In their laboratory experiments Christina Fjæraa Alfredsson and her colleagues have studied how ellagic acid affects the growth and survival of cultivated neuroblastoma cells. An important discovery was that adding ellagic acid resulted in a so-called programmed cell death. …
One strategy, which occurs in about 90 percent of cancers, requires increase production of a telomere-elongating enzyme called telomerase. A less understood strategy, employed by the remaining 10-15 percent of cancers, is called ALT (for Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres). Previously, biologists knew ALT existed simply because tumor cells could rebuild long, albeit unkempt-looking telomeres without telomerase. …
"Insomnia and disturbed sleep are significant problems that can affect approximately half of all cancer patients," said lead study author Sheila Garland, PhD, a Clinical Psychology Post-Doctoral Fellow at Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center in Integrative Oncology and Behavioral Sleep Medicine. "If not properly addressed, sleep disturbances can negatively influence therapeutic and supportive care measures for these patients, so it’s critical that clinicians can offer patients reliable, effective, and tailored interventions." Estimates suggest that anywhere between 36 to 59 percent of patients with cancer experience disturbed sleep and insomnia symptoms during and after the completion of cancer treatment, with up to 28 percent meeting a formal diagnosis of insomnia. While there are effective drugs that can help treat insomnia, Garland says that many cancer patients express a desire not to take additional medications due to concerns about side effects and the possibility of developing a dependence on the medication. The new study involved 111 cancer patients recruited from a cancer center in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to one of two randomly assigned interventions for their insomnia, either CBT-I (47) or MBSR (64)…
Despite similar results on objective assessments, "It appears that there is a difference in the perception of cosmetic outcomes between Caucasian and African-American patients," according to the study led by ASPS Member Surgeon Dr. Robert D. …
"In these studies, say we treat cells with the IC-50 of a drug — at that dose, 50 percent of cells should live and 50 percent of cells should die. But the fundamental question is why does cell A die whereas cell B lives? What we show is that the difference may be due to random variation in the amount of autophagy that’s going on," says Andrew Thorburn, PhD, deputy director of the CU Cancer Center. Previous studies show that autophagy promotes cell survival — under conditions of stress or shortage, cells break down non-necessary components to provide energy or use the same strategy to prevent cellular damage by degrading and recycling potentially damaging proteins. …
The findings suggest that developing medications that activate PP2A, while avoiding perphenazine’s psychotropic effects, could help clinicians make much-needed headway against T-cell ALL, and perhaps other tumors as well. A study team led by Alejandro Gutierrez, MD, and A. …
CTCs can also be tested to identify genetic mutations associated with a tumor. Many newer cancer medications are designed to target specific genetic mutations, so they work best for limited types and stages of cancer. CTCs can provide a quick method to help physicians choose the most appropriate targeted therapy for a particular patient…
The authors used a standard definition of overdiagnosis to refer to a cancer that would not have become symptomatic or clinically identifiable if it had not been detected by screening. Overdiagnosed cancers do not pose a risk to the patient and do not require treatment, which is associated with significant risks of impotence and incontinence. …
Loss of the tumor suppressor p53 often contributes to therapy resistance in tumors. In the study, published in Cell Reports, the University of Kentucky’s Vivek Rangnekar and his colleagues activated wild type p53 in normal cells to trigger cell death in the p53-deficient cancer cells. Because p53 is intact and functional in normal cells, the researchers harnessed its potential to inhibit the growth of p53-deficient cancer cells…
Very low doses of a drug used to treat certain types of cancer protect the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas and prevent the development of diabetes mellitus type 1 in mice. The medicine works by lowering the level of so-called sterile inflammation. …