Cancer

April 20, 2021

The inside story behind the Hillsboro Village “Hope” mural: a brother’s love and a message for Children’s Hospital

Lance Gregory wanted the message to be visible from the windows of Children’s Hospital — in memory of his brother Cory

By Christina Echegaray
April 20, 2021

New therapeutic strategy for leukemia syndrome

Using primary cells from patients with chronic myelomonocytic leukemia, Vanderbilt researchers found synergistic inhibition of cell viability and proliferation, suggesting a new treatment strategy.

By Leigh MacMillan
April 16, 2021

New Clinician Spotlight: Laura Kennedy

Laura Kennedy, MD, PhD, has joined Vanderbilt University Medical Center from the University of Washington School of Medicine/Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle where she was acting instructor and research associate.

By VUMC News and Communications
April 15, 2021

Method proposed to correct misinterpretations of long-term survival rates for immunotherapies

Immune checkpoint inhibitors have transformed cancer care to the point where the popular Cox proportional-hazards model provides misleading estimates of the treatment effect, according to a new study published April 15 in JAMA Oncology.

By Tom Wilemon
Benjamin Brown, left, Jens Meiler, PhD, Zhenfang Du, PhD, and colleagues are studying the functional consequences of genetic mutations and how those changes can drive cancerous growth.
April 8, 2021

Personalized Structural Biology aids cancer treatment decisions

Cancer specialists at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, in partnership with biochemists and structural biologists across the Vanderbilt University campus, are taking “personalized” cancer therapy to a new level.

By Bill Snyder
From left, Kimryn Rathmell, MD, PhD, Bradley Reinfeld, Matthew Madden and Jeffrey Rathmell, PhD, have discovered that immune cells — not cancer cells — are the major glucose consumers in the tumor microenvironment, upending a century-old observation.
April 7, 2021

Study revises understanding of cancer metabolism

Tumors consume glucose at high rates, but a team of Vanderbilt researchers has discovered that cancer cells themselves are not the culprit, upending models of cancer metabolism that have been developed and refined over the last 100 years.

By Leigh MacMillan
April 6, 2021

Vanderbilt mourns the passing of Pierre Massion

Pierre Massion, MD, Cornelius Vanderbilt Chair and Professor of Medicine, an internationally known expert on early detection and prevention strategies for lung cancer, died April 4 of an apparent heart attack. He was 58.
By Tom Wilemon
April 1, 2021

Breast cancer cells ‘steal’ nutrients from immune cells: study

Triple-negative breast cancer cells engage in a “glutamine steal” — outcompeting T cells for the nutrient glutamine and impairing their ability to kill tumor cells, Vanderbilt researchers have discovered.
By Leigh MacMillan
March 26, 2021

Total skin electron therapy offered in Spring Hill

A radiation therapy device for the treatment of a rare cancer has been designed, custom built and installed at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center at Maury Regional Spring Hill, offering patients from Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and southern Tennessee more convenient care.
By Tom Wilemon
March 25, 2021

Forty-three percent of melanoma patients have chronic complications from immunotherapies

Chronic side effects among melanoma survivors after treatment with anti-PD-1 immunotherapies are more common than previously recognized, according to a study published March 25 in JAMA Oncology.
By Tom Wilemon
March 23, 2021

Prostate cancer microenvironment

Distinct cancer-associated fibroblasts in the prostate tumor microenvironment may influence tumor progression and could point to new therapeutic targets.
By Leigh MacMillan
March 22, 2021

Chemo for cancer lowers dementia risk

Cancer chemotherapy lowered risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurocognitive disorders that disproportionately affect older people.
By Paul Govern
March 18, 2021

Vanderbilt research played key role in new lung screen guidelines

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has formally recommended two changes that will nearly double the number of people eligible for lung cancer screening by lowering the age from 55 to 50 and reducing the number of smoking history pack years from 30 to 20.
By Tom Wilemon