Tag Archives: institute

High-fat diet during puberty speeds up breast cancer development

The research comes from the Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Program at Michigan State University and is published in the current online issue of Breast Cancer Research. Utilizing a preclinical model, the findings indicate that before any tumors appear, there are changes in the breast that include increased cell growth and alterations in immune cells. These changes persist into adulthood and can lead to the rapid development of precancerous lesions and ultimately breast cancer. In addition to the accelerated breast cancer development, this type of diet produces a distinct gene signature in the tumors consistent with a subset of breast cancers known as basal-like that can carry a worse prognosis. …

Cervical cancer screenings overused in some groups of women

“Almost two-thirds (64.5%) of women who have had hysterectomies reported having recent Pap tests,” said Deanna Kepka, PhD, MPH, co-author of the study, a Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) investigator, and assistant professor in the College of Nursing at the University of Utah. “And half (50.4%) of women over 65 who have no cervical cancer history also reported a recent Pap test. This represents 14 million women in the United States receiving an unnecessary procedure.” Because the risk of developing this slow-growing cancer is very small at such a late stage in life, Pap tests do not benefit women over age 65 who have no history of cervical cancer or pre-cancerous conditions…

Potential new treatments for acute myeloid leukemia

Both research teams, comprising international scientists from Singapore, United States, Austria, Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Sweden and the Czech Republic, were led by Professor Daniel Tenen, Director, Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) at the National University of Singapore (NUS). Breakthrough study validates Sox4 as potential therapeutic target In this breakthrough study, the researchers discovered, for the first time, a molecular target for CEBPA mutations by demonstrating that targeting Sox4 effectively perturbs the major leukemogenic phenotypes in human patient samples of mutated CEBPA AML. These findings were first published in the leading scientific journal Cancer Cell on 11 November 2013. …

New technique improves accuracy, ease of cancer diagnosis

The technique, which uses a deformability cytometer to analyze individual cells, could reduce the need for more cumbersome diagnostic procedures and the associated costs, while improving accuracy over current methods. The initial clinical study, which analyzed pleural fluid samples from more than 100 patients, was published in the current issue of peer-reviewed journal Science Translational Medicine. Pleural fluid, a natural lubricant of the lungs as they expand and contract during breathing, is normally present in spaces surrounding the lungs. …

Chemotherapy: When intestinal bacteria provide reinforcement

Results of this work are published in the journal Science on 22 November 2013. The intestinal microbiota is made up of 100,000 billion bacteria. It is a genuine organ, since the bacterial species that comprise it carry out functions crucial to our health, such as the elimination of substances that are foreign to the body (and potentially toxic), or keeping the pathogens that contaminate us at bay. …

Drug strategy blocks leading driver of cancer

Using a new strategy, UC San Francisco researchers have succeeded in making small molecules that irreversibly target a mutant form of this protein, called ras, without binding to the normal form. This feature distinguishes the molecules from all other targeted drug treatments in cancer, according to the researchers. When tested on human lung cancer cells grown in culture, the molecules efficiently killed the ras-driven cancer cells. …

Blacks have less access to cancer specialists, treatment

The study, published online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, noted there was no difference in risk of death when black patients received the same treatments, such as chemotherapy and surgery, as non-Hispanic white patients. "Other studies have looked at racial disparities in treatment and still others have focused on racial differences in survival rates of cancer patients, but our research attempted to go further by demonstrating the impact of race-based inequalities in cancer treatment on survival rates of black colorectal cancer patients," said James D. Murphy, MD, MS, assistant professor and chief of the Radiation Oncology Gastrointestinal Tumor Service at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. The researchers analyzed data from 11,216 patients over the age of 66 with stage IV colorectal cancer from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare database…

Higher than normal levels of Vitamin B12 may indicate cancer risk

To assess the association between high Cbl levels and risk of cancer of any type, Johan Arendt, BSc, of the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and the Department of Clinical Biochemistry of Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, and colleagues used Danish Medical registries to review the records of 333,667 patients without cancer who had been referred for Cbl testing and to estimate the incidence of cancer in this population from 1998 to 2010. The researchers excluded patients who had a cancer diagnosis before the date of plasma measurement and those who were receiving Cbl therapy. They found that the risk of cancer overall increased with higher Cbl levels, especially during the first year after measurement and for those with levels > 800pmol/L. …

Ureteral injury during robot-assisted prostate surgery

Although rare, they found instances when the ureter — tubes that carry urine from the kidneys to the bladder — were cut and required repair. In each case, they identified patient characteristics that may forewarn such damage. The study was recently published in the Journal of Endourology. The study – drawing from Henry Ford Hospital’s experience with robot-assisted surgery removal of prostate cancer – was conducted in the context of a steady rise in robot-assisted prostatectomies in the U.S…