Cancer
Breastfeeding protects against breast cancer
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A woman with a mother or sister with breast cancer should “strongly” consider breastfeeding her baby, doctors advise in a report released today.
In a long-term study of more than 60,000 women, researchers found that women with a close family history of breast cancer had significantly lower risk of developing breast cancer before menopause themselves if they breastfed their babies, compared to women who did not breastfeed.
“Breastfeeding is good for mothers and for babies,” study chief Dr. Alison M. Stuebe, of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told Reuters Health by email.
Computer system improves pain therapy for cancer patients
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Successful test of electronic decision support on applying international therapy guidelines / Clinical pharmacologists from Heidelberg publish results in “Pain”
Pain therapy for cancer patients – whether inpatient or outpatient – is often inadequate. At Heidelberg University Hospital, the use of an innovative electronic system – combined with guidance by an experienced clinical pharmacist – has been successfully tested. The treatment of the patients showed little variance from international guidelines on pain therapy. In addition, patients reported having less pain. The results of the study have been published in the journal Pain.
The electronic pain relief guide AiDPainCare is an additional instrument of the electronic pharmaceutical guide AiDKlinik, which guides physicians safely through the current pharmaceutical market in Germany with over 64,000 products and successfully helps avoid false dosages, side effects, dangerous drug interaction, and duplications in prescriptions. The medication prescribed by the physician can be transferred from AiDKlinik directly to a prescription or medical report. The system is currently in use in 10 hospitals in Germany and can also be subscribed to by physicians in private practice (http://www.doctors-aid.de).
“Don’t eat me” sign helps bladder tumors escape
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Researchers said on Monday they had found primitive bladder cancer cells that cloak themselves with a “don’t eat me” signal that scares off immune system cells, allowing them to mature into tumors later on.
But they found a way to unmask this disguise and said their findings may lead to new approaches for treating cancers of several different types.
The immediate hope is to find a way of telling apart patients who have dangerous bladder cancer from those who have more benign forms. Bladder cancer is mostly slow-growing and easily treated, but 15 percent of cases become invasive and deadly.
Drug cuts diabetics’ pancreatic cancer risk: study
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Diabetics who took the drug metformin, which makes the body process insulin better, had a 62 percent lower risk of pancreatic cancer compared to those who had never received it, U.S. researchers said on Saturday.
But the risk of getting the cancer, one of the deadliest, was significantly higher among diabetics who took insulin or drugs that make the body produce more insulin, according to their study published in the journal Gastroenterology.
“We find that diabetics that had ever used metformin alone or in combination with other drugs had like a 60 percent reduced risk for pancreatic cancer, compared to diabetic patients who never used metformin,” lead researcher Donghui Li from The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center said.
Tiny ovarian tumors lurk for years, study finds
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Tiny ovarian tumors lurk in the Fallopian tubes for an average of four years before they grow large enough to be detected, researchers reported on Monday in a study that explains why diagnosis usually comes too late to save a woman’s life.
They said they were trying to find ways to improve testing for the cancer, one of the deadliest because it is so hard to detect before it has spread.
“Reliable early detection would save so many more lives than many new blockbuster anticancer drugs,” Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher Dr. Patrick Brown of Stanford University in California, who led the study, said in a statement.
Molecule Plays Early Role In Nonsmoking Lung Cancer
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The cause of lung cancer in never-smokers is poorly understood, but a study led by investigators at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center and at the National Cancer Institute has identified a molecule believed to play an early and important role in its development.
The findings, published online recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may lead to improved therapy for lung cancer in both never-smokers and smokers, including those with tumors resistant to targeted drugs such as gefitinib.
The study examined lung tumors from people who had never smoked and found high levels of a molecule called miR-21. The levels were even higher in tumors that had mutations in a gene called EGFR, a common feature of lung cancer in never-smokers.
NJ Hospital Network Pilots New National Cancer Data System
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What if the quality of cancer care could be assessed and improved in “real clinical time” instead of waiting the typical two years it takes for clinical data to be analyzed and changes implemented? That is an opportunity The Cancer Institute of New Jersey (CINJ) Network of hospitals is exploring this summer, as it takes the lead in a national initiative to improve data collection on cancer treatment and create a new quality assessment system that can be utilized by health providers across the country. The CINJ Network of hospitals represents nearly a quarter of the 60 beta test sites from across the country that have been invited to help steer the effort. CINJ is a Center of Excellence of UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
According to the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer (CoC), which is overseeing the project, “treatment information in current data collection systems is insufficient to assess the quality of (cancer) care.” That reality is among the reasons why the CoC developed the Rapid Quality Reporting System (RQRS), which the CINJ Network and others will be pilot testing for the remainder of this year.
The first phase, which tested the mechanics of the web-based data collection system, took place during the fall of 2008 and spring of 2009. Modifications based on that testing will be put into practice for this next phase, utilizing existing national 2006 and 2007 data on breast and colorectal cancers. This information will be used as a baseline against which the CoC and participating hospitals can monitor future performance rates. The CINJ Network will be responsible for entering 2008 and 2009 breast and colorectal data from patients at its respective hospitals.
Scientists discover key event in prostate cancer progression
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A study led by researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute reveals how late-stage, hormone-independent prostate tumors gain the ability to grow without need of hormones.
The onset of hormone-independent growth marks an advanced and currently incurable stage of prostate cancer.
The study, published in the July 24, 2009, issue of the journal Cell, focuses on androgen receptors, molecules located in the nucleus of cells of the prostate gland and other tissues. Male sex hormones – androgens – bind with these receptors to activate genes that control cell growth.
The researchers show that in androgen-independent prostate cancer, androgen receptors are reprogrammed to regulate a group of genes involved in a different, later, phase of cell division, triggering rapid cell growth. They further show that a modification of a chief component of the chromosome is responsible for this reprogramming.
Common Cold Virus Efficiently Delivers Corrected Gene to Cystic Fibrosis Cells
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Scientists have worked for 20 years to perfect gene therapy for the treatment of cystic fibrosis, which causes the body to produce dehydrated, thicker-than-normal mucus that clogs the lungs and leads to life threatening infections.
Now University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine scientists have found what may be the most efficient way to deliver a corrected gene to lung cells collected from cystic fibrosis patients. They also showed that it may take this high level of efficiency for cystic fibrosis (CF) patients to see any benefit from gene therapy.
Using parainfluenza virus, one of the viruses that causes common colds, the UNC scientists found that delivery of a corrected version of the CFTR gene to 25 percent of cells grown in a tissue culture model that resembles the lining of the human airways was sufficient to restore normal function back to the tissue.
Studies shed light on preserving fertility among cancer patients
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Cancer treatment has come a long way, leading to a multitude of therapy options and improved survival rates. These successes, however, have created a challenge for young cancer patients since chemotherapy and radiation treatments that often save lives threaten fertility. Techniques available to safeguard fertility, such as freezing eggs for later embryo development, have poor odds of success, leaving patients with very limited options for the future. But that is beginning to change as researchers improve current techniques, mature human eggs in the laboratory, and discover cellular mechanisms that could help preserve and even restore fertility. Researchers will report on these and other findings at the 42nd annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Reproduction (SSR), July 18 to 22, at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh.
Summaries of the findings are as follows:
Growing Egg Cells in the Lab
Researchers at Northwestern University are developing a method they hope will help preserve a woman’s fertility after radiation and chemotherapy treatment. Led by Teresa K. Woodruff, Ph.D., the team has grown undeveloped human eggs to near maturity in laboratory cultures. During a 30-day experiment, they grew human follicles―tiny sacs that contain immature eggs―in the lab until the eggs they contained were nearly mature. According to Dr. Woodruff, this is the first step in developing a new fertility option for young cancer patients.
Psoriasis treatment may up cancer risk
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Patients with moderate to severe psoriasis may need life-long treatment with a variety of therapies to relieve symptoms of the scaly skin condition and research has shown that both traditional and newer therapies for psoriasis can increase patients’ risk of certain cancers.
Long-term treatment with so-called PUVA therapy, they note, is associated with increased risks of deadly malignant melanoma as well as a less deadly non-melanoma skin cancer called cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, Dr. Jeffrey M. Weinberg, of St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center, New York, and colleagues note in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.
During PUVA therapy, patients are given the photosensitizing drug psoralen and exposed to ultraviolet A light.
Two Reproductive Factors are Important Predictors of Death from Ovarian Cancer
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Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that survival among women with ovarian cancer is influenced by age of menarche and total number of lifetime ovulatory cycles.
This finding suggests that hormonal activity over the course of a woman’s lifetime may influence the prognosis after an ovarian cancer diagnosis. Results of this study are published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Results of previous studies indicated that fewer lifetime ovulatory cycles, higher parity, oral contraceptive use, hysterectomy and tubal ligation are associated with decreased risk of developing this form of cancer, according to the researchers. However, little is known about the influence of these factors on a patient’s survival after a diagnosis of ovarian cancer.
Why African-Americans Fare Worse with Some Cancers
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An analysis of almost 20,000 patient records from the Southwest Oncology Group’s database of clinical trials finds, for the first time, that African-American breast, ovarian, and prostate cancer patients tend to die earlier than patients of other races even when they get identical medical treatment and other confounding socioeconomic factors are controlled for. The finding points to biological or host genetic factors as the potential source of the survival gap.
“When you look at the dialogue about the issue of race and cancer survival that’s gone on over the years,” says the paper’s lead author, Kathy Albain, M.D., a breast and lung cancer specialist at Loyola University’s Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center, “it always seems to come down to general conclusions that African-Americans may in part have poorer access to quality treatment, may be diagnosed in later stages, and may not have the same standard of care delivered as Caucasian patients, leading to a disparity in survival.”
The study, which will be published online by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI) on July 7, found that when treatment was uniform and differences in tumor prognostic factors, demographics, and socioeconomic status were controlled, there was in fact no statistically significant difference in survival based on race for a number of other cancers—lung, colon, lymphoma, leukemia, and multiple myeloma.
Researchers find genetic key to breast cancer’s ability to survive and spread
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New research led by investigators at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) sheds light on a genetic function that gives breast cancer cells the ability to survive and spread to the bone years after treatment has been administered. The findings support the study of therapies that target this survival capacity and force the death of latent breast cancer cells before they get a chance to metastasize, or spread – a problem that accounts for a majority of breast cancer–related deaths. The research will be published in the July 7 issue of Cancer Cell.
Using gene-expression profiling techniques, researchers found that breast cancer cells that infiltrate the bone marrow can survive over time if they contain the gene product Src, which has known effects on cell mobility, invasion, and survival. The investigators discovered that genetically disabling Src activity in human breast cancer cells inhibits these cells from surviving in the bone marrow and forming metastases in mice. They also observed that treatment with the drug dasatinib inhibits the formation of bone metastasis by human breast cancer cells inoculated into mice.
“Our results should encourage oncologists to consider the study of Src inhibitors to attack reservoirs of disseminated, latent cancer cells and prevent metastasis in breast cancer patients after their tumor has been removed,” said the study’s senior author, Joan Massagué, PhD, Chair of the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program at MSKCC and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
Report: Prostate cancer screening has yet to prove its worth
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The recent release of two large randomized trials suggests that if there is a benefit of screening, it is, at best, small, says a new report in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians. Authored by Otis W. Brawley, M.D. of the American Cancer Society and Donna Ankerst, Ph.D. and Ian M. Thompson, M.D. of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, the review says because prostate cancer is virtually ubiquitous in men as they age, it is clear that a goal of “finding more cancers” is not acceptable. Instead, public health principles demand that screening must reduce the risk of death from prostate cancer, reduce the suffering from prostate cancer, or reduce health care costs when compared with a non-screening scenario. The authors suggest prostate cancer screening has yet to reach one of these standards to date.
No major medical group, including the American Cancer Society, currently recommends routine prostate cancer screening for men at average risk. In the United States, prostate cancer will affect one man in six men during his lifetime. Since the mid-1980s, screening with the prostate–specific antigen (PSA) blood test has more than doubled the risk of a prostate cancer diagnosis. The review says a decrease in prostate cancer death rates has been observed since that time, but the relative contribution of PSA testing as opposed to other factors, such as improved treatment, has been uncertain.
The report says a computer modeling study using National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registries estimated that more than one in four cancers detected in whites (29 percent) and nearly half of cancers detected in blacks (44 percent) were overdiagnosed cancers. A similar model using data from Europe estimated a 50 percent overdiagnosis rate.
