Tag Archives: columbia

Moderate doses of radiation therapy to unaffected breast may prevent second breast cancers

"Over the past decades, we’ve had great success in treating breast cancer, and the 15-year survival rate is now 77 percent," said study leader David J. Brenner, PhD, director of CUMC’s Center for Radiological Research and the Higgins Professor of Radiation Biophysics. "Unfortunately, breast cancer survivors have a several times higher risk of developing cancer in their other breast, compared with healthy women of the same age." "While drugs such as tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors can reduce the risk somewhat, at least for women with estrogen receptor-positive tumors, the long-term risks of a second breast cancer in the unaffected breast remain high. …

Coevolution between humans, bacteria reduces gastric cancer risk, research suggests

Working with colleagues in Columbia and the U.S., Scott Williams, PhD, a professor of genetics at the Geisel School of Medicine and the Institute of Quantitative Biomedical Sciences (iQBS) at Dartmouth, and his graduate student Nuri Kodaman discovered that the risk of developing gastric cancer depends heavily on both the ancestry of the person and the ancestry of Helicobacter pylori with which that person is infected. About half of the world’s population is infected with H. pylori. …

Social stigmas may contribute to African-American college students’ hesitation to breast-feed

"We need to start early with our breast-feeding education and exposure because women decide before they have children whether or not they will breast-feed," Urmeka Jefferson, assistant professor at the Sinclair School of Nursing, said. "We need to figure out how to encourage positive breast-feeding attitudes among young Black women and make them aware that breast-feeding is the normal, natural infant-feeding method." Jefferson surveyed African-American college students about their attitudes and exposure to breast-feeding and their intent to breast-feed future children. She found the majority of students knew the benefits of breast-feeding and had some level of previous exposure, such as friends or parents who had breast-fed their infants…

Women prescribed hormone therapy should use caution when taking apigenin supplement

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…

One dose of HPV vaccine may be enough to prevent cervical cancer

"The latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccination coverage indicates that in 2012, only 53.8 percent of girls between 13 and 17 years old initiated HPV vaccination, and only 33.4 percent of them received all three doses," said Mahboobeh Safaeian, Ph.D., an investigator in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in Bethesda, Md. "We wanted to evaluate whether two doses, or even one dose, of the HPV 16/18 L1 VLP vaccine [Cervarix] could induce a robust and sustainable response by the immune system," she added. "We found that both HPV 16 and HPV 18 antibody levels in women who received one dose remained stable four years after vaccination…

Sedentary behavior linked to recurrence of precancerous colorectal tumors

The majority of colorectal cancers arise from precursors called colorectal adenomatous polyps, or colorectal adenomas, which can be removed during a colonoscopy. Although there is extensive evidence supporting an association between higher overall levels of physical activity and reduced risk of colorectal cancer, few studies have focused on the impact of sedentary behavior on colorectal cancer risk. "Sedentary behavior is emerging as a risk factor for poor health," said Christine L…

Gene that may stop the spread of breast cancer identified

This finding, published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), may be used to develop therapeutic treatments for patients. "Our research has shown that HGMA2 plays a part in regulating the spread of cancer and could be considered a driver of the process," said Dr. Chada, who was principal investigator of the study. "Further studies could result in the development of therapeutic treatments for patients with breast cancer which could prevent HGMA2’s function, reduce the spread of cancer and extend a patient’s life." According to Dr…