Tag Archives: family

Bitter food but good medicine from cucumber genetics

“You don’t eat wild cucumber, unless you want to use it as a purgative,” said William Lucas, professor of plant biology at the University of California, Davis and coauthor on the paper to be published Nov. 28 in the journal Science. That bitter flavor in wild cucurbits — the family that includes cucumber, pumpkin, melon, watermelon and squash — is due to compounds called cucurbitacins. The bitter taste protects wild plants against predators. …

TNF inhibitors may increase cancer risk in the eye, researchers report

Mayo researchers studied three patients — two women and a man — who were treated for inflammatory disease and developed melanoma tumors in one eye within a year to two of taking TNF inhibitors. While this type of condition is probably rare, according to the researchers, there might be an increased risk if the patient has a pre-existing nevus (freckle of the eye). …

Lung cancer screening with low-dose CT could be cost effective

“The takeaway from this study is that there is potential for lung cancer screening to be done in a cost-effective manner, particularly for adults 65-75 years of age,” said William C. …

New evidence that exercise therapy, acupuncture benefit breast cancer survivors — ScienceDaily

In the first study, A Hybrid Effectiveness-Implementation Trial of an Evidence-Based Exercise Intervention for Breast Cancer Survivors, Penn researchers assessed patients participating in “Strength after Breast Cancer,” a Penn Medicine-developed, evidence-based exercise and education program for breast cancer survivors. The study was intended to investigate the ease and effectiveness of transporting a research-based treatment into a practice setting. The primary goal of the study was to demonstrate program effectiveness for patients after transition from research to a practice setting. …

3-D printed facial prosthesis offers new hope for eye cancer patients following surgery

In the United States, more than 2,700 new cases of eye cancer are diagnosed each year, according to the American Cancer Society, and the mortality rate is high for the disease. Some patients undergo a life-saving surgery known as exenteration that involves removing the contents of the eye socket and other tissue…

Newer tests clarify hereditary risk of cancer

“There is this group of people who think they don’t need to worry about getting cancer and believe they don’t have a high family risk of getting cancer, but unfortunately do,” said Mahon, a professor in internal medicine at Saint Louis University. Mahon says her requests for genetic testing for breast cancer have more than tripled since 2013, when actress Angelina Jolie announced she had a double mastectomy because she was at genetic risk of developing breast cancer…

New therapeutic target may prevent blindness in premature babies at risk of retinopathy

“This study shows that a single receptor may play various roles depending on whether its site of action is in the nucleus or on the cell membrane,” states Dr. Jean-Sï¿½bastien Joyal, MD, PhD, a pediatric intensivist at the Sainte-Justine UHC and an assistant professor at the Universitï¿½ de Montrï¿½al. The groundbreaking discovery has significant clinical implications, since many drugs act on this family of receptors irrespective of their site of action in the cell. “Our results are extremely encouraging. …

New gene mutations for Wilms tumor found

Wilms tumor is the most common childhood genitourinary tract cancer and the third most common solid tumor of childhood. “While most children with Wilms tumor are thankfully cured, those with more aggressive tumors do poorly, and we are increasingly concerned about the long-term adverse side effects of chemotherapy in Wilms tumor patients. …

Family conflicts, other non-physical worries before cancer surgery raise patients’ complication risk

The findings are published in the Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery. “We know that quality of life is a very complex thing, but we can now measure it and work with it almost like blood pressure,” says lead author Juliane Bingener, M.D., a gastroenterologic surgeon at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. “We can say, ‘This is good, this is in the normal range, but this one here, that is not good, and maybe we should do something.'” Quality of life as measured in the study is about more than happiness and how well people feel physically, Dr…

Ovarian cancer: Know your body, know your risk — ScienceDaily

“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. …