Douglas Johnson

Cancer immunotherapy drugs linked with more serious heart effects

Vanderbilt University Medical Center investigators have identified a growing number of serious and sometimes fatal cases of heart problems among cancer patients treated with some forms of immunotherapy.

Study details rare heart risk of certain cancer therapies

Precision medicine already changing cancer treatment strategies

The ability to test patients’ cancers for individual differences, mainly at the genetic level, and to make treatment decisions based on those differences is the hallmark of precision medicine, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) is among the leaders of this new approach to diagnosis and treatment.

Melanoma response to immune therapy

Melanoma-specific expression of a certain protein identifies tumors that are more responsive to an immune therapy.

Investigators find clues to melanoma treatment resistance

Nearly half of all patients with malignant melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, have a mutation in the BRAF gene found in their tumors. Mutations in the BRAF gene turn on a cancer growth switch known as the MAP kinase pathway.

Gene mutations may predict melanoma response to immunotherapies

Melanoma patients whose tumors test positive for mutations in the NRAS gene were more likely to benefit from new immunotherapy drugs, according to a new study led by Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) investigators.

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