An inexpensive tracing agent used in combination with ultrasound can pinpoint how effectively drugs targeting pancreatic cancer work, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have demonstrated for the first time.

Cancer is caused when a population of cells starts to grow in an inappropriate and uncontrolled manner. In many cancers the tumor cells express increased levels of a family of proteins (that includes BCL2 and MCL1) that protect them from a form of cell death known as apoptosis. Exactly how these proteins are important for tumor cell survival, and thereby inappropriate and uncontrolled growth, has not been completely clear.

Veridex, a Johnson & Johnson company, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted an expanded clearance for the CellSearchâ„¢ System to be used as an aid in the monitoring of metastatic breast cancer.

Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that women treated for ovarian cancer are at increased risk of a rapid and potentially fatal recurrence if their tumor cells have high levels of a binding protein that triggers abnormal growth and slows down cell death, both hallmarks of malignancy.