“We found that the use of low-dose aspirin was associated with cutting the risk of pancreatic cancer in half, with some evidence that the longer low-dose aspirin was used, the lower the risk,” said Harvey A. Risch, MD, PhD, professor of epidemiology in the Department of Chronic Disease Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Connecticut…
Every year 8,800 people are diagnosed with the disease in the UK but survival rates remain very low, with only three per cent of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer surviving their disease for five years or more after their diagnosis. Cancer Research UK has made pancreatic cancer research a priority, and has the bold ambition to more than double its annual spend of £6million on research into the disease over the next five years. The charity is investing in fundamental biology investigating how the cancer spreads as well as trials looking at boosting the effectiveness of the standard chemotherapy treatments in pancreatic cancer patients. While more research is needed to find better ways of diagnosing and treating the disease, there is evidence to suggest that some pancreatic cancers are linked to being overweight and to smoking — and almost four in 10 could be prevented by lifestyle changes to address this…
Locally advanced pancreatic cancer has the lowest survival rate of any solid tumor, with a cumulative five-year survival rate of only 4 percent for all stages of disease. Surgery is rarely an option for patients because tumors often involve vital blood vessels. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy given concurrently remain the mainstay treatment, yet to-date, no treatment has had a significant impact on improving outcomes. “To move the needle forward toward prolonged survival and better treatment outcomes, our research team created a combined investigational regimen for patients with locally advanced pancreatic cancer,” said Richard Tuli, MD, PhD, a radiation oncologist in the Department of Radiation Oncology and a member of the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute. …
“As soon as somebody hears they have a 65 percent chance of a new breast cancer in the future or an up to 60 percent chance of ovarian cancer, they are likely to do whatever they can to prevent that,” said lead author Dr. …
“This completely new way of thinking about ovarian cancer metastasis provides new potential avenues to predict and prevent recurrence or metastasis,” said senior author Anil Sood, M.D., professor of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine and Cancer Biology. The researchers found the circulating tumor cells (CTCs) rely on HER3, a less-famous sibling of the HER2 receptor protein prominent in some breast cancers, to find their way to the omentum, a sheet of tissue that covers and supports abdominal organs. HER3’s heavy presence on these cells makes it a biomarker candidate and suggests possible therapeutic options to thwart ovarian cancer progression, the researchers noted…
This research focused on the immune system’s dendritic cells (DCs), crucial cells that initiate and regulate immune responses. For example, the dendritic cells activate T lymphocytes to fight an infection or cancer. Curiously, they are also known to suppress the immune response. Determining when DCs turn the immune response “on” or “off” is a major question in immunology. …
And with current obesity trends in the United States and especially in South Texas, that’s ominous. “I’m predicting an increase in multiple myeloma,” said Edward Medina, M.D., Ph.D., “and with the obesity problems we see in the Hispanic population, there could be a serious health disparity on the horizon.” Dr. Medina, a hematopathologist and assistant professor in the Department of Pathology at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, is looking at exactly how obesity causes an increased risk for myeloma…
Researchers say that while most of the viral strains so far appear to be harmless and can remain dormant for years, their overwhelming presence suggests a delicate balancing act for HPV infection in the body, in which many viral strains keep each other in check, preventing other strains from spreading out of control. Although infection is increasingly known to happen through skin-to-skin contact, HPV remains the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. It is so common that experts estimate nearly all men and women contract some strain of it during their lives. …
Scientists discovered that cells can change into an invasive, liquid-like state to readily navigate the narrow channels in our body. …
Activation of the PI3K/AKT signal pathway is a known driver of the progression of prostate cancer to the castrate-resistant stage, the most lethal form of prostate cancer. Using a genome-wide genetic screen, Dr…