Blog postings will resume week of August 9th

 Dear Grey Horizon readers, 

Blog postings will resume the week of August 9, 2021. 

Thank you for reading - stay safe and well. 

Prefrail and frail young adult survivors of childhood cancers experience significant neurocognitive decline

 A recently published prospective study conducted in the Department of Epidemiology and Cancer Control at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, indicates that frail young adult survivors of childhood cancers "experienced significantly larger declines than non frail survivors in memory, attention, processing speed, and executive function domains."  The study, conducted on childhood cancer survivors between 18-45 years old with at least 10 years from diagnosis supported background research findings where cancer-related neurocognitive impairment occurs in up to 35% of childhood cancer survivors.  However, study authors acknowledged that "further research is needed to understand the shared biologic pathways underlying frailty and neurocognitive function."  

To read more about this study, click here. 

Source mentioned: 

Williams ALM, Krull KR, Howell CR, et al. Physiologic Frailty and Neurocognitive Decline Among Young-Adult Childhood Cancer Survivors: A Prospective Study From the St Jude Lifetime Cohort. JCO; Published online 20 July 2021. DOI: 10.1200/JCO.21.00194

New trial suggests radiation can be tailored for children with medulloblastoma

A new clinical trial conducted at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has determined that customizing radiation levels in children with medulloblastoma, by either "lowering the dose of radiation or delivering radiation to a smaller area of the brain" could result in a higher rate of survival without the negative adverse events associated with radiation therapy.   

Study results conducted on the 464 of 549 children that were able to be evaluated determined that 85% of children were alive beyond 5 years after treatment, and 81% did not experience a cancer-related event during those 5 years.  

To read more about this trial, click here. 

Gut microbiome and survival following nivolumab therapy for advanced gastric cancer

 Researchers from the St. Marianna University School of Medicine in Kawasaki, Japan recently presented findings at the 2021 ESMO Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer, indicating that "genomic pathways and bacterial genera in the pre-treatment gut microbiome of patients with advanced gastric cancer...were significantly associated with survival times following treatment with nivolumab."  Further, findings from the translational study determined that genomic pathways in the gut were associated with survival time following nivolumab in patients with advanced gastric cancer.  

To read more about this study, click here. 

Sources mentioned: 

Sunakawa Y, Matoba R, Inoue E, et al. Genomic pathway of gut microbiome to predict efficacy of nivolumab in advanced gastric cancer: DELIVER trial (JACCRO GC-08). Journal of Clinical Oncology 2021;39(3_suppl):161-161.

O13 – Sunakawa Y, Matoba R, Inoue E, et al. Gut Microbiome to Predict Survival Time in Advanced Gastric Cancer Treated With Nivolumab: the DELIVER Trial (JACCRO GC-08).  ESMO World Congress on Gastrointestinal Cancer 2021 (30 June - 3 July).