The Food and Drug Administration and pharmaceutical giant Merck have agreed on a "special protocol assessment" that will determine if the cancer drug oral deforolimus for patients with cancer of the body's connective tissue(s).

Merck and partner Ariad will begin patient enrollment for deforolimus later in September, with progression-free survival being the endpoint of the Phase III trial. The second endpoint? How about overall patient survival?

Since there are currently very few effective treatments for sarcoma cancers, my bet is that this new drug will be on the market the date the Phase III trial officially concludes.

The Journal of the National Cancer Institute published a study that stated -- a sharp decline in the use of premenopausal hormones was followed by a drop in the rate of breast cancer.

In the recent past, large clinical trials were conducted as part of the Women's Health Initiative that raised concerns about the health risks from hormonal therapies to manage menopausal symptoms. This report led many to stop using the drugs.

Since those reports that were published in 2002, the sharp decline in hormonal drugs has also seen a decline in breast cancer cases. They are not sure if this is the only reason that breast cancer rates have dropped.

The researchers however think the results of the trial provide additional evidence that recent declines in breast cancer incidence may be due in part to a decline in the use of postmenopausal hormones.

A study published in the journal Cancer says that improvements in the treatment of metastatic breast cancer are making a difference and patients are living longer with the disease.

Researchers in Canada conducted a study evaluating 2,000 women diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. The time periods in the study were broken up into four groups dating from 1991 until 2001. The researchers concluded that one year survival improved from 55 percent to 71 percent and two year survival improved from 33 percent to 45 percent.

The introduction of new chemotherapy drugs, new approaches to hormonal therapy, and new targeted therapy have been introduced over the period of time evaluated in the study.

Sure Touch is a unique digital sensing device that assists a physician or other health care professional in screening for breast cancer during routine exams. It can increase the chance of early diagnosis of breast cancer.

During the breast exam the device is placed on the breast and an image is then reflected on a computer screen. It produces a visual map of the breast and if a mass is detected it can show its estimated size, shape, hardness, and location.

A clinical trial published in the American Journal of Surgery says that Sure Touch more accurately determines if there is a mass and if the mass is cancerous than manual palpation alone. The study included 110 women who reported a mass in her breast. These women underwent palpation, then testing with Sure Touch, which was followed by ultrasound and mammography. Sure Touch identified the masses 94 percent of the time, while physician just feeling the breast identified masses 86 percent of the time.

Its always nice to hear about another tool that can be used to detect breast cancer! I hope physicians are taking advantage of this new technology.

Tykerb (lapatinib) may be effective at shrinking breast cancer tumors in the brain, researchers say. This drug is called a targeted therapy because it can kill cancer cells and leave normal cells alone. Tykerb targets HER2 and EGFR, two proteins that function abnormally in breast cancer cells.

A study was conducted that included 241 breast cancer patients with brain metastasis that continued to progress after radiation treatment and Herceptin therapy.

The study concluded that nearly half of the patients, 46 percent, experienced at least a twenty percent reduction in the size the the brain tumors.

The researchers concluded "Tykerb has promise in the treatment of brain metastasis".

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) is the most common form of leukemia in adults. According to the National Cancer Society an estimated 60,000 people are living throughout the United States with CLL.

An article published in The Lancet stated that the chemotherapy combination of Fludara plus Cytoxan improves progression free survival compared to therapy consisting of Fludara alone. The drugs used to treat CLL consist of Fludara, Cytoxan and chlorambucil. Recent studies have shown that Fludara in combination with Cytoxan to be the most effective treatment for CLL.

Researchers wanted to test to see if higher anticancer responses were seen with the combination of Fludara plus Cytoxan, treatment with Fludara alone or treatment with chlorambucil.

Those of us following cancer news wait with baited breath for news of cures and treatments with promising results. So it's always a bit of a disappointment when it's bad news, like this: New Zealand researches and determined that the clinical trails on an Ovarian Cancer Drug called DMXAA have not demonstrated any positive results.

The premise behind the drug was that it could kill cancer by reducing the blood supply to tumors, and it was given to Ovarian Cancer patients, along with Chemotherapy, to see if it would make a difference in recovery. Unfortunately, it didn't, and research on Ovarian cancer will be put on the backburner to make way for Lung Cancer trials at Novartis in New Zealand.

Herceptin (trastuzumab) is a targeted therapy used for treatment of HER2 positive breast cancer. Results of a Phase II clinical trial showed that Herceptin might have a roll in treating patients with HER2 positive advanced bladder cancer.

The researchers conducted the clinical trial to examine the effectiveness of Herceptin along with chemotherapy in a little under fifty patients with advanced bladder cancer. The chemotherapy given with the Herceptin was paclitaxel, carboplatin, and gemcitabine.

This was a small study and research will have to continue to see if this treatment is something that will be put into mainstream use. The study concluded that:

• 11 percent of patients experienced a complete disappearance of detectable cancer.
• 59 percent of patients experienced a partial disappearance of detectable cancer.

According to a New England Journal of Medicine article, the answer is no. Women with the breast cancer mutations BRCA1 and BRCA2 seem to have similar survival rates as women without these gene mutations.

A clinical trial was conducted including 1,500 patients. The researchers wanted to see if the patients with gene mutations had worse outcomes then those that did not have the gene mutations.

The researchers found:

• Overall, deaths rates from breast cancer were not significantly different among patients with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations from those without the mutations.
• Among patients who underwent treatment with chemotherapy, death rates from breast cancer were not significantly different between patients with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations from those without the mutations.

There's good news for prostate cancer patients who've had the disease spread to other parts of the body -- a new treatments, currently being tried out on hundreds of patients with promising results. The drug is called GVAX and it's referred to as a vaccine, although it doesn't work like most vaccines in the sense that it is administered after diagnosis and progression of the disease. According to this news story, GVAX works by adding prostate cancer cells to the body, but these new cells are unable to replicate.

Several members of my family have battled prostate cancer to varying degrees of success, and I know that it's really widespread. So this is great news, and I hope GVAX is the miracle the prostate cancer is looking for.

By the way, if you have prostate cancer, they're recruiting patients for their clinical trials.

A German biotech company has announced positive results from a genetically engineered herpes virus that is designed to kill cancer cells. It not only kills the cancer cells but leaves healthy tissue unharmed. Results from clinical trials has showed promise.

Being injected with a virus might seem strange but researchers believe that viruses could one day become a valuable addition to conventional cancer treatments.

The results have shown in animal testing and limited human testing the ability to kill colorectal and liver cancer cells.

Venous Thromboembolism, also know as a blood clot, is something that cancer patients should be aware. There is now a medicine approved for recurrent blood clots by the Food and Drug Administration called Fragmin. Fragmin is a type of heparin, for long term prevention of blood clots.

Blood clots form when red blood cells, platelets, white blood cells and other blood components form a mass within the blood vessel that can block the flow of blood back to the heart.

Chemotherapy treatments and hormonal treatments can increase the risk of blood clots occurring. Talk to your doctor, especially if you have a personal or family history of blood clots. A blood thinner might be recommended.

Symptoms can include:

• swelling
• warmth
• pain or redness in your legs
• chest pain
• trouble breathing

If you have any of these symptoms call your physician right away.

The Sister Study is a clinical trial that is now enrolling patients to determine what environmental factors and genes play a part in developing breast cancer.

Researchers want to find what causes breast cancer, and through understanding this they can work to prevent the disease altogether. There are some known factors to contribute and or prevent the development of breast cancer -- diet, exercise, hormone therapy, breast-feeding and smoking. However, the prevalence of the disease suggest there are other factors at play that we are not aware of at this time.

Women who fit the following criteria are urged to enroll in the Sister Study and join the fight against this disease:

• A sister related by blood, alive or deceased, diagnosed with breast cancer.
• Ages 35 -74 years.
• Living in the United States or Puerto Rico.

The Sister Study is being conducted by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and will be evaluating women from all backgrounds, occupations, races and ethnicities to attempt to identify environmental and genetic factors that may be associated with affecting the risk of breast cancer.

Recently, a report came out from Health Canada possibly linking Avastin, a drug for colorectal cancer, with tracheo-esophageal fistula (an abnormal connection between the esophagus and the trachea).

This week, the manufacturer of Avastin, Roche's Genentech, has warned healthcare providers that Avastin has caused at least one fatality in a recent clinical study in patients with small cell lung cancer, according to the FDA. Genentech stopped the trial after the individual's death.

There are no plan to "re-engineer" the drug for the treatment of SCLC although other programs will go forward including those for non small cell lung cancer and kidney cancer, according to a Roche spokeswoman.

The FDA said there were two confirmed events of TE fistula, one fatal and another death in which TE fistula was suspected. Six other cases of TE fistula have also been reported in other lung and esophageal cancer studies.

Symptoms of TE fistula included chest pain, shortness of breath, wheezing or labored breathing, coughing or choking when eating or drinking, coughing up food or liquids, or wheezing sounds following every breath.

Cancer on my mind is an article written by Dr. Albert Lim Kok Hooi, a consultant oncologist. He opens his article by saying:

As a doctor, I am interested in how the human mind works. As an oncologist, I am interested in the lure of alternative medicine. And so I have tried to understand why, in spite of all the scientific evidence at hand, there are many amongst us who do not want to undergo conventional cancer treatment – surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy and targeted therapy – but instead risk being treated by unproven and potentially dangerous alternative therapies.

He goes on to say that this happens because sometimes science is not very well understood. He talks about confirmed bias, a phenomenon in cognitive science, the science of how the mind works. He describes it as a person that -- notices the hits and ignores the misses in support of his own beliefs. So, basically someone might have a strong bias against chemotherapy, for no other reason than what they have seen on television, without really knowing the true facts.