Tag Archives: united

Selenium effective treatment against breast cancer, study suggests

Julian Spallholz, a professor of nutritional sciences at Texas Tech University, has studied the effects of selenium on several types of cancer. His research on attaching selenium to the leading clinical chemotherapeutic monoclonal antibody for a type of breast cancer shows it can more effectively kill the cancer cells, he reports. About 20 percent of breast cancer patients have overexpressed growth receptors, known as Her2+ receptors, on the cancer cells, which cause uncontrolled tumor growth…

Patients treated with radiation therapy who have tumors in left breast have comparable overall survival to those with tumors in right breast –…

Studies have shown that breast cancer patients treated with radiation therapy have improved local-regional recurrence, and breast cancer-specific survival after breast-conserving surgery and overall survival (OS) after mastectomy. Long-term follow-up of historic radiation therapy trials for breast cancer has demonstrated a potential increase in cardiac mortality. However, these studies used earlier modes of radiation therapy including Cobalt and orthovoltage radiotherapy, and did not employ CT-based planning, which allows for greater cardiac avoidance. Three recent studies suggest that cardiac mortality has not been greater for patients treated for left-sided breast cancer since the 1980s, when techniques allowing for greater cardiac avoidance became more commonplace[1-3]. …

Boosting heart’s natural ability to recover after heart attack

This switch is driven by p53, the well-documented tumor-suppressing protein. The UNC researchers showed that increasing the level of p53 in scar-forming cells significantly reduced scarring and improved heart function after heart attack. The finding, which was published today in the journal Nature, shows that it is possible to limit the damage wrought by heart attacks, which strike nearly one million people in the United States each year. Heart disease accounts for one in four deaths every year…

Immune cells in liver drive fatty liver disease, liver cancer

These liver diseases (NAFLD and NASH), along with chronic viral infections, are the most common causes of liver cancer, or hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In the United States, about 90 million people suffer from NAFLD. In Europe, the figure is more than 40 million, and even in threshold countries like India and China, the number of people affected is rising due to increasingly unhealthy lifestyles. More worrying, in all of the above mentioned states the numbers of NAFLD and NASH patients is constantly increasing. …

Elevated cholesterol, triglycerides may increase risk for prostate cancer recurrence

“While laboratory studies support an important role for cholesterol in prostate cancer, population-based evidence linking cholesterol and prostate cancer is mixed,” said Emma Allott, PhD, postdoctoral associate at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina. “Understanding associations between obesity, cholesterol, and prostate cancer is important given that cholesterol levels are readily modifiable with diet and/or statin use, and could therefore have important, practical implications for prostate cancer prevention and treatment. “Our findings suggest that normalization, or even partial normalization, of serum lipid levels among men with dyslipidemia [abnormal lipid profile] may reduce the risk of prostate cancer recurrence,” said Allott. …

Pneumococcal vaccine reduces antibiotic-resistant infections in children by 62 percent

The 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13), first available in 2010 (replacing 7-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, PCV7), reduced the incidence of antibiotic-resistant invasive pneumococcal disease by 62 percent from 2009 to 2013 among children under five years old. The study is the first report of the effectiveness of PCV13 to combat antibiotic-resistant infections, a vaccination recommended for children under five years old. …

Elevated cholesterol, triglycerides may increase risk for prostate cancer recurrence — ScienceDaily

“While laboratory studies support an important role for cholesterol in prostate cancer, population-based evidence linking cholesterol and prostate cancer is mixed,” said Emma Allott, PhD, postdoctoral associate at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina. “Understanding associations between obesity, cholesterol, and prostate cancer is important given that cholesterol levels are readily modifiable with diet and/or statin use, and could therefore have important, practical implications for prostate cancer prevention and treatment. “Our findings suggest that normalization, or even partial normalization, of serum lipid levels among men with dyslipidemia [abnormal lipid profile] may reduce the risk of prostate cancer recurrence,” said Allott. Allott, Stephen Freedland, MD, associate professor of surgery at Duke University School of Medicine, and colleagues, analyzed data from 843 men who underwent radical prostatectomy after a prostate cancer diagnosis and who never took statins before surgery. …

Potential link between breast cancer genes, salivary gland cancer — ScienceDaily

Although salivary gland cancer is rare, this retrospective study suggests it occurs 17 times more often in people with inherited mutations in genes called BRCA1 and BRCA2, than those in the general population. “Further study is needed to confirm this preliminary result, but I believe that a BRCA-positive patient with a lump in a salivary gland should have that lesion evaluated as soon as possible,” says co-author Theodoros Teknos, MD, professor and chair of otolaryngology, director of head and neck oncologic surgery, and the David E…