Cancer is the second leading cause of death in both men and women in the U.S. However, women have a higher chance than men of being diagnosed with cancer before the age of 60 due to breast cancer development. Metastases in breast cancer’s later stages cause the majority of deaths associated with the disease, making early detection crucial to patient survival. …
The authors’ findings come against the backdrop of rising cancer care costs in the United States, which were estimated at $124.6 billion in 2010 and could rise by 66 percent to $207 billion by 2020. "It is widely known that outcomes after cancer surgery vary widely, depending on interactions between patient, tumor, neoadjuvant therapy and provider factors," said Marah Short, a senior research analyst for the Baker Institute’s Health Policy Forum. "An area of cancer care that has received little attention is the influence of complications on medical outcomes and costs of care…
"The prevalence of these symptoms accounts for a huge variance in physical, mental and social domains of quality of life among survivors," said I-Chan Huang, Ph.D., an associate professor of health outcomes and policy in the UF College of Medicine and the lead author of the study. "If we think symptoms are the key to patients’ quality of life, then if we can better manage their symptoms, we can improve their daily functional status and quality of life." Huang, also a member of UF’s Institute for Child Health Policy, teamed with researchers from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis to conduct the study, which was published in the Nov. 20 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology…
Paco is a horse, half Thoroughbred/half Percheron, and at the point of his shoulder — withers — he stands 5 feet 7 inches in human terms. Every two weeks this elegant, easygoing equine and his human pal Ferd Powell come to the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech to be treated for sarcoids…
Their findings, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, are the first to quantify, in the setting of a clinical trial, the increased risk of prostate cancer development from the protein ERG. Traditional means of determining risk of prostate cancer — blood tests for the protein prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and biopsies — do not always correlate well with the chances of dying from the disease. Decisions on what to do with the results of these tests can be unclear, leaving doctors and patients frustrated and unsure of how to proceed. …
In a recent Genome Biology paper, Susztak, and her co-corresponding author John Greally from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, found, in a genome-wide survey, significant differences in the pattern of chemical modifications on DNA that affect gene expression in kidney cells from patients with chronic kidney disease versus healthy controls. This is the first study to show that changes in these modifications – the cornerstone of the field of epigenetics – might explain chronic kidney disease. Epigenetics is the science of how gene activity can be altered without actual changes in the DNA sequence. …
A new study shows that when the supplement apigenin is ingested in a diet at the same concentration as subjects received during IV injections in previous studies — the benefits were reversed leading to a higher incidence of cancerous tumors in subjects receiving progestin. "Typically, hormone replacement therapies improve the lives of menopausal women and achieve very good results," said Salman Hyder, the Zalk Endowed Professor in Tumor Angiogenesis and professor of biomedical sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine and the Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center. "However, research has proven that in women receiving therapies that involve a combination of the natural component estrogen and the synthetic progestin, a higher incidence of breast cancer tumors can occur." Hyder explains that many women normally have benign lesions in breast tissue. These lesions don’t typically form tumors until they receive the "trigger" that attracts blood vessels to cells essentially feeding the lesions causing them to form and expand — in this case, progestin is the trigger…
Martin Widschwendter from the University College London Women’s Cancer Department and colleagues, the authors of the work, systematically compared methylation patterns in endometrial cancers and normal endometrium. Using a new bioinformatics tool, they identified HAND2 as a differential methylation hotspot in endometrial cancer. By comparing with other already known factors, HAND2 methylation is by far the most common molecular alteration in endometrial cancer. The researchers found that HAND2 methylation is already increased in premalignant endometrial lesions (cancer-prone, abnormal-looking tissue) compared to normal endometrium, and that a high level of methylation predicted a poor response to progesterone treatment (which stops the growth of some pre-cancerous endometrial lesions). …
Now, a team of researchers led by Mei R. Fu, PhD, RN, ACNS-BC, associate professor of Chronic Disease Management at the New York University College of Nursing (NYUCN), offers supporting evidence for using Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis (BIA) ratios to assess Lymphedema. The study, "L-DEX Ratio in Detecting Breast Cancer-Related Lymphedema: Reliability, Sensitivity, and Specificity," published in Lymphology, argues because the low frequency electronic current cannot travel through cell membranes, it provides a direct measure of lymph fluid outside the cells. This allows for a more accurate assessment of lymphedema using a Lymphedema Index named L-Dex ratio. …
The study, published October 29 in the open access journal PLOS Biology, analyzes how the timing of gene expression is regulated in the notochord, the evolutionary and developmental precursor of the backbone. The notochord is the main feature that sets humans, mice, sea squirts and related animals (collectively known as chordates) apart from flies, worms and mollusks, and is essential for their development. A crucial player in the development of the notochord is the Brachyury gene, which encodes a DNA-binding protein that switches on the expression of numerous notochord genes and ensures their sequential deployment during the formation of this pivotal structure…