Category Archives: Cancer Knowledge

Certain form of baldness at age 45 linked to higher risk for aggressive prostate cancer

“Our study found an increased risk for aggressive prostate cancer only in men with a very specific pattern of hair loss, baldness at the front and moderate hair-thinning on the crown of the head, at the age of 45. But we saw no increased risk for any form of prostate cancer in men with other hair-loss patterns,” said senior study author Michael B. Cook, PhD, an investigator in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, MD…

UT Southwestern one of two institutions to offer innovative four-flap microsurgery approach to breast reconstruction

The technique, known as a four-flap breast reconstruction, uses fat and skin from the back of each leg and from two spots on the stomach to reconstruct natural breast materials. “It reaches a new height in breast reconstructive surgery, using your own tissue,” said Dr. Sumeet Teotia, Assistant Professor of Plastic Surgery, who performs the procedure along with Dr. …

Long-term androgen deprivation therapy combined with high-dose radiation therapy for prostate cancer improves biochemical control and survival rates

Because prostate cancer cells typically require androgen hormones such as testosterone to grow, ADT is often recommended for patients with prostate cancer. Radiation therapy (RT) combined with ADT is an established, standard of care for patients with locally advanced prostate cancer…

New drug formulations to boost fight against respiratory illnesses, antibiotic-resistant superbugs

A team of five researchers and clinicians in Singapore led by Dr Desmond Heng, ICES, has developed a new combination of drugs to effectively combat bacteria in the lungs which lead to common respiratory system infections, or bacteria-linked pulmonary diseases such as pneumonia, bronchiectasis and cystic fibrosis. An acute upper respiratory tract infection, which includes the common flu, was reported to be among the top four conditions diagnosed at polyclinics for eight consecutive years, from 2006 to 2013. Pneumonia on the other hand, was the second leading cause of death in 2012, contributing to 16.8 per cent of the total number of deaths from illnesses behind cancer…

Analysis Finds Select Group of Stage IV Lung Cancer Patient Population Achieves Long-Term Survival After Aggressive Treatments

When lung cancer has spread from an original tumor to other sites of the body, it is classified as metastatic (Stage IV), and the goal of treatment is to slow the cancer down with chemotherapy or radiation, but these treatments are unable to eradicate the cancer and survival is usually in the range of only a few months. However, when there are only a few locations of metastatic lung cancer (called oligo-metastatic), some studies suggest that by removing or eradicating each of those cancer deposits with aggressive treatments such as surgery or high-dose, precise radiation called stereotactic ablative radiotherapy or SABR, the cancer may be controlled for a long period of time. In order to further study the possible benefits of aggressive treatments in stage IV lung cancer, researchers completed this meta-analysis which evaluated data of 757 Stage IV NSCLC patients from 20 hospitals worldwide who had between one and five metastatic deposits that were removed surgically or eradicated with high-dose, precise radiotherapy. Patients in the study also had to have had aggressive treatment of their original lung tumor…

A heart-felt need for dairy food: Small serving beneficial, large not necessary

A study of nearly 4000 Taiwanese, led by Emeritus Professor Mark Wahlqvist from Monash University’s Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine and the Monash Asia Institute, considered the role increased consumption of dairy foods had played in the country’s gains in health and longevity. “In a dominantly Chinese food culture, unaccustomed to dairy foods, consuming them up to seven times � a week does not increase mortality and may have favourable effects on stroke,” Professor Wahlqvist said. Cancer and cardiovascular disease are the leading causes of death among Taiwanese. When Professor Wahlqvist’s study began in 1993, there was little apparent concern about dairy foods, in contrast to a current belief that they may be harmful to health and in particular raise the risk of cancer…

Five radiation oncology treatments to question

• Don’t recommend radiation following hysterectomy for endometrial cancer patients with low-risk disease. Patients with low-risk endometrial cancer, including no residual disease in hysterectomy despite positive biopsy, grade 1 or 2 with <50 percent myometrial invasion and no additional high-risk features such as age >60, lymphovascular space invasion or cervical involvement have a very low risk of recurrence following surgery. Meta-analysis studies of radiation therapy for low-risk endometrial cancer demonstrate increased side effects with no benefit in overall survival compared with surgery alone. • Don’t routinely offer radiation therapy for patients who have resected non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), negative margins, N0-1 disease…

Improved survival shown in early-stage Hodgkin’s disease patients who receive radiation therapy

Researchers evaluated clinical features and survival outcomes among 41,502 patients diagnosed with stage I and II Hodgkin’s Disease from 1998 to 2011 from a prospectively collected database — the National Cancer Data Base (NCDB), which is composed of cases from 1,500 sites and represents >75 percent of all cancers diagnosed in the U.S. The average patient age was 37 (range: 18 — 90), with a median follow-up of 7.5 years. The association between RT use, co-variables and outcome were assessed in a multivariate Cox proportional hazards model…