• share
• favorite_border

Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium (BCSC) investigators have received a $17 million program project grant renewal from the National Cancer Institute to study the effectiveness of different breast cancer screening and surveillance strategies using digital mammography, digital breast tomosynthesis (3D mammography), and breast MRI. Co-led by UC Davis researcher Diana Miglioretti, the consortium seeks to ensure that women get personalized care based on their individual risk and preferences.

• share
• favorite_border

With its internationally renowned school of veterinary medicine and its NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center, UC Davis is uniquely positioned to harness the power of each to tackle one of life’s greatest challenges: cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

Second cancers in children and adolescents and young adults (AYA) are far deadlier than they are in older adults and may partially account for the relatively poor outcomes of cancer patients ages 15-39 overall, a new study by UC Davis researchers has found."Second Primary Malignant Neoplasms and Survival in Adolescent and Adult Cancer Survivors" is published today in JAMA Oncology.

• share
• favorite_border

In a new study published today in JCI Insight, UC Davis researchers have shown that combining high-intensity focused ultrasound with two immunotherapies (a PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor and TLR9 agonist) can produce excellent response rates in mouse models of epithelial cancer. They also found that, for the combination to be effective, immunotherapies must come first.

• share
• favorite_border

Recognizing a critical need to improve national vaccination rates for the human papillomavirus (HPV), UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center has again united with each of the 69 National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer centers in issuing a joint statement in support of recently revised recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Patients with disseminated advanced cancer who undergo surgery are far more likely to endure long hospital stays and readmissions, referrals to extended care facilities and death, UC Davis researchers have found.

• share
• favorite_border

Painful sex in women after cancer treatment is relatively common, often treatable and needs to be addressed by medical providers, a UC Davis oncologist and researcher suggests.

• share
• favorite_border

Hmong Americans are more likely to understand the importance of colorectal cancer screening and to get screened when they’re provided information by specially trained Hmong lay health educators, new research from UC Davis has found.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at UC Davis and Ionis Pharmaceuticals have developed a hybrid treatment that harnesses a monoclonal antibody to deliver antisense DNA to acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cells and that may lead to less toxic treatments for the disease.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Diana Miglioretti, UC Davis dean’s professor of biostatistics and an internationally recognized breast cancer screening expert, has received $7.5 million to determine the effectiveness of two supplemental breast screening and diagnostic workup strategies -- digital breast tomosynthesis (3D mammography) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) -- used with mammography for cancer detection. Miglioretti’s team also will work to determine whether effectiveness of the screening strategies depends on a woman’s breast density.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at UC Davis have shown that docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), a fatty acid commonly found in fish and fish oil supplements, reduces renal cell carcinoma invasiveness, growth rate, and blood vessel growth when combined with the anti-cancer therapy regorafenib. The study was published in the May issue of the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics.

• share
• favorite_border

A community-based hepatitis B virus screening effort led by UC Davis researchers found that targeted outreach to Asian American populations can identify groups at high risk for infection and direct them to appropriate follow-up care to help prevent the onset of liver diseases, including cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

UC Davis researchers have shown that radiation therapy following surgery benefits older patients more than their younger counterparts, a surprising finding that could change the way some patients are treated for soft tissue sarcomas (STS). Also, the photo upload is not working. I'll send by email.

• share
• favorite_border

Coloring provides a quiet respite at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center.

• share
• favorite_border

African American and Hispanic adolescents and young adults fare far worse than their white counterparts when faced with a mostly curable type of cancer, Hodgkin lymphoma, a study by a UC Davis epidemiologist has found

• share
• favorite_border

In a comprehensive modeling study, researchers from UC Davis and other institutions have found that breast cancer screening with digital mammography poses only a small risk of radiation-induced breast cancer for most women. However, the research showed increased risk for women with large breasts or breast implants, who must often receive extra screening views, increasing their radiation exposure.

• share
• favorite_border

A systematic review of the scientific literature on dense breasts by researchers at UC Davis and other institutions has found that determinations of breast density can be unreliable and that as many as 19 percent of women are re-categorized as dense rather than non-dense or vice versa from one mammogram to the next. The study also found that supplemental diagnostic screenings for women with dense breasts find additional breast cancers but also greatly increase false positive results.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

In a game-changing study, researchers at UC Davis and other organizations have shown that the enzyme cyclin-dependent kinase 1 (CDK1), which plays a key role in DNA repair, also leaves the nucleus to boost cellular energy production. By irradiating normal cells, the team showed that CDK1 turned up production of ATP, cellular energy packets that – in this case – provided the necessary power supply to fix the radiation-damaged DNA.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center have shown that the microRNA, miR-124, reduced tumor growth and increased cell death in castration-resistant prostate cancer. This small RNA fragment hit multiple targets, reducing androgen receptor signaling and reviving the potency of enzalutamide, a treatment for advanced prostate cancer. In addition, miR-124 impeded EZH2 and Src, proteins that contribute to treatment resistance. The research was published online Monday in Cancer Research.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

In a study conducted to inform American Cancer Society (ACS) breast cancer screening guidelines, UC Davis researcher Diana L. Miglioretti reports a screening mammogram once every two years is safe for postmenopausal women at average risk of breast cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

A UC Davis research team has been awarded $15.5 million to build the world’s first total-body positron emission tomography (PET) scanner, which could fundamentally change the way cancers are tracked and treated and put the university on the nation’s leading edge of molecular imaging.

• share
• favorite_border

A costly tool used on nearly all mammograms does not increase cancer detection rates and should no longer be covered by Medicare, argues Joshua Fenton, a family physician and comparative effectiveness researcher in an editorial published online today in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at UC Davis, in collaboration with colleagues at Jackson Laboratory, have developed a new way to personalize treatments for aggressive bladder cancer. In early proof-of-concept research, the team took bladder tumors from individual patients, identified actionable mutations and grafted the tumors into mice. From there, the researchers simultaneously tested multiple therapies in the tumor models. Treatments that were effective in the models could then be given to patients. The research was published today in the journal PLOS One.

• share
• favorite_border

In findings never before seen in melanoma, a novel combination therapy was found to be highly effective at treating patients with skin metastases, new research from UC Davis has shown.

• share
• favorite_border

Combing data collected on thousands of California ovarian cancer patients, UC Davis researchers have determined that almost one-third survived at least 10 years after diagnosis.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

An international team of scientists, led by UC Davis nephrologist Robert Weiss, have used a sophisticated combination of proteomics and metabolomics to show how renal cell carcinoma (RCC) reprograms its metabolism and evades the immune system. In addition, the study found that cancer grade has a major impact on this reprogramming. These results, published online in the journal Cancer Research, point to new therapeutic options for this particularly deadly cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

The number of surgeries performed on terminally ill cancer patients has not dropped in recent years ¬, despite more attention to the importance of less invasive care for these patients to relieve symptoms and improve quality of life.

• share
• favorite_border

John M. Boone, a UC Davis medical physicist and professor of radiology, has been awarded a $2.88 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to further develop and research computed tomography (CT) to detect breast cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

The UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine have entered into a collaboration with Foundation Medicine, a leading molecular information company. The collaboration brings comprehensive genomic profiling into standard of care at UC Davis, allowing physicians to prescribe the most effective, targeted cancer treatments to patients based on the genomic information specific to each individual’s cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

Two UC Davis researchers will help run a major national study to improve surveillance practices for patients with small lung nodules identified on CT imaging and extremely low risk for lung cancer.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at UC Davis have illuminated an important distinction between mice and humans: how human livers heal. The difference centers on a protein called PPARα, which activates liver regeneration. Normally, mouse PPARα is far more active and efficient than the human form, allowing mice to quickly regenerate damaged livers. However, the research shows that protein fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) can boost the regenerative effects of human PPARα. The findings suggest that the molecule could offer significant therapeutic benefits for patients who have had a liver transplant or suffer from liver disease. The study was published in the journal Oncotarget.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at UC Davis have developed and characterized a molecule that interferes with the internal regulation of cancer cells, causing them to self-destruct. This novel mechanism was found to be effective against glioma cells – responsible for a usually fatal type of brain cancer – and could be applicable to other highly aggressive cancers.

• share
• favorite_border

Ten months after California legislators enacted a controversial law mandating that radiologists notify women if they have dense breast tissue, UC Davis researchers have found that half of primary care physicians are still unfamiliar with the law and many don’t feel comfortable answering breast density-related questions from patients. The findings, to be published in the March print edition of Journal of the American College of Radiology, suggest that if the law is going to have any significant impact on patient care, primary care providers need more education about breast density and secondary imaging options.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists have long known the p53 protein suppresses tumors. However, a recent animal study by UC Davis researchers has uncovered a complicated relationship between p53 and another protein, Rbm38, highlighting how the body calibrates protein levels. Too much Rbm38 reduces p53 levels, increasing the risk of cancer. Too little Rbm38 allows p53 overexpression, causing premature aging. The study was published online in the journal PNAS Dec. 15.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at UC Davis and other institutions have found that diets rich in whole walnuts or walnut oil slowed prostate cancer growth in mice. In addition, both walnuts and walnut oil reduced cholesterol and increased insulin sensitivity. The walnut diet also reduced levels of the hormone IGF-1, which had been previously implicated in both prostate and breast cancer. The study was published online in the Journal of Medicinal Food.

• share
• favorite_border

Immunotherapy that can be effective against tumors in young, thin mice can be lethal to obese ones, a new study by UC Davis researchers has found. The findings, published online today in The Journal of Experimental Medicine, suggest a possible link between body fat and the risk of toxicity from some types of immunotherapy.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at UC Davis have found that the drug bortezomib effectively treats chronic graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), a common and debilitating side effect from allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplants. The trial showed that bortezomib provides better outcomes than existing treatments and does not impair the immune response against residual cancer cells, or the graft-versus-tumor effect (GVT).

• share
• favorite_border

Kit Lam and colleagues from UC Davis and other institutions have created dynamic nanoparticles (NPs) that could provide an arsenal of applications to diagnose and treat cancer. Built on an easy-to-make polymer, these particles can be used as contrast agents to light up tumors for MRI and PET scans or deliver chemo and other therapies to destroy tumors. In addition, the particles are biocompatible and have shown no toxicity. The study was published online today in Nature Communications.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at UC Davis, City of Hope, Taipai Medical University and National Health Research Institutes in Taiwan have discovered how a drug that deprives the cells of a key amino acid specifically kills cancer cells.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at UC Davis, University of Massachusetts and Harvard Medical School have created a combination drug that controls both tumor growth and metastasis. By combining a COX-2 inhibitor, similar to Celebrex, and an epoxide hydrolase (sEH) inhibitor, the drug controls angiogenesis (blood vessel formation), limiting a tumor’s ability to grow and spread. The study appears today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at UC Davis have determined that surgical biopsies can be safely performed on select patients with late-stage non-small cell lung cancer, which should enhance their access to drugs that target specific genetic mutations such as epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR).

• share
• favorite_border

Colorectal cancer screening saves lives, but too few people get tested. In an effort to increase these numbers,researchers from UC Davis and elsewhere investigated whether an individualized interactive multimedia computer program (IMCP) would spur patients to get screened. Tailored to each patient’s knowledge, language (English or Spanish), and perceptions, this sophisticated intervention increased patients’ familiarity with their options and motivation for screening. However, the program generated only a modest increase in actual screening, one no greater than the increase resulting from a simple non-tailored “electronic leaflet.” The paper was published in the Annals of Family Medicine.

• share
• favorite_border

An international team led by researchers at UC Davis has shown that the cyclin B1/Cdk1 protein complex, which plays a key role in cell division, also boosts the mitochondrial activity to power that process. This is the first time the complex has been shown to perform both jobs. This newfound ability could make cyclin B1/Cdk1 an excellent target to control cellular energy production, potentially advancing cancer care and regenerative medicine. The research was published online today in the journal Developmental Cell.

• share
• favorite_border

In an effort to reduce cancer health disparities among Asian-Americans, UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center now offers individual, in-language education and culturally sensitive materials for every Asian-American cancer patient.