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More appropriate use of cardiac stress testing with imaging could reduce health costs, improve patient outcomes

In what is believed to be the first comprehensive examination of trends in cardiac stress testing utilizing imaging, researchers also showed that there are no significant racial or ethnic health disparities in its use. They also made national estimates of the cost of unnecessary cardiac stress testing with imaging and the health burden of this testing, in terms of cancer risk due to radiation exposure. Cardiac stress testing, particularly with imaging, has been the focus of debate about rising health care costs, inappropriate use, and patient safety in the context of radiation exposure…

Live and let-7: microRNA plays surprising role in cell survival

Specifically, principal investigator Albert R. La Spada, MD, PhD, professor of cellular and molecular medicine, chief of the Division of Genetics in the Department of Pediatrics and associate director of the Institute for Genomic Medicine at UC San Diego, and colleagues found that a microRNA known as let-7 controls autophagy through the amino acid sensing pathway, which has emerged as the most potent activator of mTORC1 complex activity. Autophagy is a fundamental process used by cells to degrade unnecessary components in times of starvation, releasing energy stores that help promote cell survival…

Tumors might grow faster at night

This finding arose out of an investigation into the relationships between different receptors in the cell — a complex network that we still do not completely understand. The receptors — protein molecules on the cell’s surface or within cells — take in biochemical messages secreted by other cells and pass them on into the cell’s interior. …

Many women receive unnecessary pap tests

Performing these unnecessary tests can result in stress for the patient, increased costs, and inefficient use of both provider and patient time, concludes a new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. “During this time of health care reform, we could probably use our resources more wisely,” said corresponding author Deanna Kepka, Ph.D., M.P.H., assistant professor at the University of Utah’s College of Nursing and Huntsman Cancer Institute.”Other conditions and screenings should probably merit the attention of primary care providers, including obesity and cancer,” she said, “especially in light of the newer 2012 cancer screening guidelines.” Kepka and her co-authors, who performed the study while at the National Cancer Institute, analyzed data from the 2010 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) of women ages 30 and older…

Osteoporosis treatment may also benefit breast cancer patients — ScienceDaily

“Skeletal metastases develop in up to 70 percent of women who die from breast cancer,” says study co-lead author, Dr. Richard Kremer, director of the Bone and Mineral Unit at the MUHC and a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University. “This causes considerable suffering and is life-threatening. Preventing this could translate into saving a significant number of lives.” Reduction of metastatic risk by half Dr…

Gene can predict aggressive prostate cancer at diagnosis

The results reported in the journal of Clinical Cancer Research, a publication of the American Association of Cancer Research, indicate the KLK3 gene — a gene on chromosome 19 responsible for encoding the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) — is not only associated with prostate cancer aggression, but a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) on it is more apparent in cancer patients with GS7. Researchers have linked Gleason score, an important predictor of prostate cancer outcomes, to several clinical end points, including clinical stage, cancer aggression and survival. There has been much research associated with prostate cancer outcomes as well as GS7 prostate cancers, which is an intermediate grade of cancer accounting for 30 to 40 percent of all prostate cancers. “This is the first report that I am aware of that indicates a genetic variant can stratify GS7 prostate cancer patients,” said Jian Gu, Ph.D., associate professor at MD Anderson, and a key investigator on the study. …

Immunotherapy could stop resistance to radiotherapy

The researchers, based at The University of Manchester and funded by MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca, and Cancer Research UK, found that combining the two treatments helped the immune system hunt down and destroy cancer cells that weren’t killed by the initial radiotherapy in mice with breast, skin and bowel cancers. Radiotherapy is a very successful treatment for many forms of cancer, but in cancer cells that it doesn’t kill it can switch on a ‘flag’ on their surface, called PD-L1, that tricks the body’s defences into thinking that cancerous cells pose no threat. The immunotherapy works by blocking these ‘flags’ to reveal the true identity of cancer cells, allowing the immune system to see them for what they are and destroy them. The approach improved survival and protected the mice against the disease from returning. …

Eighty percent of bowel cancers halted with existing medicines

The study found that medicines called ‘JAK inhibitors’ halted tumour growth in bowel cancers with a genetic mutation that is present in more than 80 per cent of bowel cancers. Multiple JAK inhibitors are currently used, or are in clinical trials, for diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, blood cancers and myeloproliferative disorders. Bowel cancer is the second-most common cancer in Australia with nearly 17,000 people diagnosed every year, accounting for almost one out of 10 cancer-related deaths. Dr Toby Phesse, Dr Michael Buchert, Associate Professor Matthias Ernst and colleagues from Melbourne’s Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, in collaboration with Australian and international researchers, commenced the study while at the Melbourne-Parkville branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research…