Reporting Side Effects in Cancer Clinical Trials

bctt on December 1, 2018

More attention is now being paid to what types of side effects are reported in cancer clinical trials and how data on these side effects are collected.

Researchers are also expanding the data they collect to include patient-reported outcomes.

The articles below describe studies that have explored ways to collect patient-reported outcomes, why words like “tolerable” and “manageable” may not reflect patients’ actual experiences, the need for studies to collect data on how long side effects last, and ways to streamline reporting of adverse events to the FDA to improve patient safety.

Your Tumor and Experience Could Lead to New Treatments

bctt on November 1, 2018

Metastatic breast cancer patients, advocates, and researchers have been working together to develop registries and databases where patients can share information about their tumors as well as their treatments, side effects, and quality of life to help advance metastatic breast cancer research.

MBC Connect is a free, interactive, web and mobile-friendly patient registry. By using the app you help to create a real-time database that can improve our understanding and treatment of metastatic breast cancer. The app is available in English and Spanish.

The MBC Project collects patient data along with blood and tumor samples. Scientists believe studying the DNA in the tumor samples patients provide will help them develop new and better treatments for metastatic breast cancer.

The MBC Project is part of Count Me In, which aims to enroll more than 100,000 patients living with all major cancer types, as well as rare cancers.

You can read more about these program in the Time magazine article below.

Immunotherapy & Metastatic Breast Cancer

bctt on October 3, 2018

Immunotherapy is a type of biological therapy that uses the body’s immune system to fight cancer. Different types of immunotherapies are being used to treat specific types of cancers, and it is an active area of cancer research–in the lab and in the clinic.

Below you will find links to articles and videos that can help you understand how immunotherapy works and its potential for treating metastatic breast cancer.

Insights into Treatment Resistance

bctt on September 1, 2018

Over time, cancer cells often stop responding to the treatment that is keeping the tumor in check. This is called treatment resistance.

Below you will find three articles that address different aspects of treatment resistance. The first article describes research looking into the genetics of cells that become resistant. The goal is to use this information to identify new treatments. Following that are articles about treatment resistance in ER+ breast tumors and the relationship between HER2 mutations and resistance to hormone therapies.

Looking for more information? There’s an entire journal devoted to the topic: Cancer Drug Resistance. You can find it here: CDR Journal.