BOSTON - November 2, 2004 - The chance that patients participating in early-stage cancer research studies will die from the experimental treatments has dropped dramatically over the past decade, according to a study from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In an analysis of more than 200 Phase 1 research trials from 1991 through 2002, the researchers found that treatment-related deaths decreased by 90 percent during the study period. The report appears in the November 3 Journal of the American Medical Association.

Released: September 16, 2003

Cancer patients who travel more than 15 miles for treatment appear to survive longer than patients who live closer to their treatment center, even after controlling for factors such as disease stage and economic status, concludes a study in the September 17 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.