By Jason Broderick

Scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, successfully tested a mechanism that increases the number of progenitor cells extracted from a unit of human umbilical cord blood. The laboratory method potentially solves the 1- to 2-month delay in myeloid engraftment after cord blood transplantation (CBT).

New data suggest that women who take aspirin regularly following a breast cancer diagnosis cut their risk of death and distant metastases by nearly 50%.

In a phase III study of 1052 patients, nanoparticle albumin-bound (nab) paclitaxel (Abraxane)produced significant improvement in the overall response rate compared with standard paclitaxel in the first-line treatment of patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

In a new report, published in the March issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, investigators led by Harold J. Burstein, MD, PhD, associate professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts, say monotherapy with neratinib, an investigational tyrosine kinase inhibitor, demonstrated substantial clinical activity in patients with HER2-positive breast cancer with manageable toxicity.

Early-stage diagnosis gives patients their best chance against lung cancer. The rush to adopt lung cancer screening seems premature, however, because no randomized trials have definitively demonstrated that it improves survival outcomes. The National Lung Screening Trial (NLST), sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, aims to supply this data, with final results expected in ~1 year.