Tag Archives: story

Chemotherapy: Rolapitant reduces nausea and vomiting in phase III trial

Dr Martin Chasen, lead author and medical director, Palliative Care, Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre, Canada, said: “This agent makes a significant difference in the way people tolerate their chemotherapy. Patients experienced no loss in quality of life and, in fact, many saw meaningful improvements. One of the patients in the rolapitant cohort reported that he had just finished 18 holes of golf one week after receiving chemotherapy…

Protein ‘map’ could lead to potent new cancer drugs

The scientists hope their findings will help them to design drugs that could target the enzyme, known as N-myristoyltransferase (NMT), and potentially lead to new treatments for cancer and inflammatory conditions. They have already identified a molecule that blocks NMT’s activity, and have identified specific protein substrates where this molecule has a potent impact. NMT makes irreversible changes to proteins and is known to be involved in a range of diseases including cancer, epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease. In a study published in the journal Nature Communications chemists used living human cancer cells to identify more than 100 proteins that NMT modifies, with almost all these proteins being identified for the very first time in their natural environment…

Discovery may lead to better treatments for autoimmune diseases, bone loss

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis redesigned a molecule that controls immune cell activity, changing the molecule’s target and altering the effects of the signal it sends. Current treatments for bone loss and autoimmune disorders block these molecules and their signals indiscriminately, which over time increases the risk of infections and cancer. …

Immune system is key ally in cyberwar against cancer

“Recent research has found that cancer is already adept at using cyberwarfare against the immune system, and we studied the interplay between cancer and the immune system to see how we might turn the tables on cancer,” said Rice University’s Eshel Ben-Jacob, co-author of a new study this week in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Ben-Jacob and colleagues at Rice’s Center for Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP) and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, developed a computer program that modeled a specific channel of cell-to-cell communication involving exosomes. Exosomes are tiny packets of proteins, messenger RNA and other information-coding segments that both cancer and immune cells make and use to send information to other cells…

Less costly to screen for, treat early-stage lung than to treat late-stage lung cancer

The National Lung Cancer Screening Trial (NLST) has previously shown that LDCT screening of people at high-risk for lung cancer reduces lung cancer mortality by 20%, thus many organizations including the United States Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) have recommend LDCT screening for these individuals. It is thought that if lung cancer is detected at an early stage with screening that it can be cured and the consequences of this are a significant reduction in lung cancer mortality, as the 5-year survival rate for early-stage disease is 54%, and a reduction in the need for expensive and toxic treatments for advanced late-stage lung cancer, which seldom results in a cure as reflected by a 5-year survival rate of 4%. However, in the US 8.6 million people meet the high-risk criteria, which could equate to a significant screening cost…

Fine line between breast cancer, normal tissues

The study is published online the week of September 22, 2014 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The tool, known as DESI mass spectrometry imaging (or Desorption ElectroSpray Ionization mass spectrometry imaging), works by turning molecules into electrically charged versions of themselves, called ions, so that they can be identified by their mass. By analyzing the mass of the ions, the contents of a tissue sample can then be identified. The tool sprays a microscopic stream of charged solvent onto the tissue surface to gather information about its molecular makeup and produces a color-coded image revealing the nature and concentration of tumor cells. …

Fine line between breast cancer, normal tissues — ScienceDaily

The study is published online the week of September 22, 2014 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The tool, known as DESI mass spectrometry imaging (or Desorption ElectroSpray Ionization mass spectrometry imaging), works by turning molecules into electrically charged versions of themselves, called ions, so that they can be identified by their mass. By analyzing the mass of the ions, the contents of a tissue sample can then be identified. The tool sprays a microscopic stream of charged solvent onto the tissue surface to gather information about its molecular makeup and produces a color-coded image revealing the nature and concentration of tumor cells…

Cancer cells adapt energy needs to spread illness to other organs

Ancient Greek warriors were fed a special diet that better prepared them for the demands of battle on distant fields. Cancer cells that metastasize may do the same thing according to a new study revealing previously unknown differences between cancer cells that continue to grow at the original tumor site, and those that travel to other organs. Given that a cancer cell’s unyielding ability to metastasize is the primary cause of cancer-related death, understanding how they successfully migrate can be lifesaving…