Tag Archives: body

Protein in blood exerts natural anti-cancer protection

The study, published June 24 online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests it may be possible to harness the power of this naturally occurring anticancer agent as a way to treat cancer, including metastases. In several different publications it has been described the ability of decorin to affect a number of biological processes including inflammatory responses, wound healing, and angiogenesis. In this new article, the study’s senior investigator, Renato Iozzo, M.D., Ph.D., has labeled decorin a "soluble tumor repressor" — the first to be found that specifically targets new blood vessels, which are pushed to grow by the cancer, and forces the vessel cells to "eat" their internal components. …

Surgeons report melanoma recurs after 10 years in more than 6 percent of patients

"For patients with melanoma, survival beyond 10 years without a recurrence has been considered nearly synonymous with a cure," said principal investigator Mark Faries, MD, FACS, a professor of surgery at the John Wayne Cancer Institute at Saint John’s Health Center, Santa Monica, CA. "However, most studies do not follow up patients longer than 10 years. Our study found that late melanoma recurrence is not rare and that it occurs more frequently in certain patient groups." Patients with a higher chance of melanoma — the deadliest form of skin cancer — recurring more than a decade later, compared with early recurrence of melanoma within the first three years, were typically a younger age at initial diagnosis and generally exhibited less serious characteristics of the original tumor, Dr. Faries and colleagues reported…

How cancer cells avoid cell death

Metastasis, the spread of cancer from one organ to other parts of the body, relies on cancer cells ability to evade a cell death process called anoikis, according to Zachary T. Schafer, Coleman Assistant Professor of Cancer Biology at Notre Dame. Metalizing cancer cells are able to survive anoikis, which normally results from detachment from the extracellular matrix. …

Exposure to BPA in developing prostate increases risk of later cancer: Ubiquitous plasticizers may have long-term health effects

Prins presented her findings at the ENDO 2013 meeting in San Francisco June 17. "This is the first direct evidence that exposure to BPA during development, at the levels we see in our day-to-day environment, increases the risk for prostate cancer in human prostate tissue," said Prins, professor of physiology and director of the andrology laboratory in urology at the UIC College of Medicine. The increased risk can be traced to prostate stem and progenitor cells which become "sensitized" to estrogen early in development through exposure to BPA — which mimics estrogen in the body. …