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As the international community of experts in head-and-neck cancers gathered virtually last week to share new ideas and treatment strategies at the just-ended American Head & Neck Society (AHNS) 10th International Conference on Head and Neck Cancer, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center teams are presented new research on both the basic science supporting new treatments as well as opportunities to improve the early and accurate diagnosis of thyroid cancer and other head/neck malignancies.

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A Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center team reports new data on the promise of combining standard treatment for breast cancer with a particular form of cancer immunotherapy — dendritic-cell (DC) treatment vaccines.

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Two Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center experts were invited to present new insights on treatment of gastroesophageal cancers during the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer 2021. In their talks, both presented July 1, the Roswell Park physician-researchers highlighted easily adoptable methods that may help other clinicians to provide care supporting improved patient outcomes.

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Even as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center scientists continued to draw support for their innovative research proposals, garnering more than $34 million in competitive grants from government agencies and private funders. These recent grants fund efforts to improve outcomes for patients with some of the most challenging cancer types — including triple-negative breast cancer, pancreatic cancer and head and neck cancers — and to advance what we know about the impact of COVID-19 in cancer patients.

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New collaborative research shows that treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) has led to a significant improvement in survival and response rates among patients with a particularly aggressive type of kidney cancer: advanced sarcomatoid renal cell carcinoma. The study, which was led by a team from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and involved contributors from six centers, is detailed in a presentation at the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2021 virtual annual meeting (abstract 4568).

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Researchers at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center led the largest study to date to suggest an improving trend in pathologic complete response rates over time for U.S. cancer patients of various races. The team's findings, documented in a poster presentation at the 2021 American Society of Clinical Oncology virtual annual meeting (abstract 575), show that African Americans are more likely than patients from any other group to have remaining disease following breast cancer treatment.

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New work from a team at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center will help guide the care of patients with neuroendocrine tumors, or NETs. In a poster presentation at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) virtual Annual Meeting 2021, Abhay Singh, MD, MPH, and colleagues outline their discovery of a potential biomarker to predict which patients are likely to experience blood toxicity side effects from a new targeted radiation treatment, peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT).

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A pain-management protocol designed by Emese Zsiros, MD, PhD, FACOG, to be reported at the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2021 annual meeting, resulted in a 45% decrease in opioids prescribed to patients undergoing surgery, without significant effect on recovery or satisfaction.

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The Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center/Kaiser Permanente Northern California team behind a new study to be highlighted at the ASCO 2021 virtual annual meeting has found that sufficient vitamin D levels at the time of diagnosis are associated with improved outcomes among people with breast cancer.

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At the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2021 virtual Annual Meeting, Roswell Park teams will share data and insights on topics ranging from reducing use of opioids to an analysis of trends in response to cancer treatment among patients of different races.

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As part of a unanimous effort on the part of the nation’s 71 National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer centers, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is urging the nation’s physicians, parents and young adults to get cancer-preventing human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination back on track.

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A new role as Chief Diversity and Equity Officer for Faculty will give Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center's Elisa M. Rodriguez, PhD, MS, expanded opportunity to apply her deep-rooted commitment to improving the lives of people from underserved communities.

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Following a national search, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center has promoted Pawel Kalinski, MD, PhD, to Jacobs Family Endowed Chair of Immunology, Chief of the Division of Translational Immuno-Oncology and Senior Vice President for Team Science.

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A new collaboration between two Western New York cancer research leaders will help oncologists learn whether Black and white cancer patients respond differently to a game-changing immunotherapy treatment, and seeks to improve the safety and effectiveness of these newer drugs in diverse populations.

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Cancer treatment is likely to affect every aspect of a patient’s life — their activities, relationships, eating habits, mental health, physical health and comfort, financial wellbeing. And when financial concerns weigh heavily on an individual who is in treatment for cancer, they can affect the outcome of that treatment. New research from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center provides the first evidence that a cancer patient’s level of financial worry as they begin treatment predicts how likely it is that their treatment will be successful.

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A team of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers has identified a new biomarker that could predict response to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) shortly after patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) initiate therapy. This discovery, published today in the journal Nature Communications, is not only an important step forward in lung cancer treatment, but also has implications for other malignancies, according to lead author Fumito Ito, MD, PhD, FACS.

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A research team headed by Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center epidemiologist Zhihong Gong, PhD, has been awarded a five-year, $1.9 million grant from the National Cancer Institute for an investigation into the role that certain genetic molecules play in breast cancer disparities.

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A Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center team led by Christine Ambrosone, PhD, and Song Yao, PhD, has revealed a distinct molecular signature in the tumor tissues of Black patients with breast cancer. The new work, published today in JNCI, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, reports that an elevated number of “exhausted,” nonfunctional T cells appears to be driving tumors in patients of African descent to be more aggressive and hard-to-treat — a finding that also opens the door to treatment interventions that could help to eliminate the striking disparities in survival between Black and white patients with breast cancer.

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In a study published today in the journal Science Advances, a team from Roswell Park details a method to measure the abundance of cancer-related early changes to skin tissue long before the damage becomes visible to the eye.

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— A group of researchers led by Maximillian Merz, MD, Assistant Professor of Oncology with the Myeloma team at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, conducted the first prospective clinical trial investigating spatial heterogeneity in patients with either relapsed/refractory or newly diagnosed multiple myeloma. Findings from the study will be presented today at the 62nd American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition, which is being held virtually.

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Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Francisco J. Hernandez-Ilizaliturri, MD, along with a team of researchers from other institutions, has been investigating a novel therapy for patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Dr. Hernandez-Ilizaliturri will present the team’s findings today at the 62nd American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition, which is being held virtually.

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Today, during the ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition, Eunice Wang, MD, Chief of Leukemia and Director of Infusion Services at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, is presenting data on two ongoing studies incorporating new treatment options for AML.

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Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is among 100 of the nation’s top health care systems, representing thousands of hospitals in communities across the U.S., that have come together with an urgent plea for all Americans: mask up, because wearing a face mask is our best chance at slowing the surging COVID-19 pandemic now.

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A team from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center has detailed striking findings on the effectiveness of a previously untried combination of old and new drugs as treatment for recurrent ovarian cancer.

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While prostate cancer originates within the prostate, metastasis, or the spread of a tumor from the site of origin to other organs, remains a leading cause of death among people with the disease. Prostate tumors can metastasize to a number of different organs, including the liver, lymph nodes and bone.

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The same biochemical triggers that spur a “fight or flight” response when we encounter threats may help tumor cells to thrive. A team of researchers from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is looking at ways to disrupt that dynamic so that cancer treatments can be more effective. Their latest work, published today in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, suggests that a drug widely prescribed to control blood pressure may improve patients’ response to cancer immunotherapy.

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Research led by a team from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center details a promising new strategy for overcoming resistance to immunotherapy by zeroing in on dendritic cells and enhancing their function as “accessory cells” supporting other immune cells.

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“She’s a bundle of joy, she’s a blessing. She’s just life.” That’s what Cariorl Mayfield of Niagara Falls, NY, says about his young daughter, Chasity, a year after she went through a complex series of therapies at the Roswell Park Oishei Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Program to treat the leukemia she was diagnosed with at only 5 weeks old.

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It’s clear that radiation therapy, or radiotherapy, an approach used to treat cancer since the early 20th century, can be an effective companion to newer, immune-stimulating approaches known as immunotherapy. Research from a team from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center explains how radiation helps boost the immune system’s ability to fight cancer in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors — and provides new evidence that the timing of these therapies can make a big difference in how effectively they work together.

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Patients who develop cytomegalovirus infections after allogeneic stem cell transplantation may be able to develop an immunity against the virus, strengthen their immune system and reduce reliance on strong antiviral medications, a team from Roswell Park reports in the journal Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation.

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Many people diagnosed with breast cancers that are small but invasive could benefit from hormone treatment, a new study led by physicians at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center confirms. Their findings were published today in the journal JAMA Network Open.

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A new 10-year analysis led by Igor Puzanov, MD, MSci, FACP, Director of Early Phase Clinical Trials and Chief of Melanoma at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and published today in the journal JAMA Oncology provides new insights into an important question: whether BRAF V600E/K mutation status or previous BRAF inhibitor (BRAFi) therapy with or without a MEK inhibitor (MEKi) affects response to pembrolizumab (brand name Keytruda) in patients with advanced melanoma.

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Two new studies led by Renuka Iyer, MD, Section Chief for Gastrointestinal Oncology at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, highlight possible new treatment options for patients with neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) — a rare and hard-to-treat cancer.

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Patients who were unexpectedly hospitalized for dehydration, fever or other ailments while undergoing radiation treatment for head and neck cancers were at a higher risk for less favorable outcomes, a new study from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center reports.

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New preclinical work by a team of researchers from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Transplant and Cellular Therapy Program suggests that the risk of developing acute graft vs. host disease (GVHD) during allogeneic blood/marrow transplant (BMT) — a potentially curative treatment for selected patients with hematologic disorders — can be decreased using an existing class of drugs called beta adrenergic agonists.

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Researchers at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center have been actively engaged in the effort to develop treatments or other control strategies that can help communities worldwide to address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Clinical oncology pathways are an important tool, helping cancer care providers and their patients to zero in on the most appropriate care plan. But a treating professional’s decision to depart from the recommendations of these decision-support resources may be well-founded and in the patient’s best interests, a new Roswell Park study shows.

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While breakthrough treatments have emerged for several cancers over the last two decades, driving striking improvements in survival and other clinical outcomes, too little is known about the risk of therapy-related hematologic cancers following targeted and immunotherapeutic approaches. In a study to be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2020 virtual meeting, a Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center team reports that in many cases, these newer treatment approaches may reduce the risk of therapy-related myelodysplastic syndrome or acute myeloid leukemia (tMDS/AML) compared to chemotherapy-based treatment strategies.

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A possible new strategy for treating pancreatic cancer highlights the promise of collaboration between experts in both precision medicine and immunology. The findings from a team led by Agnieszka Witkiewicz, MD, and Erik Knudsen, PhD, at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and published today in the journal Gut suggest a combination treatment approach that can make some breakthrough immunotherapy drugs effective for more patients with pancreatic cancer.

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A two-drug immunotherapy combination first proposed by a Roswell Park team as an approach for treating cancer will soon be available to cancer patients with COVID-19 through a clinical trial at the Buffalo, N.Y., cancer center.

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New research led by a pediatric oncology expert from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center underscores that diets high in antioxidant-rich foods can have particular benefits for young cancer patients.

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Aggressive forms of prostate cancer don’t act the way they should, hanging on to genetic materials called introns that should be thrown away, researchers from Roswell Park reported today in Nature Communications.

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Radiation is one of the oldest and most common therapies for cancer, and typically is delivered locally, or to specific targeted sites in the body. While it has long been thought that locally-delivered radiation therapy typically does not help to shrink tumors outside the field of irradiation, new preclinical research from a team at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center suggests a strategy for significantly increasing both the local and distant, or “abscopal,” effects of radiation. Results of the study, which was led by Elizabeth Repasky, PhD, have been newly published in Nature Communications.

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Roswell Park will offer plasma from the donated blood of healthy individuals who have had COVID-19 but have now fully recovered to patients with severe or life-threatening COVID-19 through an expanded access program authorized by the U.S. FDA.

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New research from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, shows that following those guidelines can improve clinical outcomes for patients with high-risk breast cancer, or breast cancer that is likely to recur or spread.

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A team led by Pawel Kalinski, MD, PhD, of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center has earned a five-year, $14.54 million award from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to expand a promising immunotherapy platform. Funded through the NCI’s Program Project Grant program, this prestigious five-year grant will fund five clinical trials, all focused on a strategy for making some of the most common immunotherapies work for more cancer patients.

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A Roswell Park team has identified a new strategy for treating prostate cancer — the first to target metabolic processes uniquely important to prostate cancer.

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A team of researchers from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and the CDC report new evidence that inhalation of vitamin E acetate is strongly linked to e-cigarette, or vaping, product use-associated lung injury (EVALI).

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A research team led by Dr. Dean Tang at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center has identified the molecule LRIG1 as an important endogenous tumor suppressor in prostate cancer.

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The inventors of a cancer immunotherapy developed at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center have announced a major step forward with that therapy, SurVaxM — a multimillion-dollar licensing deal that will help enable large, randomized clinical trials in both the U.S. and China.