Category Archives: Cancer

Cancer therapy shows promise for nuclear medicine treatment

Targeted therapy with radiopharmaceuticals–radioactive compounds used in nuclear medicine for diagnosis or treatment–has great potential for the treatment of cancer, especially for cancer cells that have migrated from primary tumors to lymph nodes and secondary organs such as bone marrow. These disseminated tumor cells can be difficult to treat with a single targeting agent because there are dramatic differences in the number of targetable receptors on each cell. …

Improved treatment for cancer patients: Topical steroid cream

Radiotherapy uses X-rays to destroy cancer cells but this can often lead to a severe skin reaction involving redness, pain and blistering similar to sunburn. The trial of this cream — mometasone furoate–was so successful that the patients in the research will now be offered this instead of the existing treatment. Breast cancer patients were recruited from hospitals all over the North West for the trial, based at the Rosemere Cancer Centre at the Royal Preston Hospital. Dr Andrew Hindley of Rosemere Cancer Centre: “We believe that this treatment should be considered the standard of care when a radiation therapy schedule is administered to an anatomical site where severe dermatitis would be predicted.” The patients were offered either diprobase cream or mometasone furoate to be administered daily from the start of radiation therapy for 5 weeks and for at least a fortnight afterwards. …

Toughest breast cancer may have met its match: Protein inhibitor makes cell susceptible to chemotherapy — ScienceDaily

A report of their findings was published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Dec. 1. Triple-negative breast cancers account for about 20 percent of all breast cancers in the United States, and 30 percent of all breast cancers in African-American women. …

Narrow subset of cells is responsible for metastasis in multiple myeloma, study finds

The study suggests that attacking those subsets with targeted drugs may degrade the disease’s ability to spread throughout the bone marrow of affected patients, the authors say. The discovery was made by developing a mouse model of the disease that enabled researchers to track which of 15 genetic groups — or subclones — of myeloma cells spread beyond their initial site in the animals’ hind legs. By labeling the different subgroups with fluorescent dyes, researchers determined that just one of the subclones was responsible for the disease metastasis. They then compared the pattern of gene abnormalities in the initial myeloma tissue and the metastatic tumors. …

HPV vaccine, riskier sexual activity not linked, Canadian researchers say

There are concerns the vaccine, which guards against four types of the HPV shown to cause cervical cancer and anogenital warts, may give girls a false sense of security about contracting sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and lead them to engage in riskier sexual activity. “These findings suggest fears of increased risky sexual behaviour following HPV vaccination are unwarranted and should not be a barrier to vaccinating at a young age,” says Dr. Smith, the lead author on the study that was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. This study looked at a cohort of 260,493 girls, of whom about half (128,712) were eligible for Ontario’s publicly funded, school-based HPV vaccination program during the first two school years it was offered (2007-08 and 2008-09). …

Disorder in gene-control system is a defining characteristic of cancer, study finds

The researchers also showed that derangement in the methylation process has a direct bearing on the effectiveness of cancer therapy. In patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), they found that treatment produced shorter remissions if the tumor tissue showed signs of highly disorganized methylation. The findings demonstrate that such disorganization can actually benefit tumors and render them less vulnerable to anti-cancer drugs. …

Injectable 3-D vaccines could fight cancer, infectious diseases

“We can create 3D structures using minimally-invasive delivery to enrich and activate a host’s immune cells to target and attack harmful cells in vivo,” said the study’s senior author David Mooney, Ph.D., who is a Wyss Institute Core Faculty member and the Robert P. Pinkas Professor of Bioengineering at Harvard SEAS. Tiny biodegradable rod-like structures made from silica, known as mesoporous silica rods (MSRs), can be loaded with biological and chemical drug components and then delivered by needle just underneath the skin. The rods spontaneously assemble at the vaccination site to form a three-dimensional scaffold, like pouring a box of matchsticks into a pile on a table…

Toughest breast cancer may have met its match: Protein inhibitor makes cell susceptible to chemotherapy

A report of their findings was published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Dec. 1. Triple-negative breast cancers account for about 20 percent of all breast cancers in the United States, and 30 percent of all breast cancers in African-American women…

Natural selection is furthering mutations that are making skin paler

The first hominids that appeared in Africa probably had pale skin covered with hair, like other primates. They are thought to have lost their hair when they became bipedal, and that natural selection subsequently furthered darker skins in Africa as they protect against ultraviolet (UV)light. However, when humans left Africa (about 100,000 years ago) and headed for Asia or Europe, where UV intensity was lower, they once again acquired a less pigmented skin colour. What caused the depigmentation of these populations is not clear, and two hypotheses have in fact been put forward: firstly, it could be due to a relaxing in natural selection that keeps the skin dark in Africa, since when leaving Africa, UV levels are lower; secondly, it could be due to the fact that natural selection furthers certain mutations so that individuals can have paler skin, since at these latitudes having a skin with a dark pigmentation prevents the synthesis of adequate levels of vitamin D, essential for our survival. …