Category Archives: Cancer

Breast density helps better predict breast cancer risk

The study, “Volumetric Breast Density Improves Breast Cancer Risk Prediction,” was presented during the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. …

To sleep, perchance to dream of a cure

And once the sleep was lost, there was no getting its positive effect back by allowing extra rest later. In “Recovery Sleep Does Not Mitigate the Effects of Prior Sleep Loss on Paclitaxel-Induced Mechanical Hypersensitivity in Sprague-Dawley Rats,” a preclinical study published in Biological Research for Nursing, restricted sleep among rats led to worse reactions to PAC, associated with painful, debilitating peripheral neuropathy of the hands and feet that may persist long after therapy is completed. According to the study, “How poor sleep sets the stage for adverse outcomes among people diagnosed with cancer is not entirely understood…

GPs should be more open when referring patients for cancer investigations, study says

They found that patients were rarely involved in the decision to be referred for investigation and that reasons for referral tended to be couched in non-specific terms rather than ‘cancer investigation’, even when the patient was on a cancer-specific pathway. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) referral guidelines emphasise that the patient should be involved in the decision-making process and be informed of the reasons for referral…

Promising drug doubled positive effect in hormone-receptor positive breast cancer, study finds

An investigational drug discovered and being developed by Pfizer Inc., palbociclib targets a key family of proteins (CDK4/6) responsible for cell growth by preventing them from dividing. Results of the multi-year phase 2 study showed a significant increase in PFS for patients with advanced breast cancer that was estrogen receptor positive (ER+), HER2-negative (HER2-), who were given a combination of the standard anti-estrogen treatment, letrozole, and palbociclib compared to letrozole alone. “We’re essentially putting the brakes on cell proliferation and causing these tumor cells to stop growing,” said Dr. …

Diagnostic screening: Microwave imaging of the breast may be better and safer

A better, cheaper, and safer way to look for the telltale signs of breast cancer may be with microwaves, said Neil Epstein, a NSERC CREATE I3T postdoctoral fellow at the University of Calgary in Canada. Epstein and his colleagues–engineering professor Paul Meaney of Dartmouth College’s Thayer School of Engineering and Keith Paulsen, director of the Dartmouth Advanced Imaging Center and the Robert A. Pritzker Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Radiology at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College — describe just such a microwave imaging system in the current issue of the journal Review of Scientific Instruments, from AIP Publishing…

High-definition scopes accurately assess polyps, physicians say

The benign hyperplastic polyp appears very pale and bland on imaging. Their 522-patient study, published in the December issue of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, found that physicians correctly evaluated whether a polyp was precancerous or benign using high-definition optical lenses during a colonoscopy…

New technology directly reprograms skin fibroblasts for a new role

The new technique cuts out a cellular middleman. Study senior author Xiaowei “George” Xu, MD, PhD, an associate professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, explains, “Through direct reprogramming, we do not have to go through the pluripotent stem cell stage, but directly convert fibroblasts to melanocytes. …

Promising drug doubled positive effect in hormone-receptor positive breast cancer, study finds — ScienceDaily

Breast density helps better predict breast cancer risk — ScienceDaily

The study, “Volumetric Breast Density Improves Breast Cancer Risk Prediction,” was presented during the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. “There is increasing interest in implementing personalized breast cancer screening strategies instead of guidelines based on a woman’s age. However, most risk models do not include breast density, which is an important indicator of a woman’s breast cancer risk,” said Jennifer Harvey, MD, professor of radiology at the UVA School of Medicine…