Wed, 25 Jul 2007 04:10:30 GMT

Beat Cancer Through Art

Khaleej Times has published this noteworthy print advertisement to in its fund raising effort to fight breast cancer. The double-edged advertisement has married two aspects, art and increasing problem of breast cancer. In fact, the advertisement campaign was launched with a view to attract peoples attention towards an exhibition of paintings whose collection will be given to an organization involved in fighting this menacing problem. The advertisement has shown a board used in drawing and a painting brush and its reflection gives an impression of breast. This is how the campaign has attempted to combined art and the problem of breast cancer.

The presentation of the campaign is extremely simple and straight and effectively conveys its message across, though slightly taking help from the copy as well. The copy of the advertisement reads, Beat Cancer Through Art. Stories of despair, pain, fortitude, hope and healing, eloquently expressed on canvas. Ayyan, an artist whose art is matched by the bigness of his heart once again uses his talent to spread awareness of breast cancer and help prevent it. His paintings are now on exhibition at BurJuman Centre in Dubai, from October 1 to 31, 2006. All proceeds from the sale of Ayyan’s painting will be donated to the Dr.Hourita Kazim Breast Cancer Research Fund in the UAE. Come support Ayyan’s cause. Help him paint a healthier future for women in the UAE and beyond.

The advertisement was created by Intermarkets, Dubai.

Via Ad-Dict Posted by: Balendu      Read more     Source

July 23, 2007, 6:40 PM CT

Low Cholesterol Levels And Cancer

Millions of Americans take statins to lower their cholesterol, but how low should you go" Many scientific studies support the benefits of lowering low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, and achieving low LDL cholesterol levels is one of the most important steps in preventing heart disease. New research, however, provides evidence for an association between low LDL levels and cancer risk.

The authors of the study, published in the July 31, 2007, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), set out to understand how and why statins cause side effects, particularly damage to the liver and muscle cells. The study findings support taking multiple medications rather than high-dose statins to minimize those side effects. The researchers did not expect to find the increased cancer risk (one additional incident per 1,000 patients) from low LDL levels, and additional studies have already begun to investigate this potential risk further. A key component in future studies will be to confirm the risk and to identify whether the risk may be a side effect of statins or just low LDL.

This analysis doesnt implicate the statin in increasing the risk of cancer, said lead author Richard H. Karas, M.D., F.A.C.C., professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. The demonstrated benefits of statins in lowering the risk of heart disease remain clear; however, certain aspects of lowering LDL with statins remain controversial and merit further research......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source

July 23, 2007, 6:17 PM CT

Sperm banking before treatment preserves fertility

A recent study at Hamilton Health Sciences proves that sperm freezing and banking is an effective way to preserve fertility in adolescents and young adult (AYA) males with cancer.

Scientists at the Centre for Reproductive Care, McMaster Childrens Hospital and the Juravinski Cancer Centre, all members of the Hamilton Health Sciences family of health care facilities, joined forces to investigate the benefits of proactively preserving sperm previous to starting cancer therapy in order to allow male cancer patients the opportunity to father biological children in the future.

In AYA male cancer patients, surgery, radiation and chemotherapy may cause transient or permanent infertility by affecting either ejaculatory or erectile function or by impairing the generation of sperm. (The effects of cancer and cancer therapys on male reproductive function by Drs Magelssen, Brydoy and Fossa).

As per a new study would be reported in the September 1, 2007 issue of CANCER, a peer-evaluated journal of the American Cancer Society, and available on-line today, lead author Michael Neal, Laboratory Director at the Centre for Reproductive Care, and his co-investigators, observed that even though sperm freezing is shown to be highly effective, it is an underutilized option of fertility preservation for young male cancer patients......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source

July 23, 2007, 5:15 PM CT

Any Tumor Cell To Best Possible Anti-cancer Treatments

Cancer patients dont have time to waste. A number of go through several different therapys, however, to find one that is more effective against their particular type of tumor.

Thus, an algorithm that could help rapidly sort molecular information about a patients particular tumor and could help match this information to the right drug therapy would be a breakthrough of enormous value.

Dan Theodorescu, M.D., Ph.D., a University of Virginia oncologist and cancer biologist, and Jae Lee, Ph.D., a computational biologist and bioinformatics statistician, have pioneered just such a system. This work involved collaboration with colleagues at the National Cancer Institute, GeneLogic Inc. and the University of Virginia Computer Sciences Department. They published their results the week of July 23 in the Early Edition of the Proceeedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found online.

Using a panel of 60 diverse, human cancer cell lines from the National Cancer Institute (NCI-60), the scientists devised and tested an algorithm designed to match the best potential therapy(s) for a particular tumor in a particular patient.

Previously, the NCI-60 cell lines were used to screen more than 100,000 chemical compounds for their anticancer activity. These drug responses, however, were not definitely associated with clinical effectiveness in patients. Another issue is that the 60 cell lines did not include all important cancer types (for example, certain bladder cancers, lymphomas, and small cell lung cancers were not among the 60 lines studied)......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source

July 19, 2007, 10:06 PM CT

Molecular detectors may refine cancer treatment

University of Florida scientists have successfully used molecular probes to detect subtle differences in leukemia cells from patient samples, an achievement that could lead to more effective ways to diagnose and treat cancer.

The strategy, described in a recent issue of Clinical Chemistry, involves engineering short, single strands of DNA or RNA called aptamers to seek out and bind with specific proteins in body fluids.

UF researchers designed the aptamers to bind to cells and molecules linked to leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow that annually claims about 21,000 lives in the United States, as per the National Cancer Institute.

Scientists also found the first evidence that slight molecular differences can exist even within the same samples from patients with adult T-cell leukemia, a cancer that strikes the immune systems own protective cells.

Our selective aptamers clearly confirm there are several subcategories of adult T-cell leukemia, said Weihong Tan, Ph.D., a UF Research Foundation professor of chemistry at the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences and a member of the UF Shands Cancer Center. At present, doctors have had only their experience to rely upon to determine the best therapy for these patients. Our findings will give doctors an effective tool to more precisely make a diagnosis and to tailor therapys......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source

July 19, 2007, 9:55 PM CT

Impact of False-positive Cancer Tests

As per a new study in Value in Health, women coping with the strain of being mistakenly diagnosed with breast cancer have not been adequately studied in the past. The focus of the study is a new survey that accurately assesses the negative effects of false diagnosis and provides useful information to health care practitioners and researchers.

"We know that having a false alarm at a breast cancer screening causes significant negative psychological harm," says Dr. John Brodersen, co-author of the study. "Unfortunately, prior studies of the long-term psychological consequences of these false alarms have used inadequate measures".

The survey, developed by Brodersen and colleagues, focuses on six psychosocial dimensions; anxiety, behavioral impact, sense of dejection, impact on sleep, breast examination and sexuality. The survey showed that women who had an abnormal screening mammography later confirmed to be false-positive were negatively influenced in all six categories.

"This is an urgent issue to be addressed, because one-in-four women following the European Union-recommended biannual breast cancer screening program over a 20-year period will experience a false-positive screening mammogram," says Brodersen. "Thousands of women experience false-positive screening results. Therefore, women should be better informed both before breast cancer screening and during the screening process. This should include a discussion about the implications of a false-positive result, as well as the benefits of early detection of breast cancer"......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source

July 16, 2007, 10:04 PM CT

hope for childhood cancer sufferers

Researchers investigating drug therapies for children with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) have presented new data demonstrating for the very first time that a small molecule called ABT-737 can increase the effectiveness of standard therapies.

Dr Richard Lock, Head of the Leukaemia Biology Program at the Childrens Cancer Institute Australia for Medical Research, Sydney, along with collaborators from the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and University of Southern California, USA, recently published their findings in the prestigious scientific journal Blood.

ALL is the most common form of childhood cancer. Over the years, improvements in primary treatment have increased the cure rate to approximately 80 percent. However, for the 20 percent of patients who relapse, the majority will die.

When used in combination with common drugs administered in ALL treatment, ABT-737 has the ability to enhance the combined toxicity of these drugs against the leukaemia cells with minimal effects on the normal cells of the body, said Dr Lock.

Resistance to common therapeutic drugs is linked to poor long-term outcomes in leukaemia patients. In the study, the effects of ABT-737 in combination with three common chemotherapeutic agents: L-Asparaginase, vincristine and dexamethasone, were tested on many ALL cell lines under conditions which were considered clinically relevant for the disease......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source

July 15, 2007, 9:21 PM CT

Tumor painting against cancer

A tumor paint developed by scientists at Seattle Childrens Hospital Research Institute and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center will help surgeons see where a tumor begins and ends more precisely by illuminating the malignant cells. The study, reported in the July 15, 2007 issue of Cancer Research, shows that the tumor paint can help surgeons distinguish between cancer cells and normal brain tissue in the operating room. The paint is a scorpion-derived peptide called chlorotoxin that is associated with the molecular beacon Cy5.5.Until now there has been no way to allow surgeons to see tumors live during surgery.

Chlorotoxin:Cy5.5 is a fluorescent molecular beacon that emits photons in the near infrared spectrum. This illumination gives surgeons a better chance of removing all of the malignant cells during surgery without injuring surrounding healthy tissue. This is especially significant in the brain, where approximately 80% of cancerous cancers recur at the edges of the surgical site. Current technology, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can distinguish tumors from healthy tissue only if more than 1 million cancer cells are present. But Cy5.5 can identify tumors with as few as 2000 cancer cells, making it 500 times more sensitive than MRI.

"My greatest hope is that tumor paint will fundamentally improve cancer treatment, said James M. Olson, MD, PhD, of Seattle Childrens Hospital and The Hutchison Center who is the senior author of the study. By allowing surgeons to see cancer that would be undetectable by other means, we can give our patients better outcomes......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source

July 12, 2007, 5:46 AM CT

Nanoparticles that cancer cells can't resist

TURNING cancer cells into mini magnets by using nanoparticles could make biopsies so sensitive and efficient that there will be no need to repeat these invasive tests.

Biopsy results can be ambiguous: sometimes they can be negative simply because there are too few cancerous cells in the sample to be detected not because all trace of disease has gone. Now scientists from the University of New Mexico and the company Senior Scientific, both in Albuquerque, have come up with a solution that harnesses the power of magnetic attraction.

The idea is to use magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles encased in a biocompatible material. These in turn can be coated with antibodies that bind to chemicals found only in malignant cells. When injected into the body, thousands of the particles stick to cancer cells, turning them into miniature magnets. The cells can then be drawn towards magnets encased in the tip of a biopsy needle (Physics in Medicine and Biology, vol 52, p 4009).

A mathematical model of the system confirmed that significant numbers of cancer cells, laden with nanoparticles, could be attracted to a needle within two or three minutes. In the lab, the scientists showed that a magnetised needle could attract leukaemia cells surrounded by nanoparticles and suspended......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source

July 11, 2007, 5:19 AM CT

Kaposi sarcoma arises independently from multiple cells

Kaposi sarcoma is unique among cancers because most tumors grow from a small number of different cells, whereas nearly all other cancers arise from a single cell, as per a research studypublished online July 10 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute

Kaposi sarcoma, which is often linked to AIDS, primarily affects the skin. But as the disease progresses, it can move to the lymph nodes and internal organs as well.

Renan Duprez, Ph.D., of the Institut Pasteur in Paris and his colleagues performed the largest study to date on the origins of advanced Kaposi sarcoma. Biopsies from 98 Kaposi sarcoma patients were analyzed using molecular diagnostic techniques to compare the viral DNA of the tumors, which often contain human herpesvirus 8.

The scientists found evidence that nearly 80% of the tumors arose independently from multiple cells. They concluded that few Kaposi sarcoma tumors originate from a single cell and that Kaposi sarcoma, particularly in its advanced form, is not true metastatic cancer.

In an accompanying editorial, Parkash Gill, M.D., of Norris Cancer Hospital and Research Institute in Los Angeles recommends what should come next in Kaposi sarcoma research.

With some resolution as to the clonal nature of [Kaposi sarcoma] of the skin and lymph node, similar analysis remains to be done for visceral [Kaposi sarcoma], which can be more invasive leading at times to catastrophic organ dysfunction and even death. It is also not known if the clonal [Kaposi sarcoma] lesions identified in this study were more aggressive and less likely to respond to treatment, Gill writes......... Posted by: Andria      Read more         Source