Metastasis, or spread of a cancer tumor from one organ to another, is a complex process about which much is still unknown. A collaborative research team led by scientists from Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center has determined that a small protein, RAC1, actively recruits enzymes involved in nucleotide production to promote cancer metastasis. Their findings, published in Nature Communications, suggest that targeting this interaction may provide a new strategy for treating advanced cancers.

A study led by scientists at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center shows that chemotherapy after surgery for gastric adenocarcinoma is significantly associated with longer survival in patients with chemosensitive disease, but not in those with very sensitive or refractory disease. These findings, which were recently published in the journal JAMA Network Open, suggest that assessing how responsive a tumor appears to be to treatment with chemotherapy before surgery can be used to guide decisions regarding postoperative chemotherapy, thereby personalizing treatment of patients with this type of stomach cancer.

African American men currently have the highest rates of prostate cancer in the United States and the poorest outcomes. New grants from the U.S. Department of Defense and American Cancer Society will fund work by two Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center teams focused on understanding and eliminating prostate cancer health disparities.

A multidisciplinary team led by Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center has identified troponin, a protein that enters the bloodstream only when the heart is damaged, as an early and reliable predictor of myocarditis in cancer patients receiving immunotherapy with immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) drugs. Findings of this retrospective study, which have been published in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, suggest that weekly troponin monitoring during the first six weeks of treatment could help physicians detect this rare but potentially fatal side effect of cancer immunotherapy.

With 2021 coming to a close, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center is proud to celebrate the 128 physicians across 33 specialties named to Buffalo Spree magazine’s Top Doctor’s list for 2022. Each year, the list is compiled through surveys submitted by Western New York physicians.