WEDNESDAY, July 23 (HealthDay News) -- Melanoma produces high levels of a protein called IMP-3, which is not over-expressed in harmless moles, University of Rochester Medical Center researchers report.

They said the finding may offer doctors a new way to distinguish melanoma -- the most dangerous type of skin cancer -- from benign moles that look like melanoma.

The study was published in the current issue of Modern Pathology.

"We are very excited about our finding that IMP-3 is an important progression marker in malignant melanoma," study author Dr. Jennifer G. Pryor, a third-year resident in the department of pathology and laboratory medicine, said in a university news release.

"Although we have learned a lot about melanoma in recent years, it has unique biologic properties that sometimes make it difficult to diagnose and to plan for the proper treatment. This protein may have a key role in helping us to understand and distinguish between various types of melanocytic lesions," Pryor said.

She and her colleagues analyzed samples of 56 biopsied lesions from 48 adults. None of the benign moles over-expressed IMP-3, but excess levels of the protein were found in most melanomas.

IMP-3, which is involved in cell proliferation, appears to play a role in the formation of number of malignant tumors. Previous studies have linked expression of IMP-3 to pancreatic, ovarian and lung cancers. This new study is the first to identify a connection between the protein and melanoma.

Further research is needed to determine if more careful monitoring and aggressive treatment may benefit melanoma patients with tumors that express IMP-3.

More information

The American Academy of Dermatology has more about malignant melanoma  .

WEDNESDAY, July 23 (HealthDay News) -- The drug Nexavar can prolong the lives of people with liver cancer by an average of three months, new research shows.

"The results unequivocally showed that sorafenib (Nexavar) increased the survival of patients with a more than 30 percent reduction in the likelihood to die at any time point during follow-up," said study senior author Dr. Jordi Bruix, a senior consultant in the liver unit of the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona.

"These results identify sorafenib as the first agent that is effective in improving survival in patients with this devastating disease," said Bruix. His report is in the July 24 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Up to now, the patients diagnosed with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma had no effective treatment that could improve their survival. Now, we have an option that is based on oral treatment that is effective if liver function is still preserved," added study author Dr. Josep Maria Llovet, director of research in liver cancer at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, and a professor at the Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) Group in Barcelona.

More than 21,000 Americans are diagnosed with liver cancer each year, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS). About 18,410 people will die because of liver cancer during 2008, reports the ACS. The disease is much more common in men and is more likely to occur in people who've been infected with viral hepatitis B or C.

Treatment options for liver cancer are often limited. If the disease is caught early, it's sometimes possible to remove the tumor or perform a liver transplant. Chemotherapy isn't particularly effective in liver cancers, because one of the liver's main functions is to detoxify drugs.

"When you administer drugs you want to affect the liver, the liver wants to detoxify them and render them ineffective. The liver is also very active in getting rid of drugs and pumping the drugs out of the liver," explained Dr. Lewis Roberts, director of the hepatobiliary neoplasia clinic at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

The current study was a randomized, placebo-controlled study that included 602 people with advanced liver cancer. Despite that, however, the study volunteers still retained liver function.

Although there was no significant difference in the time to symptomatic progression of the disease, there was approximately a three-month increase in survival, on average, for the sorafenib group.

Sorafenib works by slowing down cell proliferation and reducing the formation of new blood vessels that feed the tumor mass, according to Llovet. So, while the medication doesn't reduce the size of the tumor, it can delay the progression of the disease. In fact, Llovet said, they've had patients who have remained progression-free for more than three years.

Llovet also said the researchers are combining sorafenib with other treatments to see if they can make further progress against this deadly cancer. And the researchers are testing sorafenib earlier in the course of the disease to see if it might be even more effective then.

The drug was generally well-tolerated. Fatigue was the most common side effect.

Roberts said the findings are very exciting. "For the first time, we have a drug that has been clearly shown to improve survival." But, he added, "this is clearly just a first step," and he'd like to see more emphasis on prevention and screening for high-risk populations. He said that anyone who has been diagnosed with hepatitis B or C should be screened with an ultrasound every six months, so that if liver cancer develops, it can be treated early.

Additionally, Roberts pointed out that sorafenib is quite expensive, averaging more than $5,000 a month for treatment. The drug is currently approved in the United States for the treatment of a form of advanced kidney cancer.

The study was supported by Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals-Onyx Pharmaceuticals, makers of Nexavar.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more information on liver cancer.

MONDAY, July 21 (HealthDay News) -- Patients are being recruited for a clinical trial of a new targeted radiation and chemotherapy protocol for pleural mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung's lining that's almost always caused by exposure to asbestos.

Currently, the standard treatment is to remove the affected lung.

"Current surgical and chemotherapy treatments of patients with malignant pleural mesothelioma are unsatisfactory and have not been shown to significantly prolong survival. In this study, we will investigate whether a combination of chemotherapy and radiation targeted directly at the lung's lining can improve outcomes while avoiding surgery," principal investigator Dr. Robert Taub, director of the Mesothelioma Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Medical Center, said in a news release.

"The trial is also significant, because our center is the only one nationwide that is offering this experimental therapy to treat pleural mesothelioma," Taub said.

It's expected the targeted radiation will kill cancer cells on the surface of the lung while sparing other parts of the lung and surrounding vital tissues.

Patients aged 18 and older who have not had recent radiation therapy or chemotherapy and have not received prior Alimta chemotherapy will be considered for the study.

Patients enrolled in the study will receive several rounds of targeted chemotherapy using the drugs cisplatin and doxorubicin via surgically implanted catheters. Some patients will be randomly selected to receive additional systemic (intravenous) chemotherapy using the drugs cisplatin and pemetrexed. All patients will receive targeted radiotherapy using the P-32 radioisotope. Patients may elect to receive additional surgical treatment, including removal of the affected lung lining or lung.

For more about the study, call 212-305-6837.

More information

The American Cancer Society has more about malignant mesothelioma  .

TUESDAY, July 15 (HealthDay News) -- An in-trial dendritic cell vaccine that fights malignant brain tumors called glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) may help boost a patient's immunity response and improve the outcome, a new report says.

An article in the July 15 issue of Cancer Research says this would mark the first time a tumor-altering therapeutic intervention would have shown such promise.

"Fifty-three percent of patients in our study exhibited a significant vaccine-enhanced immune response. Compared to non-responders or those with limited responses, the vaccine responders had significantly longer times to tumor progression and longer survival," one the article's authors, Cedars-Sinai's Department of Neurosurgery Chairman Dr. Keith L. Black, said in a news release issued by the Los Angeles-based medical center.

The study also supports past findings that the dendritic cell vaccination can work well with chemotherapy to improve treatment. The researchers reported that the time to tumor progression greatly increased when chemotherapy followed vaccination, compared to vaccination alone.

"No other vaccine trial in cancer patients has shown the kind of progressive correlation between immune responses and clinical outcomes that we found," the article's first and corresponding author, Christopher J. Wheeler, a research scientist at the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute, said in the same news release.

These results, centered on 32 patients enrolled in a Phase II clinical trial, included 17 patients having significant positive response after three vaccinations, while 15 showed no such responsiveness. Average time to tumor progression (based on when tumor volume increased by about 25 percent on MRI scans) was 308 days among responders, compared to 167 days for non-responders.

The average length of survival was about 21 months among responders, about 14 months for non-responders. Forty-one percent of vaccine responders survived at least two years, though, compared with only 7 percent of non-responders.

All those in the trial showed a longer time to progression and longer time of survival, on average, than patients undergoing standard treatment without vaccination.

More information

The Brain Tumor Society has more about brain cancer  .