Many patients with advanced ovarian cancer treated with frontline therapies still end up with clinically undetectable amounts of cancer cells afterward, called minimal residual disease (MRD), leading to high likelihood of recurrence. However, there are no reliable tests to detect MRD, and its biological features remain understudied. Residual cancer cells escape the effects of surgery and chemotherapy and are the reason why cure rates for advanced ovarian cancer have remained low for many decades. To provide insights, researchers led by Amir Jazaeri,...

Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are a group of diseases in which the bone marrow does not produce enough healthy blood cells. The erythroid predominance (EP) subtype, marked by 50% or more erythroid cells (red blood cell precursors) in the bone marrow, has distinct biology, prognoses and drug sensitivities. To study this, researchers led by Guillermo Montalban Bravo, M.D., evaluated an MDS cohort of 371 patients, 18% of whom had EP MDS. They discovered EP MDS has unique genetic patterns...

CDK4/6 inhibitors are targeted therapies commonly used as first-line treatments for patients with hormone receptor-positive HER2-negative (HR+/HER2-) metastatic breast cancer. However, some patients stop responding to CDK4/6 inhibitors, and the mechanisms behind this acquired resistance are poorly understood. In a new study led by Khandan Keyomarsi, Ph.D., researchers discovered that the inflammatory protein IL-6 becomes elevated in these patients, which then triggers another protein – STAT3 – that helps tumors progress. This highlights the potential of monitoring...