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Clinical trial demonstrates safety of new approach to treat invasive kidney cancer
A new approach using precisely targeted, high-dose radiation to treat invasive kidney cancer proves safe, based on a clinical trial by the UT Southwestern Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center s kidney cancer program. The study, published in the
International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics, could offer new hope for patients with a historically dismal condition.
Among the top 10 cancers in the U.S., most kidney cancers are renal cell carcinoma (RCC). While many cases are caught early, in about 30 percent of patients RCC has invaded or spread at the time of diagnosis. Kidney cancers have the uncanny ability to penetrate draining blood vessels, which become channels for their growth and expansion.
For decades, researchers have viewed synonymous mutations as inconsequential quirks of the genome. Due to the way the genetic code is set up where multiple three-base-pair codons can encode the same amino acid mutations can arise that don’t change a protein’s amino acid sequence. Scientists have largely dismissed these anomalies as harmless oddities.
But like other historically underappreciated aspects of the genome, scientists are realizing that many “silent” mutations might not be so silent after all. Research suggests they’re often subject to selective pressure and could play a role in cancer, autism, and schizophrenia.
A study published online last week (February 12) in