Tag Archives: cancer treatment

Years after treatment for HER2-positve early stage breast cancer, trastuzumab continues to show life-altering benefit — ScienceDaily

They found that the use of trastuzumab produced a 37 percent improvement in survival and a 40 percent reduction in risk of cancer occurrence, compared to patients treated with chemotherapy alone. These findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, demonstrate how important trastuzumab has been to the treatment of this form of breast cancer, says the study’s lead author, Edith A. Perez, M.D., deputy director at large, Mayo Clinic Cancer Center and director of the Breast Cancer Translational Genomics Program at Mayo Clinic in Florida. “This long follow-up of patients shows that we have really altered the natural history of this disease,” says Dr…

Patients treated with radiation therapy who have tumors in left breast have comparable overall survival to those with tumors in right breast –…

Studies have shown that breast cancer patients treated with radiation therapy have improved local-regional recurrence, and breast cancer-specific survival after breast-conserving surgery and overall survival (OS) after mastectomy. Long-term follow-up of historic radiation therapy trials for breast cancer has demonstrated a potential increase in cardiac mortality. However, these studies used earlier modes of radiation therapy including Cobalt and orthovoltage radiotherapy, and did not employ CT-based planning, which allows for greater cardiac avoidance. Three recent studies suggest that cardiac mortality has not been greater for patients treated for left-sided breast cancer since the 1980s, when techniques allowing for greater cardiac avoidance became more commonplace[1-3]. …

Many older people have mutations linked to leukemia, lymphoma in their blood cells

Mutations in the body’s cells randomly accumulate as part of the aging process, and most are harmless. For some people, genetic changes in blood cells can develop in genes that play roles in initiating leukemia and lymphoma even though such people don’t have the blood cancers, the scientists report Oct…

Why early-stage breast cancer survivors opt for mastectomy — ScienceDaily

“According to research evidence, survival rates are considered equal,” explained dean Nancy Fahrenwald of the South Dakota State University College of Nursing. Working through the South Dakota Women’s Cancer Network, the South Dakota Comprehensive Cancer Control Program and seven cancer treatment centers in the state, Fahrenwald got responses from 1,093 breast cancer survivors who had been diagnosed in the last five years. To determine which of the nine independent variables tipped the scales toward mastectomy, she turned to associate professor Chris Saunders of the mathematics and statistics department. “The statistics were not meant to be innovative but to provide an answer that is robust and rigorous,” said Saunders, who used logistic regression to analyze the survey results…

Modeling tumor dormancy: What makes a tumor switch from dormant to malignant?

A new computational model developed in the laboratory of Salvatore Torquato, a Professor of Chemistry at Princeton University, may help illuminate the conditions surrounding tumor dormancy and the switch to a malignant state. Published today in PLOS ONE, the so-called cellular automaton model simulated various scenarios of tumor growth leading to tumor suppression, dormancy or proliferation. “The power of the model is that it lets people to test medically realistic scenarios,” Torquato said. In future collaborations, these scenarios could be engineered in laboratory experiments and the observed outcomes could be used to calibrate the model. …

A diet for the cell: Keeping DNA fit with fewer calories

Cells harbour genetic material in the form of DNA, which contains all the information required for the cell to function. Every time a cell divides this information has to be precisely copied so that the newly made cell receives a perfect replica in order that it, too, can function properly. …

Tumors might grow faster at night

This finding arose out of an investigation into the relationships between different receptors in the cell — a complex network that we still do not completely understand. The receptors — protein molecules on the cell’s surface or within cells — take in biochemical messages secreted by other cells and pass them on into the cell’s interior. …

Study may lead to early detection, better outcomes for lymphedema patients

The study is testing bioimpedance spectroscopy, a device where electrodes are placed on the patient’s arms so that the fluid buildup can be accurately measured. The randomized study is enrolling 1,100 research subjects over two years at five sites in the United States and Australia. “Many in the health care community, and even breast cancer patients, don’t understand that this lifelong arm swelling is a possible result of breast cancer treatment, but others of us have been working on this issue for decades,” said principal investigator Sheila H. …

Stochastic variations of migration speed between cells in clonal populations

A team of researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston has developed technologies for precision measurement of cell migration speed before and applied the new tool to study the variations of migration speed in population of cancer cells. This tool enabled comparisons between successive generations of cells with single cell resolution…