New Discoveries and Honors in Cancer Research

Read the latest cancer research and recognition from the members of the Damon Runyon scientific circle.
March 30, 2015
New drug combination promising for treating aggressive breast cancer in brain

Carey K. Anders, MD (Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator '12-'15), and C. Ryan Miller, MD, PhD (Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator '09-'12) of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, Chapel Hill, and colleagues, reported that they identified a drug treatment strategy that can improve survival for a particularly aggressive breast cancer sub-type (triple negative breast cancer) after it has spread to the brain. They demonstrated, in a mouse model of this cancer, that a combination of the drugs carboplatin and a PARP inhibitor improved survival. The researchers hope that these findings will lead to a clinical trial that would allow researchers to test this treatment strategy in patients. These results were published in the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics.