Our book explained - in a 3 minute video

If you were wondering what our book is really about, this short video will reveal all:

To put a smile on your face see Larry's latest cartoon.
To learn more about clinical trials, take a look at our book.

(c) 2012 Tom Beer and Larry Axmaker

Does joining one cancer clinical trial disqualify you from joining another trial?

Participating in one clinical trial does not necessarily disqualify you from future trials, as long as you meet the future study criteria. Many people participate in more than one clinical trial over time. Rules for trial participation do take into consideration therapy that you have received prior to joining a trial, and a prior treatment that you have received—either standard or experimental—might make you ineligible. If you already know you might be interested in a specific trial sometime in the future, check with your doctor or clinical trial site to see if the treatment decisions you make today could get in the way later. For the most part, however, many other clinical trials are available, and even if one particular study is off limits to you, another is likely to become available.

Phase I cancer trials: the newest drugs, but not for everyone

Access to the latest and newest drugs sounds very compelling, but it isn't always the best choice for all cancer patients.  The latest drugs are first tested in phase I studies and these studies are not for everyone.  Phase I studies (clinical trials) may be appropriate when the cancer is not responsive to standard treatments or no standard treatments exists. Since we don’t know much about how successful the new drugs in phase I studies will turn out to be, proven treatments should be tried first.

Classic phase I studies are designed almost exclusively to test the safety of various doses of a brand new drug. The drug has already been analyzed and evaluated in laboratory animals, and has shown promise for the treatment of cancer in the laboratory.  Effectiveness may also be evaluated, but this is secondary to the primary goal of documenting side effects and safety and sorting out what the optimal dose of the drug will be in human beings.

There are examples of drugs that yielded spectacular results even in their first phase I trial, but for most participants that is not their experience.  

Cancer Clinical Trials: A sneak peek inside the book

We are dedicated to sharing knowledge about cancer clinical trials and experimental therapies.  The blog is great for short, focused, fact filled pieces and two-way conversation.  The book is great for telling the whole story.  Together, the blog and the book can cover it all: the big picture, the details, and the conversation.  That's why we get pretty excited whenever we see the book getting a little closer to reality.
We just received the first part of our book from our publisher.  These are the author proofs of the Table of Contents, Preface, and Introduction.  We are excited to share these with you.  If you would like to take peek, go ahead and download these sections.  Happy peeking!

Download Contents and Intro

Download the book cover

To put a smile on your face see Larry's latest cartoon


(c) 2012 Tom Beer and Larry Axmaker

What is cancer?

Cancer comes from within us.  It is a disease of abnormal growth of the cells that make up the organs of our body.  To be lethal, in addition to abnormal growth, cancer cells must acquire the ability to invade other organs and spread throughout the body.  Understanding the key features or hallmarks of cancer is a basis for designing treatments designed to fight it.  The basis features that all cancers share are:

1)  The ability to grow in a self-sufficient manner, regardless of the body’s needs. 

2)  Resistance to the natural anti-growth instructions from the body.

3)  The ability to grow and evade natural death; in a manner of speaking, cancer cells are immortal. When grown in a laboratory, and as long as they are fed, cancer cells grow forever. 

4)  The ability to invade and spread throughout the body

5)  The ability to grow its own blood supply.

To read the original article that proposed these hallmarks of cancer go to:

Hanahan and Weinberg, Cell 2000

The big trends in medical treatments for cancer

Medications are the mainstay of treatment for those cancers that by their nature or because they have spread, cannot be removed surgically or eliminated with radiation.  Medical treatments are also often added to surgery or radiation to kill the few cancer cells that may have escaped and reduce the chance of cancer coming back.  The broad trends that are driving research into new medications for cancer include:

·        New chemotherapy drugs and combinations of drugs

·        New ways to manipulate the hormones that drive certain cancers (primarily breast and prostate cancer)

·        More specific and targeted therapies that are sometimes referred to as “smart bombs.”  These types of treatments are designed to attack very specific mechanisms that drive cancer growth and spread.  A variety of technologies make targeted therapy possible.  Some are artificial antibodies, synthetic small chemical molecules, and gene-directed therapies

·        Harnessing the immune system to fight cancer

·        All cancer therapy is likely to become more personalized (individualized) with treatments selected to match each person’s unique cancer.  

New Phase III Cancer Clinical Trials - December 2011

     Our search, carried out on December 22, showed 22 new phase III trials registered in the last 30 days.  We will highlight two that explore immunotherapy in two very different contexts.  
     The first trial compares the use of the patient's own stimulated killer cells (a part of one's natural immune system) to the use of chemotherapy in advanced lung cancer.  The study is being carried out in China, so it is likely inaccessible to most US cancer patients, but it is a good example of how immunotherapy continues to be a major direction for cancer clinical trials.  
     The second trial tests a vaccine product called NeuVax (TM) to determine if the vaccine can prevent the relapse of breast cancer.  Patients who have early stage node positive breast cancer that has low or intermediate expression of the HER2 protein are eligible.  Experimental treatment follows the completion of standard treatments such as surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.

     You can click on the hyperlinks above to see each individual trial or click here to learn more about both of them:

New immunotherapy trials Dec 2011 (click here - link expires March 21, 2012)
     To see all 22 new phase III trials registered in the last 30 days, click here:
All new phase III cancer trials Dec 2011 (click here - link expires March 21, 2012)

Welcome to the cancer clinical trials blog!

Simple, accessible, trustworthy, and practical information about cancer clinical trials and the experimental therapies they offer is what we aim to bring you here.  We welcome your comments, suggestions, and questions.  This blog is for people with cancer, their families, and their friends.  For many people with cancer, today’s treatments are imperfect or even have substantial shortcomings.  Clinical trials may offer something new or different, but unless your regular bedtime reading includes the New England Journal of Medicine or the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the world of clinical trials can seem remote, mysterious, and even inaccessible.  Together, we can change that.  We invite you to join this community and hope you will both learn about clinical trials and teach us by sharing your perspective, experiences, and questions.  Welcome!

Tom and Larry