Acceptance and commitment therapy may ease fear of recurrence in cancer survivors

Researchers report that Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) shows significant promise for treating fear of cancer recurrence in women who have survived breast cancer. Fear that cancer may come back or progress is especially common in breast cancer survivors, with up to 70% reporting that the fear affects their daily life.

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Drug-light combo could offer control over CAR T-cell therapy

Bioengineers are a step closer to making CAR T-cell therapy safer, more precise and easy to control. They developed a system that allows them to select where and when CAR T cells get turned on so that they destroy cancer cells without harming normal cells. The system requires two 'keys' — the drug Tamoxifen and blue light — to activate CAR T cells to bind to their targets.

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Inactive receptor renders cancer immunotherapies ineffective

The aim of immunotherapies is to enable the immune system once again to fight cancer on its own. Drugs known as checkpoint inhibitors are already in clinical use for this purpose. However, they are only effective in about one third of patients. Based on analysis of human tissue samples, a team has now discovered one reason why this is so: an inactive receptor in cancer cells prevents the drugs from reactivating the immune system.

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