations of different cancer drugs that have the potential to kill more cancer cells and overcome or delay drug resistance.

New Resource Links Cancer Registry and Consumer Survey Data

The Healthcare Delivery Research Program, part of NCI’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS), has launched a new, publicly accessible resource, SEER-CAHPS. This resource links data from NCI’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) cancer registry program with data from Medicare’s Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) patient surveys.

Brain and Other Nervous System Cancers | Did You Know?

The latest video in NCI’s Did You Know? video series discusses the different types of brain cancer in children and adults, as well as risk factors, symptoms, and survival trends.

New Videos on NCI’s YouTube Channel

New videos have been added to NCI’s YouTube channel, including one on the NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP), a recording of a recent Facebook Live event discussing lung cancer clinical trials , and a Spanish-language introduction to NCI’s Cancer Information Service .

Springboard Beyond Cancer

NCI and the American Cancer Society have launched Springboard Beyond Cancer, a mobile-friendly web tool to help people with cancer manage the side effects of cancer treatment and cope with the emotional challenges of having cancer.

Lung Cancer Map Story

NCI’s Surveillance Research Program, part of DCCPS, debuted a new Map Story on lung cancer to coincide with Lung Cancer Awareness Month (November). Map Stories illustrate incidence, mortality, and screening trends for several types of cancer.

Researcher Mines TCGA Data to Study Her Own Cancer

In this engaging story from the NCI Center for Cancer Genomics’ Insights & Innovations Blog, computational biologist Shirley Pepke, Ph.D., confronts her own diagnosis of advanced ovarian cancer by mining data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) to explore her treatment options.

Updates to Research Area Pages

Two pages in the Research Areas collection on NCI’s website have been updated. This series of pages describe the breadth of NCI’s work and the programs the institute supports to advance cancer research. The Cancer Biology and Cancer Health Disparities pages were updated to include new NCI-supported research programs in those areas.

Talking to Your Loved One with Advanced Cancer

Caring for a loved one with advanced cancer can be challenging. A new section on NCI’s website offers helpful suggestions for talking with your loved one about their advanced cancer and showing them you care.

Managing Costs and Medical Information

Cancer treatment can be very expensive, even for those who have health insurance. This new page on managing the costs of cancer includes information on understanding insurance and medical costs, saving money on pain medicine, and ways to track and organize medical information and bills.

Medicinal Mushrooms PDQ® Health Professional Summary

NCI’s PDQ collection includes a new summary on the use of medicinal mushrooms in the treatment of cancer. PDQ cancer information summaries provide comprehensive, peer-reviewed, evidence-based information about cancer.

NCI Clinical Trial for Patients with Newly Diagnosed Prostate Cancer

Men with newly diagnosed high-risk prostate cancer will be treated with drugs that block the production and activity of the male hormone androgen in this NIH Clinical Center clinical trial. Researchers hope to use advanced imaging and targeted biopsies to identify which men are most likely to benefit from this therapy before surgery to remove the prostate.

No Safe Level of Smoking

A new study from NCI researchers shows that any level of smoking is harmful; people who consistently smoked an average of less than one cigarette per day over their lifetimes had nine times the risk of dying from lung cancer than people who never smoked.

NCI-MATCH Clinical Trial

The NCI-Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice (NCI-MATCH) trial page has been updated with revised accrual and eligibility information. NCI-MATCH investigators analyze patients’ tumors to determine whether they contain gene abnormalities for which a targeted drug exists and assign treatment based on those abnormalities.

New Drug Information Summaries

Several new summaries have been added to NCI’s collection of drug information summaries.

A drug combination called CEV is used in children to treat retinoblastoma (cancer in the retina). The combination includes the drugs carboplatin, etoposide, and vincristine.
A new drug called olaratumab (Lartruvo™) was recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat soft tissue sarcoma that cannot be cured with surgery or radiation therapy.
Nilutamide (Nilandron®) is used after surgery to treat metastatic prostate cancer.

Additionally, the summary on pembrolizumab (Keytruda®) has been updated to reflect the FDA’s recent changes to its approval for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). This immunotherapy drug is now approved for first-line use in some cases of metastatic NSCLC, and the indication for second-line treatment of metastatic NSCLC has been expanded.