Tag Archives: unc

Supporting others brings healing to cancer survivors

The process includes first writing for oneself in emotionally expressive ways about the trauma of the cancer and transplant experience, followed by peer helping, which includes writing as if speaking to a person ready to undergo the transplant procedure about the survivor’s experience while offering advice and encouragement. …

Half of prostate cancer patients in NC do not receive multidisciplinary care

Working with local hospitals across North Carolina, UNC researchers led by Ronald Chen, MD, MPH, assistant professor of Radiation Oncology in the UNC School of Medicine, and Paul Godley, MD, PhD, Professor in the Division of Hematology/Oncology — both members of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center — surveyed patients about their decision-making process after a prostate cancer diagnosis. "Prostate cancer is a unique disease where there are multiple treatment options, ranging from active surveillance to surgical treatments to radiation treatments…

Inhibiting macrophage MerTK signaling creates an innate immune response against cancer

New evidence by a University of North Carolina-led team published online on July 8 by the Journal of Clinical Investigation shows that MerTK macrophage action in the microenvironment that surrounds cancer cells blunts the immune response, allowing the tumor cell to grow and metastasize. The study, led by senior author Shelley Earp, MD, director of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, used mouse models bred without the gene for MerTK. Their work determined that MerTK absence increased the anti-tumor response and slowed the growth and spread of model breast, colon and skin cancers…