Tag Archives: japan

Hot on the trail of hepatitis-liver cancer connection

For the study, which was published in Nature Communications, the group performed whole genomic sequencing on 30 individual tumors classified as liver cancer displaying a biliary phenotype. This type of cancer originates in the liver, but is different from hepatocellular carcinoma, the dominant form of primary liver cancer, and is generally more aggressive, with poorer prognosis. …

Establishment of induced pluripotent stem cells from Werner syndrome fibroblasts

Werner syndrome is characterized by the premature appearance of features associated with normal aging and cancer predisposition. This syndrome occurs frequently in Japan, affecting 1 in 20,000 to 1 in 40,000 people. The therapeutic methods for this disease are very limited and it is expected that iPS cells can be used for the development of innovative therapies…

Interstitial lung disease is significant risk factor for lung inflammation

ILD is a group of diseases that cause scarring and stiffing of the tissue and space around the air sacs in the lungs, which results in diminished gas exchange. The incidence of ILD among lung cancer patients is higher than in the general population as tobacco smoking is a common risk factor for both. Some lung cancer patients with ILD may not be considered good candidates for surgical therapy. …

Radiation exposure linked to aggressive thyroid cancers, researchers confirm for the first time

Researchers examined thyroid cancers diagnosed up to two decades after the Chernobyl accident and found that higher thyroid radiation doses estimated from measurements taken shortly after the accident were associated with more aggressive tumor features. “Our group has previously shown that exposures to radioactive iodine significantly increase the risk of thyroid cancer in a dose-dependent manner. The new study shows that radiation exposures are also associated with distinct clinical features that are more aggressive,” said the paper’s first author, Lydia Zablotska, MD, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at UC San Francisco (UCSF). The paper will be published online in the journal Cancer…

Natural products from plants protect skin during cancer radiotherapy

Writing in the International Journal of Low Radiation, Faruck Lukmanul Hakkim of the University of Nizwa, Oman and Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan, and colleagues there and at Macquarie University, New South Wales, Australia, Bharathiar University, India and Konkuk University, South Korea, explain how three ubiquitous and well-studied natural products derived from plants can protect the skin against gamma radiation during radiotherapy. Hakkim and colleagues discuss the benefits of the organic, antioxidant compounds caffeic acid (CA), rosmarinic acid (RA) and trans-cinnamic acid (TCA) used at non-toxic concentrations. They tested the radio protective effect of these compounds against gamma-radiation in terms of reducing levels of reactive oxygen species generated in skin cells by clinical relevance dose of gamma ray in the laboratory and in terms of the damage to the genetic material DNA, specifically double strand breaks in laboratory samples of human skin cells (keratinocytes). …

Statins reduce cardiovascular events in coronary artery disease patients with very low LDL cholesterol levels

Dr Nakano said: "Many randomised clinical trials, such as Treating to New Targets (TNT) and PROVE IT-TIMI, have shown that aggressive cholesterol lowering with statins improves clinical outcomes in patients with CAD and high LDL-C levels.1,2 But until now it was not known whether aggressive lipid lowering with statins would also benefit CAD patients with very low LDL-C levels." The current study used the Ibaraki Cardiovascular Assessment Study (ICAS), a registry of 2,238 patients from 12 hospitals in the Ibaraki region of Japan, who between 0 and 1 month underwent percutaneous coronary interventions. Based on serum LDL-C levels at initial presentation participants were classified into three groups: very low (<70 mg/dl, n=214); low (71-100 mg/dl, n=669); and high (>101 mg/dl, n= 1,355). Decisions of whether to prescribe statins or not, as well as the type and dose, were left to the discretion of treating physicians…

Health of older women in developed countries continues to improve: Gap with developing countries grows

The WHO study, one of a collection of articles in a special issue of the journal devoted to women’s health beyond reproduction, found that the leading causes of death of women aged 50 years and older worldwide are cardiovascular disease (heart disease and stroke) and cancers, but that in developing countries these deaths occur at earlier ages than in the rich world. The study is one of the first to analyse the causes of death of women aged 50 years and older from a wide range of countries. Its findings suggest that prevention, detection and treatment of noncommunicable diseases are currently inadequate in many countries. "Given the substantial reduction in maternal mortality and the increase in the number of older women over the last 10 years, health systems in low- and middle-income countries must adjust accordingly, otherwise this trend will continue to increase," said Dr John Beard, director of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Department of Ageing and Life Course and one of the authors of the study…