Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center

Combining targeted therapies might be required for maximum anti-tumor activity when treating HER2-positive breast cancers, according to two new studies by Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) investigators. The findings, reported in two papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), suggest that upregulation of the HER3 receptor limits the effectiveness of two classes [...]

For years, the standard treatment for some early lung cancers was to remove the entire affected lobe. The recurrence of cancer was low, but the procedure was invasive and unnecessarily removed normal lung tissue not affected by the tumors. Vanderbilt’s Department of Thoracic Surgery and the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center have joined a National Cancer Institute [...]

Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center has joined with the national CancerConnect.com initiative to launch a new online support community for people impacted by cancer, including patients, family members, friends and advocates. Participants don’t have to be a Vanderbilt-Ingram patient or family member to join the online community. There they can share stories, ask questions and learn from [...]

The latest news about discoveries by Vanderbilt University researchers is now available on a new online news channel, Research News @ Vanderbilt. “We have created this website to open the doors of our laboratories and lecture halls to a broad audience and share with them the excitement of discoveries being made every day at Vanderbilt,” [...]

Paula Hart was just 46 when she starting having shortness of breath, along with a nagging cough and intermittent pain in her left shoulder. After a trip to the emergency room in her hometown of Evansville, Ind., and a series of additional tests, doctors finally diagnosed Hart with non-small cell lung cancer. The cancer was [...]

Tabula Rasa, the School of Medicine’s journal of medical humanities, is now accepting submissions for its 2010-2011 issue. The theme of this year’s journal is “Transformation: How Illness and Healing Change Us.” All submissions that meet the criteria (see below) will be featured on the Tabula Rasa website, and many of the selected submissions will [...]

Update as of Thursday, Jan. 6: Call Center staff have been relocated to temporary locations, with phones and computers, so our service has been restored. Thanks to everyone for their patience while we addressed this unexpected situation. Kudos to our team for their dedication to finding a way to get back on line for our [...]

Editor’s note: Cynthia Floyd Manley, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center’s associate director for communications, will appear on Lifetime Television’s The Balancing Act on Monday, Jan. 3, to discuss social networking for cancer survivors and caregivers. Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center has joined with the national CancerConnect.com initiative to launch a new online community for people impacted by cancer. As [...]

Cousins with melanoma caused by the same genetic mutation enroll in a randomized clinical trial of a promising experimental drug that targets the mutation. Randomly assigned to different groups, one young man gets the new drug, experiences dramatic shrinkage of his tumors and is alive nine months later, while his cousin receives current therapy — [...]

Patients with metastatic melanoma being treated with the new investigational cancer drug PLX4032 are showing strong responses, with an 80 percent anti-tumor response rate among patients whose tumors are positive for the B-RAF (V600E) gene mutation. However, in all too many cases, patients are developing resistance to the drug and their cancer is beginning to [...]