"Cervical cancer is a huge problem worldwide, but isn’t as big a problem in the United States. So in many ways it tends to become a somewhat overlooked and under-studied disease," says Tracey Schefter, MD, investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center, director of the Stereotactic Body Radiation Therapy program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and the study’s lead author…
Minimally invasive techniques — such as fine-needle aspiration or circulating tumor cell analysis — are increasingly employed to track treatment response over time in clinical trials, as such tests can be simple and cheap to perform. …
"We have made steady progress against the burden of many cancers for decades," said principal investigator Samir Soneji, PhD, assistant professor for Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, a member of Norris Cotton Cancer Center. "As fewer and fewer people die from heart disease, stroke, and accidents, more and more people are alive long enough to be at risk of developing and dying from cancer." Between 1970 and 2008, mortality rates from heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, and accidents declined 62 percent, 73 percent, and 38 percent, respectively. In the same period, cancer mortality rates declined just 12 percent…
"The mechanism behind the Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) that causes healthy cells to become malignant is not well understood despite two decades of intensive studies," said S. …
The paper, titled "HIV-1 Persistence in CD4+ T-Cells with Stem Cell-Like Properties," provides evidence that a particular T-cell type may help researchers better understand why HIV can persist despite treatment. Zurakowski’s co-authors include Mathias Lichterfeld, the paper’s lead author, and researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH); Ragon Institute of MGH, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University; the First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University; Brigham and Women’s Hospital; and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Zurakowski explained that HIV treatments do not kill infected cells…
"Most human cells are short lived, so it has been unclear how HIV manages to stick around for decades in spite of very effective antiviral treatment," says Mathias Lichterfeld, MD, of the MGH Infectious Disease Division, corresponding author of the report receiving advance online publication in Nature Medicine. "This question led to the hypothesis that HIV might infect stem cells — the most long-lasting cells in the body — but traditional organ-specific stem cells, even those that give rise to all immune and blood cells, are resistant to HIV infection. We have discovered that a new group of T cells, called T memory stem cells, are susceptible to HIV and likely represent the longest lasting cellular niche for the virus." HIV has such a devastating impact on the human immune system because it infects the CD4-positive T cells that normally direct and support the infection-fighting activities of other immune cells. Several subtypes of CD4 T cells have different functions; and all are capable of being infected by HIV, although antiviral treatment keeps the virus in those cells from replicating…
"Insomnia and disturbed sleep are significant problems that can affect approximately half of all cancer patients," said lead study author Sheila Garland, PhD, a Clinical Psychology Post-Doctoral Fellow at Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center in Integrative Oncology and Behavioral Sleep Medicine. "If not properly addressed, sleep disturbances can negatively influence therapeutic and supportive care measures for these patients, so it’s critical that clinicians can offer patients reliable, effective, and tailored interventions." Estimates suggest that anywhere between 36 to 59 percent of patients with cancer experience disturbed sleep and insomnia symptoms during and after the completion of cancer treatment, with up to 28 percent meeting a formal diagnosis of insomnia. While there are effective drugs that can help treat insomnia, Garland says that many cancer patients express a desire not to take additional medications due to concerns about side effects and the possibility of developing a dependence on the medication. The new study involved 111 cancer patients recruited from a cancer center in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to one of two randomly assigned interventions for their insomnia, either CBT-I (47) or MBSR (64)…
Despite similar results on objective assessments, "It appears that there is a difference in the perception of cosmetic outcomes between Caucasian and African-American patients," according to the study led by ASPS Member Surgeon Dr. Robert D. …
CTCs can also be tested to identify genetic mutations associated with a tumor. Many newer cancer medications are designed to target specific genetic mutations, so they work best for limited types and stages of cancer. CTCs can provide a quick method to help physicians choose the most appropriate targeted therapy for a particular patient…
Very low doses of a drug used to treat certain types of cancer protect the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas and prevent the development of diabetes mellitus type 1 in mice. The medicine works by lowering the level of so-called sterile inflammation. …