Particularly in the realm of cancer care, which can mean years of treatment and follow-up for patients, clinicians look to a number of tools and metrics to guide their decision-making regarding what, if any, treatment options and care approaches may be most effective for a particular patient. Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center experts were invited to highlight ways to optimize these predictive strategies to improve both treatment and rehabilitation of patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, also known as bone marrow transplant, during the TCT/Transplantation and Cellular Therapy Meetings now underway in Houston, Texas.

Cancer researchers have long known that prostate cancer tends to be more common, more aggressive and more resistant to existing treatments in African-Americans than in Caucasian-Americans, but they’re only beginning to understand why. A Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center study published today points to cellular factors that appear to be driving these disparities — mitochondrial differences that prevent formation of the cancer-killing “death wheel” apoptosome protein complex — and proposes a strategy for overcoming these factors with new therapeutic targets.

The HER2 protein, which encourages the growth of cancer cells, is present in about 20% of all breast cancers. While HER2-positive breast cancers tend to be very aggressive, today the prognosis is generally very good, thanks to the introduction of HER2 inhibitors such as trastuzumab (brand name Herceptin). However, not all HER2-positive breast cancers respond to existing HER2 inhibitors.