CTCs can also be tested to identify genetic mutations associated with a tumor. Many newer cancer medications are designed to target specific genetic mutations, so they work best for limited types and stages of cancer. CTCs can provide a quick method to help physicians choose the most appropriate targeted therapy for a particular patient…
"We have captured a fundamental randomness at the level of gene expression that has never before been described — one that persists throughout development and into adulthood," says Ludwig scientist Rickard Sandberg at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. The discovery was made possible by a powerful new technique developed by Sandberg’s lab for analyzing the global expression of genes in single cells. With the exception of a subset of genes found on sex chromosomes, every mammal inherits one copy of every gene from each of its parents. Each of those copies is known as an allele, and alleles often differ measurably from their genomic siblings — a fact that accounts for a good deal of human and animal diversity…
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 first step towards preventing lung cancer is avoiding cigarettes which cause 85 percent of diagnoses," said Dr. David Madtes, director of the Lung Cancer Early Detection and Prevention Clinic at SCCA. …
"It has been considered that the upturn in cases of lung cancer is possibly related to this particles," explains Patricia Gorocica from the INER, who, alongside her research team, has been working in an alternative therapy to boost the immune system of patients with this disease. The specialist adds that since several years ago is known that the immune system has all the mechanism to watch and destroy tumor cells as they develop, but sometimes this mechanisms are not effective for reasons associated to the tumor or alterations of the patients organism. Based in this principle, research at INER is directed to regulate the immune system against tumors. …
This is contrary to protocols for larynx cancer, in which a single dose of chemotherapy helps determine which patients fare better with chemotherapy and radiation and which patients should elect for surgery. In larynx cancer, this approach, which was pioneered and extensively researched at U-M, has led to better patient survival and functional outcomes. But this new study, which appears in JAMA Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, describes a clear failure. "To a young person with tongue cancer, chemotherapy may sound like a better option than surgery with extensive reconstruction. …
Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive cancer with poor prognosis and limited treatment options and is highly resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. But researchers believe they have found an effective strategy for selectively killing pancreatic cancer while sparing healthy cells which could make treatment more effective. …
A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published today in the journal Stem Cells shows it’s the latter: the progenitor cells that create MI bladder cancer are different than the progenitor cells that create NMI bladder cancer. Though these two cancers grow at the same site, they are different diseases…
In the first study to investigate the impact on fatherhood of freezing semen prior to cancer treatment, researchers questioned 902 male survivors of Hodgkin lymphoma in five European countries (France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Italy and Switzerland) and found that among the 334 who wanted to have children, the availability of frozen semen doubled their chances of doing so when compared with men who had not frozen their semen. Dr Marleen van der Kaaij (MD), who carried out the work while she was a PhD student at the University Medical Centre in Groningen (The Netherlands), said: "Our study shows that cryopreservation of semen before cancer treatment has a large impact: one in five children born after Hodgkin lymphoma treatment was born using cryopreserved semen. …
The rates of apoptosis, or programmed cell death, were higher in the mice treated with the experimental agent than in the untreated animals that also had high-grade glioblastomas, said Johanna Joyce, Ph.D., of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York City. …