Tag Archives: saint

Newer tests clarify hereditary risk of cancer

“There is this group of people who think they don’t need to worry about getting cancer and believe they don’t have a high family risk of getting cancer, but unfortunately do,” said Mahon, a professor in internal medicine at Saint Louis University. Mahon says her requests for genetic testing for breast cancer have more than tripled since 2013, when actress Angelina Jolie announced she had a double mastectomy because she was at genetic risk of developing breast cancer…

New therapy improves life span in melanoma patients with brain metastases

The study that was recently published in Chemotherapy Research and Practice, reviews cases of eight patients who underwent this therapy at Saint Louis University. John Richart, M.D., associate professor of internal medicine at SLU and principal investigator of the study, first treated a patient with the disease using the HD IL-2 treatment in 1999. "Traditionally, melanoma patients with brain metastases have not been considered for HD IL-2 because treatment was thought to be futile," Richart said. "Our study shows that having this condition does not exclude a patient from getting this treatment and can in fact improve the length of their life." Melanoma is the most dangerous form of skin cancer that begins in the melanin-producing cells called melanocytes…

Tide is turning in skin cancer battle

Now it seems each week yields important new discoveries about the deadly skin cancer. "I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and now is by any measure the most exciting time for melanoma research," said Brian Nickoloff, director of the Nicholas V. Perricone, M.D., Division of Dermatology and Cutaneous Sciences at Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine. …