Tag Archives: hospital

Cancer cell fingerprints in blood may speed up childhood cancer diagnosis

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, found unique molecular fingerprints for 11 types of children’s tumours, which could be used to develop blood tests to diagnose these cancers. This may eventually lead to a quicker, more accurate way to diagnose tumours, and could also reduce the need for children to undergo surgery to get a diagnosis one day. The research was funded by Sparks, the children’s medical research charity, and Cancer Research UK. Each year almost 1,600 children are diagnosed with cancer in the UK…

Papillary thyroid carcinoma: New research

In the presentation “Impact of Radioactive Iodine on Survival in Papillary Thyroid Carcinoma,” Paritosh Suman, M.D. and colleagues from North Shore University Health System (Evanston, IL), explore the benefit of (RAI) treatment following surgery to remove the thyroid in patients with PTC, and whether survival benefit relates to tumor size. In a retrospective study of nearly 285,000 patients treated over 13 years, with a mean follow-up of 7 years, the authors found that 47% of patients had RAI therapy and it showed a small but statistically significant survival benefit regardless of the tumor size. Carrie Lubitz, M.D., M.P.H., Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston), and coauthors previously described a novel blood-based assay for detecting the V600E mutation in the BRAF gene in patients with melanoma…

Support for fecal testing in familial colorectal cancer screening

“In our study, repeat FIT screening detected all colorectal cancers in asymptomatic first-degree relatives of patients with colorectal cancer,” said lead study authors Enrique Quintero, MD, PhD, and Marta Carrillo, MD, from Hospital Universitario de Canarias, Tenerife, Spain. “These findings suggest that FIT screening should potentially be considered for familial screening, especially in populations where colonoscopy capacity is limited and/or compliance with colonoscopy is a concern.” Researchers conducted a prospective randomized trial to compare the efficacy of repeated FITs and colonoscopy in detecting advanced tumors in family members of patients with colorectal cancer. The study included 1,918 first-degree relatives of patients with colorectal cancer, who were randomly split into two groups to receive either a single colonoscopy examination or three FITs — one a year for three years…

Tea, citrus products could lower ovarian cancer risk, new research finds

The research reveals that women who consume foods containing flavonols and flavanones (both subclasses of dietary flavonoids) significantly decrease their risk of developing epithelial ovarian cancer, the fifth-leading cause of cancer death among women. The research team studied the dietary habits of 171,940 women aged between 25 and 55 for more than three decades. The team found that those who consumed food and drinks high in flavonols (found in tea, red wine, apples and grapes) and flavanones (found in citrus fruit and juices) were less likely to develop the disease. Ovarian cancer affects more than 6,500 women in the UK each year…

Why targeted drug doesn’t benefit patients with early-stage lung cancer

Oncologists use erlotinib to treat lung cancers that have a mutation in a gene called epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). The gene mutation causes EGFR to run like it has a stuck accelerator, and erlotinib blocks the overactive molecule. The study shows that while erlotinib effectively causes tumors to shrink — suggesting that the drug is helping — this drug also increases the aggressiveness of the tumor so that growth is accelerated when therapy ends. This study finds that this is due to a secondary and previously unknown effect of inhibiting EGFR…

Thyroid cancer genome analysis finds markers of aggressive tumors

The finding suggests the potential to reclassify the disease based on genetic markers and moves thyroid cancer into a position to benefit more from precision medicine. “This understanding of the genomic landscape of thyroid cancer will refine how it’s classified and improve molecular diagnosis. This will help us separate those patients who need aggressive treatment from those whose tumor is never likely to grow or spread,” says Thomas J. …

First step: From human cells to tissue-engineered esophagus

The tissue-engineered esophagus formed on a relatively simple biodegradable scaffold after the researchers transplanted mouse and human organ-specific stem/progenitor cells into a murine model, according to principal investigator Tracy C. Grikscheit, MD, of the Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine program of The Saban Research Institute and pediatric surgeon at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles…