Medicine & Health

Textured breast implants have been linked to a rare and sometimes fatal cancer. Terence M. Myckatyn, MD, who wrote about the issue in a commentary published Oct. 23 in JAMA Surgery, answers questions about the implants.

School of Medicine researchers have demonstrated in a new study that both killer and helper T cells are needed for tumors to be rejected during cancer immunotherapy.

A grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will fund the Implementation Science Center for Cancer Control at Washington University. The center’s aim will be to reduce cancer disparities in Missouri and central and southern Illinois.

Scientists at the School of Medicine have received a $3.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support an open-source database aimed at boosting personalized approaches to cancer treatment.

Investigators at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have been awarded a $15 million grant to better understand the genetic changes that drive acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a deadly blood cancer, and predict patients’ responses to therapy. The findings also may enable investigators to develop more effective therapies tailored to patients, based on the genetic characteristics of their cancer cells.

Physicians at Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have been awarded a six-year, $7.8 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to play a leading role in designing, conducting and enrolling patients in clinical trials through the NCI’s National Clinical Trials Network.

A new program funded through the Cancer Moonshot Initiative has doubled the number of patients at Siteman Cancer Center assessed for smoking — and increased by fivefold the percentage of cancer patients who smoke now taking medication to help them quit. The results have been published in the journal Translational Behavioral Medicine.

Researchers at the School of Medicine in St. Louis and Rush University in Chicago have found a compound that promotes a vigorous immune assault on pancreatic cancer. The findings, in mice, suggest a way to improve immunotherapy for the deadly disease in patients.

Research led by investigators at the School of Medicine has taken a step toward identifying the cysts in the pancreas that are likely to become cancerous.

A new study led by the School of Medicine has found that proton therapy is associated with fewer severe side effects than conventional X-ray radiation therapy for many cancer patients.