Tag Archives: disease

More than 1.5 million cancer deaths averted during 2 decades of dropping mortality — ScienceDaily

Each year, the American Cancer Society compiles the most recent data on cancer incidence, mortality, and survival based on incidence data from the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and mortality data from the National Center for Health Statistics. The data are disseminated in two reports: Cancer Statistics 2015, published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, and its companion, consumer-friendly publication, Cancer Facts & Figures 2015. The reports also estimate the number of new cancer cases and deaths expected in the United States in the current year. …

Survey of the general population in France identifies knowledge gaps in the perception of lung cancer

Lung cancer management in recent years has improved patient outcomes because of screening, improved surgery and radiotherapy in early and locally-advanced stages of disease, new chemotherapies, validated maintenance therapy, and effective targeted therapies. However, fears or misperceptions about lung cancer may alter physician-patient communications and could delay lung cancer screening, diagnosis, or treatment…

Tamoxifen reduces breast cancer rates by nearly a third for 20 years

The IBIS-I trial (International Breast Cancer Intervention Study), led by Queen Mary University of London and funded by Cancer Research UK, examined the long-term risks and benefits of taking tamoxifen to prevent breast cancer in women at high risk of the disease (aged 35-70 years old, primarily with a family history of breast cancer). During the study 7,154 pre and post-menopausal women were randomized to receive either tamoxifen (20mg daily) or a matching placebo for five years. …

Measuring the Malignancy of Prostate Cancer — ScienceDaily

When cancer is diagnosed, the grade of its malignancy is a central concern for both patients and their physicians. This value is used to determine how intensively and how radically the cancer must be treated. Particularly in the case of prostate cancer, the disease can take widely varying courses in different patients…

New breast cancer classification based on epigenetics

The identification of patients with high-risk breast cancer is key to knowing whether a patient will require only the removal of the tumor by surgery or whether if she will need additional chemotherapy to make sure the removal of breast cancer cells. Currently, known genetic mutations and expression patterns are determined, but the puzzle of the genetics of the disease remains a large unfinished part…

Platinum agent combination treatment for triple-negative breast cancer well tolerated in phase II clinical trial — ScienceDaily

Triple-negative breast cancer is characterized by the absence of estrogen and progesterone receptors and the HER2/neu protein in breast cancer cells. That in itself presents a challenge in treating the disease, as it does not respond to hormonal- or HER2-targeted therapies that provide for positive outcomes in other subtypes of breast cancer. Triple-negative breast cancers are often deficient in DNA repair and other specific cellular pathways that make them susceptible to DNA damage. There is growing evidence that suggests platinum-based agents may offer improved outcomes in treating the subset of triple-negative breast cancer because of their specificity for causing DNA damage…

Narrow subset of cells is responsible for metastasis in multiple myeloma, study finds

The study suggests that attacking those subsets with targeted drugs may degrade the disease’s ability to spread throughout the bone marrow of affected patients, the authors say. The discovery was made by developing a mouse model of the disease that enabled researchers to track which of 15 genetic groups — or subclones — of myeloma cells spread beyond their initial site in the animals’ hind legs. By labeling the different subgroups with fluorescent dyes, researchers determined that just one of the subclones was responsible for the disease metastasis. They then compared the pattern of gene abnormalities in the initial myeloma tissue and the metastatic tumors. …

Not all induced pluripotent stem cells are made equal

This means the type of cell obtained from an individual patient to make pluripotent stem cells, determines what can be best done with them. For example, to repair the lung of a patient with lung disease, it is best to start off with a lung cell to make the therapeutic stem cells to treat the disease, or a breast cell for the regeneration of tissue for breast cancer patients…

New molecules to burst malaria’s bubble

A new paper in PNAS is the third published recently by a group at the Australian National University (ANU). The group has collaborated with scientists from around the globe to uncover potential ammunition in the fight against malaria. Over 200 million people contract malaria each year, and the parasite that causes the disease has become resistant to most of the drugs currently available…

Triple-negative breast cancer patients should undergo genetic screening — ScienceDaily

“Clinicians need to think hard about screening all their triple-negative patients for mutations because there is a lot of value in learning that information, both in terms of the risk of recurrence to the individual and the risk to family members. In addition, there may be very specific therapeutic benefits of knowing if you have a mutation in a particular gene,” says Fergus Couch, Ph.D., professor of laboratory medicine and pathology at Mayo Clinic and lead author of the study. The study found that almost 15 percent of triple-negative breast cancer patients had deleterious (harmful) mutations in predisposition genes. The vast majority of these mutations appeared in genes involved in the repair of DNA damage, suggesting that the origins of triple-negative breast cancer may be different from other forms of the disease. …