Tag Archives: medical

Advocate uses genetic history to increase knowledge of hereditary cancer risk

The 33-year-old mother who has tested positive for the BRCA2 cancer gene is one of 12 people in her family over three generations linked to the gene or diagnosed with cancer. Now Koszegi is using her family’s genetic history to contribute to cancer research, prevention and treatment — with the aim of improving the quality of life for those facing hereditary risk…

Research aims to reduce health care disparities

Gwendolyn P. Quinn, Ph.D., scientific director of the Survey Methods Core Facility at Moffitt, identified physicians largely operate under a, “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that prohibits open and honest dialogue between doctor and patient about cancer risk. The study highlights that LGBTQI populations face barriers to health insurance such as when partnerships and marriages are not legally recognized; concerns about disclosure in a health care setting, discrimination, misconceptions, legal and financial barriers and the disenfranchised stress and distress of caregiving same-sex partners. …

Switch that might tame most aggressive of breast cancers

The Sydney-based research team has found a gene that drives the aggressive disease, and hopes to find a way to ‘switch it off’. The aggressive form of triple-negative breast cancer appears to arise from stem cells, while the more benign form appears to arise from specialised cells. …

Immunotherapy delays recurrence for stage III and IV ovarian cancers

“This is cutting edge medicine for ovarian cancer,” said Jonathan Oh, MD, a gynecologic oncologist at Texas Oncology, P.A., in Dallas. Dr. Oh presented the results of a preliminary study on the vaccine at the Society of Gynecologic Oncology (SGO) Annual Meeting on Women’s Cancer on March 28 in Chicago…

Naproxen plus acid blocking drug shows promise in preventing bladder cancer

A new study suggests there may be ways to reduce these dangerous side effects. Collaborators from the University of Michigan, the National Cancer Institute and the University of Alabama looked at naproxen, which is known to have a lower cardiovascular risk than other NSAIDs. Naproxen, like most NSAIDs and aspirin, does increase the risk for gastric ulcers or bleeding…

Reaching ’80 percent by 2018′ would prevent more than 20,000 colorectal cancer deaths per year

Colorectal cancer (commonly called colon cancer) is the third leading cause of cancer death in both men and women in the United States, and the second leading cause for both sexes combined. An estimated 132,700 new cases and 49,700 deaths are expected in 2015 in the U.S. Data from the past decade show that both incidence and mortality from colon cancer are decreasing at rate of about 3% per year, largely due to the increased use of screening. Still, fewer than six in ten U.S. …

New study reveals how to improve chemotherapy use in prostate cancer

“It was surprising to find that cabazitaxel functions differently than docetaxel in killing cancer cells, even though they’re both taxanes,” says senior author Karen Knudsen, Ph.D., Interim Director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center and a professor of cancer biology at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. “It shows that we may not be taking full advantage of this next generation taxane in the clinic.” For years, docetaxel has been the only effective chemotherapy for men whose cancer was no longer responding to hormone treatments…

Cancer’s ability to ‘hijack’ regulatory mechanism increases metastasis

Scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) have found that one component of this human scaffolding called collagen “cross-links” can determine a tumor’s ability to grow and spread. These cross-links of protein complexes enable connective tissue cells known as “stroma” to stiffen, stimulating tumor cell invasion and metastasis. Study results were published in today’s online edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation…