Atypical hyperplasia of the breast is a precancerous condition found in about one-tenth of the over 1 million breast biopsies with benign findings performed annually in the United States. …
The researchers report long-term outcomes from the Qidong Hepatitis B intervention Study (QHBIS), a randomized controlled trial of neonatal HBV vaccination that was conducted between 1983 and 1990 in Qidong County, a rural area in China with a high incidence of HBV-related primary liver cancer (PLC) and other liver diseases. In this study, 41 rural towns (including a total of 77,658 newborns over the study period) were randomized to the intervention (HBV vaccination for all newborns) or control (no vaccination) groups, with two-thirds of the control group participants receiving a catch-up vaccination at age 10-14 years. By collecting data on new cases of liver diseases over 30 years from a population-based tumor registry, the researchers estimated that the protective efficacy of vaccination was 84% for primary liver cancer (vaccination reduced the incidence of liver cancer by 84%), 70% for death from liver diseases, and 69% for the incidence of infant fulminant hepatitis. …
If the laboratory findings are supported by tests in animal models, the breakthrough could hold the promise of increasing the effectiveness of radiation and chemotherapy in shrinking or even eliminating tumors. The key is to build up a “good” protein — p53-binding protein 1 (53BP1) — so that it weakens the cancer cells, leaving them more susceptible to existing cancer-fighting measures. The breakthrough detailed appeared in the Nov. 24 online edition of the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). …
Lung cancer is the most common and most lethal cancer worldwide. Its prognosis remains poor: The 5-year survival rate is 6-18%. Adenocarcinoma has surpassed squamous cell carcinoma as the leading histologic type, accounting for 30% of all cases of lung cancer. Hematogenous spread (i.e., carried by blood) is the most common mechanism of intrapulmonary metastasis…
“We didn’t initially discover the gene. But now technology lets us find the gene in actual patient samples and drugs are available to target these gene rearrangements, making it possible to treat TRK cancers in clinical trials in ways we only dreamed of thirty-two years ago,” says Robert C. …
SFU molecular biology and biochemistry professor Jack (Nansheng) Chen and three of his lab members collaborated with Chinese researchers to identify how these mutations affect genes and signalling pathways that might drive the formation of tumours in ICC. …
By using a drug combination of the clinically tested OSU-03012 (AR-12) and FDA approved Phosphodiesterase 5 Inhibitors (Viagra, Cialis) to target GRP78 and related proteins, researchers prevented the replication of a variety of major viruses in infected cells, made antibiotic-resistant bacteria vulnerable to common antibiotics and found evidence that brain cancer stem cells were killed. Data were obtained in multiple brain cancer stem cell types, and using Influenza, Mumps, Measles, Rubella, RSV, CMV, Adenovirus, Coxsakie virus, Chikungunya, Ebola, Hepatitis, E. coli, MRSA, MRSE and N. …
The study also shows that this same safeguard of “programmed mediocrity” that weeds out stem cells damaged by radiation allows blood cancers to grow in cases when the full body is irradiated. And by reprogramming this safeguard, we may be able to prevent cancer in the aftermath of full body radiation. “The body didn’t evolve to deal with leaking nuclear reactors and CT scans. It evolved to deal with only a few cells at a time receiving dangerous doses of radiation or other insults to their DNA,” says James DeGregori, PhD, investigator at the CU Cancer Center, professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the CU School of Medicine, and the paper’s senior author…
In a study published in the Dec. 29 online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists found that feeding Neu5Gc to mice engineered to be deficient in the sugar (like humans) significantly promoted spontaneous cancers. The study did not involve exposure to carcinogens or artificially inducing cancers, further implicating Neu5Gc as a key link between red meat consumption and cancer. …
MS is a degenerative disease and most patients with RRMS who received disease-modifying therapies experience breakthrough disease. Autologous (using a patient’s own cells) hematopoietic cell transplant (HCT) has been studied in MS with the goal of removing disease-causing immune cells and resetting the immune system, according to the study background. The Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation for Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis (HALT-MS) study examines the effectiveness of early intervention with HDIT/HCT for patients with RRMS and breakthrough disease. …