Lymphoma Patients Benefit From Exercise

A healthy dose of exercise is good medicine, even for lymphoma patients receiving chemotherapy, University of Alberta researchers have found.

The Healthy Exercise for Lymphoma Patients (HELP) trial, a three-year study led by Kerry Courneya, Canada Research Chair in physical activity and cancer in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation, found that a regimen of aerobic exercise training produced significant improvements in physical functioning and overall quality of life benefits in patients with lymphoma.

Researchers recruited 122 patients with Hodgkin’s and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, then stratified participants by disease type and treatment status; whether they were undergoing chemotherapy at the time or receiving no treatments. Participants were randomly assigned to an exercise program designed to maximize cardiovascular fitness or to usual care, which did not include an exercise component. Read more

FDA Approves New Drug For Rare Cancer Cutaneous T-Cell Lymphoma

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a new drug for treating patients with the rare white blood cell cancer Cutaneous T-cell Lymphoma (CTCL); the drug Istodax (romidepsin) is injectable and is marketed by Gloucester Pharmaceuticals Inc of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Every year, about 1,500 Americans are newly diagnosed with CTCL, a type of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It is a slow growing cancer that affects lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell that helps the body fight infection.

The cancer usually starts with dry skin and a red rash, and then itching that can be very severe and the skin can develop tumors that become ulcerated and then infected. In some cases the cancer spreads to the blood, lymph nodes and internal organs.

If a patient has localized CTCL they can be treated with topical agents such as special skin creams or with phototherapy, but if the cancer spreads then they usually need chemotherapy. Read more

FDA Approved Leukemia Drug Shows Promising Activity In Ovarian Cancer Cells

The drug Sprycel, approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia, significantly inhibited the growth and invasiveness of ovarian cancer cells and also promoted their death, a study by researchers with UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center found.

The drug, when paired with a chemotherapy regimen, was even more effective in fighting ovarian cancer in cell lines in which signaling of the Src family kinases, associated with the deadly disease, is activated.

The study appears in the Nov. 10, 2009 edition of the British Medical Journal.

Ovarian cancer, which will strike 21,600 women this year and kill 15,500, causes more deaths than any other cancer of the female reproductive system. Few effective therapies for ovarian cancer exist, so it would be advantageous for patients if a new drug could be found that fights the cancer, said Gottfried Konecny, an assistant professor of hematology/oncology, a Jonsson Cancer Center researcher and first author of the study. Read more

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