People who receive high doses of the chemotherapy drug methotrexate to treat a certain type of brain tumor appear to live longer than people receiving other treatments, according to research published in the January 29, 2008, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Hormonal components in over-the-counter dietary supplements may promote the progression of prostate cancer and decrease the effectiveness of anti-cancer drugs, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered.

The veil has finally been lifted on an enzyme that is critical to the process of DNA transcription and replication, and is a prime target of antibacterial and anticancer drugs.

Researchers from the Universities of Warwick, Edinburgh, Dundee and the Czech Republic’s Institute of Biophysics have discovered a new light-activated platinum-based compound that is up to 80 times more powerful than other platinum-based anti-cancer drugs and which can use "light activation" to kill cancer cells in much more targeted way than similar treatments.

New research by doctors in Australia and New Zealand has found women who have had breast cancer and take the drug anastrozole can live cancer free for longer.

Another FDA-approved targeted cancer drug, sunitinib (SutentTM, Pfizer), may be associated with cardiac toxicity, report researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Boston), and Thomas Jefferson University (Philadelphia).

Results from two investigational Phase I trials of ZOLINZA® (vorinostat) in combination with bortezomib provide preliminary anti-tumor activity in patients with relapsed and/or refractory multiple myeloma. Data from one study showed that 10 of 21 (48 percent) evaluable patients had a partial or minimal response from the ZOLINZA and bortezomib combination treatment.

Researchers at the University of California San Diego have developed a novel computer technique to search for the side effects of major pharmaceuticals. The study, reported November 30 in PLoS Computational Biology relates to a class of drugs known as Select Estrogen Receptor Modulators (SERMs), which includes tamoxifen, the most prescribed drug in the treatment of breast cancer.

Doxorubicin (DOX) is a red-colored anticancer drug that carries serious side effects for the heart, including cardiac muscle deterioration (cardiomyopathy) and scar tissue accumulation in the heart (fibrosis).

Findings from two large, international clinical trials show “unprecedented” survival for patients with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that occurs in the blood-making cells of bone marrow. The findings demonstrate that with Revlimid®, an oral cancer drug, all measures of myeloma showed significant improvement in patients where previous treatments had failed.

Scientists in Indiana and Michigan have developed a better way of mining a vast computerized database for chemical nuggets that could become tomorrow’s cancer medications. The new “data mining” method pinpoints chemical structures with drug-like activity.

The next cancer drug might come straight from the grocery store, according to new research published in the November 2007 issue of The FASEB Journal. In the study, French scientists describe how high and low doses of polyphenols have different effects.