Tag Archives: medical

Soy supplementation adversely effects expression of breast cancer-related genes — ScienceDaily

The impact of soy consumption on breast cancer prevention and treatment is not clear although many women believe soy supplementation is beneficial based primarily on results from epidemiological studies. Moshe Shike, M.D., from the Department of Medicine at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, NY, and colleagues conducted a randomized placebo-controlled study of the effects of soy supplementation on gene expression and markers of breast cancer risk among women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer. The study, run between 2003 and 2007 at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, enrolled a total of 140 patients who were randomized to either soy supplementation (soy protein) or placebo (milk protein), which lasted from the initial surgical consultation to the day before surgery (range=7-30 days)…

Study identifies gene network behind untreatable leukemia, possible treatment target

Scientists from the Cancer and Blood Diseases Institute (CBDI) at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center report their results in a study posted online Sept. 4 by Cell Reports. The specific forms of AML and MDS in the current study involve deletions on the arm of a specific chromosome in blood cells (del(5q)…

Disparities persist in early-stage breast cancer treatment

The study, to be presented at the 2014 Breast Cancer Symposium, finds that those barriers that still exist are socio-economic, rather than medically-influenced. Meeghan Lautner, M.D., formerly a fellow at MD Anderson, now at The University of Texas San Antonio, will present the findings. BCT for early stage breast cancer includes breast conserving surgery, followed by six weeks of radiation…

Family conflicts, other non-physical worries before cancer surgery raise patients’ complication risk

The findings are published in the Journal of Gastrointestinal Surgery. “We know that quality of life is a very complex thing, but we can now measure it and work with it almost like blood pressure,” says lead author Juliane Bingener, M.D., a gastroenterologic surgeon at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. “We can say, ‘This is good, this is in the normal range, but this one here, that is not good, and maybe we should do something.'” Quality of life as measured in the study is about more than happiness and how well people feel physically, Dr…

Increase seen in use of double mastectomy, although not associated with reduced death

Randomized trials have demonstrated similar survival for patients with early-stage breast cancer treated with breast-conserving surgery and radiation or with mastectomy. However, previous data show increasing use of mastectomy, and particularly bilateral mastectomy (removal of both breasts) among U.S. patients with breast cancer. Evidence for a survival benefit with this procedure appears limited to rare patient subgroups…

Invisible blood in urine may indicate bladder cancer — ScienceDaily

Scientists at the University of Exeter Medical School found that one in 60 people over the age of 60 who had invisible blood in their urine (identified by their GP testing their urine) transpired to have bladder cancer. The figure was around half those who had visible blood in their urine — the best known indicator of bladder cancer. However, it was still higher than figures for other potential symptoms of bladder cancer that warrant further investigation. Lead author Sarah Price, a PhD student at the University of Exeter Medical School, led the first robust study to investigate whether invisible blood in urine can indicate bladder cancer…

U.S. has seen widespread adoption of robot-assisted cancer surgery to remove the prostate

In 2001, surgeons began using robotic technologies in operations to remove the prostate. To examine trends in the use of such robotic-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) procedures for prostate cancer patients, Steven Chang, MD, MS, of Harvard Medical School, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, led a team that analyzed 489,369 men who underwent non-RARP (i.e., open or laparoscopic radical prostatectomy) or RARP in the United States from 2003 to 2010. During the study period, RARP adoption (defined as performing more than 50 percent of annual radical prostatectomies with the robotic approach) increased from 0.7 percent to 42 percent of surgeons performing radical prostatectomies. Surgeons who performed at least 25 radical prostatectomies each year were more likely to adopt RARP…