Tag Archives: director

Many throat cancer patients can skip neck surgery

“For patients that achieve a complete response, neck surgery is probably unnecessary,” says Thomas J. Galloway, MD, Attending Physician and Director of Clinical Research at Fox Chase and lead author on the study. After radiation and chemotherapy to remove tumors from the tonsils or back of the tongue, many head and neck cancer patients still have persistent lumps in their neck, albeit perhaps smaller than when they were first diagnosed. “The question is: Do we need to remove those lumps, as well, or can we just let them dissolve on their own?” asks Dr. …

New drug formulations to boost fight against respiratory illnesses, antibiotic-resistant superbugs

A team of five researchers and clinicians in Singapore led by Dr Desmond Heng, ICES, has developed a new combination of drugs to effectively combat bacteria in the lungs which lead to common respiratory system infections, or bacteria-linked pulmonary diseases such as pneumonia, bronchiectasis and cystic fibrosis. An acute upper respiratory tract infection, which includes the common flu, was reported to be among the top four conditions diagnosed at polyclinics for eight consecutive years, from 2006 to 2013. Pneumonia on the other hand, was the second leading cause of death in 2012, contributing to 16.8 per cent of the total number of deaths from illnesses behind cancer…

Rare stem cells hold potential for infertility treatments

Researchers studying infertility in mouse models found that, unlike similar types of cells that develop into sperm, the stem cells that express PAX7 can survive treatment with toxic drugs and radiation. If the findings hold true in people, they eventually could lead to new strategies to restore or protect fertility in men undergoing cancer treatment. “Unfortunately, many cancer treatments negatively impact fertility, and men who receive such treatments are at high risk of losing their fertility…

Understanding, improving body’s fight against pathogens

While they exist in small populations in humans, the large amounts of antibodies secreted by plasma cells make them key to the body’s immune system and its ability to defend itself against pathogens, such as bacteria and viruses. Proper maintenance of a pool of plasma cells is also critical for the establishment of lifelong immunity elicited by vaccination. …

Ovarian Cancer: Know your body, know your risk

“There is no effective surveillance technique for the detection of early stage ovarian cancer, so the only effective way to prevent it and save lives is to identify women at risk,” said David A. Fishman, MD, Director of the Mount Sinai Ovarian Cancer Risk Assessment Program and Professor and Fellowship Director in the Division of Gynecologic Oncology, Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He recommends that women with a family history of ovarian and breast cancers get a formal genetic evaluation by a board-certified genetic counselor. For women who have tested positive for a BRCA mutation or are identified to be at a high risk for developing ovarian cancer, preventive surgery should be considered to remove the ovaries and fallopian tubes before ovarian cancer can develop…

RNA combination therapy for lung cancer offers promise for personalized medicine

This week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT now report that they have successfully delivered small RNA therapies in a clinically relevant mouse model of lung cancer to slow and shrink tumor growth. Their research offers promise for personalized RNA combination therapies to improve therapeutic response. …

Scientists unlock key to blood vessel formation

Professor David Beech, of the School of Medicine at the University of Leeds, who led the research, said: “Blood vessel networks are not already pre-constructed but emerge rather like a river system. Vessels do not develop until the blood is already flowing and they are created in response to the amount of flow. This gene, Piezo1, provides the instructions for sensors that tell the body that blood is flowing correctly and gives the signal to form new vessel structures. …