Advanced cancer patients prone to poor sleep qualityPatients with advanced-stage cancer experience very poor sleep quality and often have troubling staying awake, says Emory University researcher Kathy Parker, PhD, RN.
Preliminary findings from the cancer sleep study will be presented June 12 at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS) convened in Minneapolis.
The study provides the first comprehensive description of sleep and wake patterns of cancer........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 6/13/2007 1:22:24 PM)
Sensitivity to diverse range of chemotherapeutic drugsUsing a functional genomic screen, scientists have defined elements that impact the responsiveness of cancer cells to drugs commonly used as anticancer therapeutics. The research, published in the recent issue of the journal Cancer Cell, published by Cell Press, identifies individual genes that are associated with resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs and sets the stage for future studies that may significantly enhance the ability to predict........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 6/12/2007 5:04:44 AM)
Sun exposure early in life and skin cancerSkin cancers often contain different gene mutations, but just how these mutations contribute to the cause of melanomas has been a mystery.
A new clue comes from scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Schools of Medicine and Public Health. Their research indicates that early life sun exposure, from birth to 20 years old, may specifically increase the risk of melanomas with BRAF gene mutations. A different mutation, on........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 6/10/2007 8:50:35 PM)
Most pediatric chemotherapy mistakes reach patientsThe vast majority of chemotherapy errors identified in children reach patients, as per one of the first epidemiological studies of cancer drug errors in children. Reported in the July 1, 2007 issue of CANCER, a peer-evaluated journal of the American Cancer Society, the study concluded that the antimetabolite class of chemotherapeutic agents are most likely linked to errors, and that errors in drug administration and errors in drug dosing and........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 5/25/2007 7:17:49 PM)
Be a Part of Our Anti-smoking CampaignThis is an impressive ambient anti-smoking advertisement campaign launched Al Sawy Cultural Centre to create awareness in this direction in Egypt. The campaign has used doormat having printed heart on them which was sent to various people in Cairo and decision was left on them to convert into ambient campaign. That was actually a smart move to make the campaign real effective. The strategy was that when people will start footing the heart while........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 5/24/2007 11:04:19 PM)
Tiny genes may increase cancer susceptibilityNew evidence indicates that small pieces of noncoding genetic material known as microRNAs (miRNAs) might influence cancer susceptibility. Differences in certain miRNAs may predispose some individuals to develop cancer, say scientists collaborating in a joint study at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson in Philadelphia, Ohio State University Medical Center in Columbus and Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo.
MiRNAs play many roles in........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 5/23/2007 8:18:26 PM)
New research supports early testing for prostate cancer Prostate cancer is the third-leading cause of cancer deaths among American men and is most treatable when caught in its earliest stages. Research presented today during the 102nd Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Urological Association in Anaheim, Ca. provided further evidence supporting regular prostate-cancer screening and offered new insights into disease progression and the hormonal therapy of recurrent disease. A special session........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 5/21/2007 12:25:29 PM)
Thymus Transplants Gives Hope To Babies"My baby is doing what other babies her age are doing -- she's feeding herself, putting on her own clothes and she loves to dance".
Lolita Harding is describing her daughter Dave'yana, who will turn three in September, thanks in large part to a thymus transplant she received at Duke University Medical Center in April 2005 to reconstitute her absent immune system. Dave'yana was the 31st baby to receive such a transplant at Duke to correct........Go to the What-media-blog (Added on 5/15/2007 11:14:08 PM)
Giving A Knockout Punch To Deadly CancerNew scientific evidence is helping to build a compelling case for oncolytic viruses as a first-line and adjunctive therapy for a number of cancers.
Reovirus, a non-pathogenic virus under development at Calgary, Alberta-based Oncolytics Biotech, has shown powerful anti-cancer activity against cultured tumor cells, in animal models, and in human clinical trials. Oncolytics' proprietary reovirus formulation, Reolysin, is active against numerous........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 5/10/2007 5:32:12 AM)
PET-CT detects muscular lymphomaPET-CT is better for early detection of muscular lymphoma than CT alone, as per a new study conducted by radiologists at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
For the study, PET-CT was used to image 305 patients with lymphoma. Twelve of these patients had muscular involvement in which 10 were biopsy proven and two were proven by imaging follow-up.
As per the study, six of these patients had predominantly muscular lymphoma with or........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 5/6/2007 5:41:39 PM)
Percutaneous radiofrequency ablation of liver tumorsPercutaneous imaging guided radiofrequency ablation (RFA) of hepatocellular carcinoma is a safe and effective technique, with benefits such as reduced post-procedural pain and length of hospital stay, as per a research studyconducted by scientists from Changi General Hospital in Singapore.
Radiofrequency ablation of a liver tumor may be performed in many ways, said Hui Seong Teh, MD, lead author of the study. Two usually used techniques are........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 5/6/2007 5:40:37 PM)
Unravel Clue in Cortisol ProductionWhen a person's under stress or injured, the adrenal gland releases cortisol to help restore the body's functions to normal. But the hormone's effects are a number of and varied, lowering the activity of the immune system, helping create memories with short-term exposure, while impairing learning if there's too much for too long. Given the variety of its effects,understanding how cortisol is made is essential to producing medications that can........Go to the What-media-blog (Added on 4/24/2007 10:56:48 PM)
Antioxidant is selective killer of leukemia cellsA naturally occurring compound found in a number of fruits and vegetables as well as red wine, selectively kills leukemia cells in culture while showing no discernible toxicity against healthy cells, as per a research studyby scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. These findings, which were published online March 20 in the Journal of Biological Chemistry and will be in press on May 4, offer hope for a more selective,........Go to the Cancer-articles (Added on 4/23/2007 10:05:38 PM)
Cancer Drug Targets Critical ProteinsA drug under study to treat various cancers selectively kills cancer cells because of its affinity for a modified version of a critical heat shock protein they contain, scientists have found.
They found in cancer a modified version of heat shock protein 90, or hsp90, which like most heat shock proteins, promotes cell survival.
They then showed that in breast cancer and leukemia, this modification, called acetylation, confers a strong........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 4/15/2007 9:20:23 PM)
Efforts To Develop A Melanoma VaccineIn recent years, scientists have worked to develop many vaccines to help the immune system fight tumors. Cancer vaccines are not intended to prevent cancer; rather, they are used to boost immune responses to preexisting tumors. Unlike traditional chemotherapy, vaccines have relatively low toxicity and, potentially, a high degree of efficacy.
To date, these vaccines have rarely been designed to directly stimulate one of the body's most........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 4/15/2007 9:11:18 PM)
Enhancing chemotherapy's efficacyIntegrating the use of drugs targeted to specific cancer proteins into current chemotherapy regimens to improve the efficacy of systemic therapy is an important clinical goal at Fox Chase Cancer Center. Fox Chase research presented during the 97th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Los Angeles has observed that a new chemical agent, MCP110, has a synergistic effect both in vitro and in vivo when used with current........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 4/15/2007 8:34:49 PM)
Major Susceptibility Gene For Crohn's DiseaseA consortium of Canadian and American scientists report in Nature Genetics the results from a search of the entire human genome for genetic risk factors leading to the development of Crohn's disease. Specifically, using a novel approach, the authors identified that the PHOX2B, NCF4 and ATG16L1 genes constitute genetic risk factors for Crohn's disease. In addition, their study identified two regions of the genome where genetic risk factors are........Go to the What-media-blog (Added on 4/15/2007 8:32:01 PM)
A genetic 'gang of 4' drives spread of breast cancerStudies of human tumor cells implanted in mice have shown that the abnormal activation of four genes drives the spread of breast cancer to the lungs. The new studies by Howard Hughes Medical Institute scientists reveal that the aberrant genes work together to promote the growth of primary breast tumors. Cooperation among the four genes also enables malignant cells to escape into the bloodstream and penetrate through blood vessels into lung........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 4/11/2007 11:04:59 PM)
Protecting Brains Of Premature InfantsA study of how the brain of a premature infant responds to injury has found vulnerabilities similar to those in the mature brain but also identified at least one significant difference, as per neuroresearchers and neonatologists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
In an animal model of brain injury, scientists showed for the first time that parts of the developing brain are vulnerable to damage from glutamate, a nervous........Go to the What-media-blog (Added on 4/10/2007 6:24:34 PM)
Rapid response to 1918 flu pandemicOne of the persistent riddles of the deadly 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic is why it struck different cities with varying severity. Why were some municipalities such as St. Louis spared the fate of the hard-hit cities like Philadelphia when both implemented similar public health measures? What made the difference, according to two independent studies funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), was not only how but also how rapidly........Go to the What-media-blog (Added on 4/2/2007 11:03:10 PM)
|
|
Doctoral research without bordersThe enabling of structured doctoral research within a collaborative scientific network has been the declared objective of the Research Training Group Programme, offered by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), since its inception in 1990. How important the internationalisation of this programme is to the DFG is also shown by the International Research Training Group programme, founded in 1997, in which German........Go to the What-media-blog (Added on 6/15/2007 11:18:55 AM)
Progress Toward an Antitumor VaccineHow can we induce the body to use its own weapon, the immune system, to battle cancer? In principle, by the same means used against infectious diseases: immunization. The production of a selective vaccine is not a trivial task, however. A team led by Horst Kunst at the University of Mainz has now found a way to bind a molecule that is typical for tumors to a carrier protein without irritating the immune system. As they report in the journal........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 6/13/2007 1:13:05 PM)
Big power of small RNAs, in halting cancer Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) scientists led by Lin He, Xingyue He, and Professor and Howard Hughes Medical Investigator (HHMI) Greg Hannon have identified a family of micro RNAs (miRNAs) that enable a critical tumor suppressor network, called the p53 pathway, to fight cancer growth. At CSHL, we are moving simultaneously on several fronts to understand the p53 pathway because damage to this pathway is something that almost all cancers........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 6/6/2007 9:24:40 PM)
Cells re-energize to come back from the brink of deathThe discovery of how some abnormal cells can avoid a biochemical program of self-destruction by increasing their energy level and repairing the damage, is giving researchers at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital insights into a key strategy cancer cells use to survive and thrive.
The finding offers an explanation of how abnormal cells that have cheated death once by disabling the main suicide pathway called apoptosis can also foil a........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 6/1/2007 9:39:41 PM)
Skin Reactions To New Class Of Cancer DrugsSkin reactions to a powerful new class of anti-cancer drugs are frequent, but manageable through a simple and rational therapy approach commonly without the need to reduce the dose or interrupt therapy with potentially life-prolonging chemotherapy, as per an article in the recent issue of "The Oncologist".
The special article presents the first recommendations on skin reactions to the new drugs, called Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 5/23/2007 8:31:39 PM)
A new wrinkle in evolutionNature, through the trial and error of evolution, has discovered a vast diversity of life from what can only presumed to have been a primordial pool of building blocks. Inspired by this success, a new Biodesign Institute research team, led by John Chaput, is now trying to mimic the process of Darwinian evolution in the laboratory by evolving new proteins from scratch. Using new tricks of molecular biology, Chaput and co-workers have evolved........Go to the What-media-blog (Added on 5/22/2007 10:02:25 PM)
Decoding gene expression in cancer tumorsBy correlating images of malignant liver tissue with gene expression patterns, a research team led by a radiologist at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine has developed tools that may some day allow physicians to view a CT image of a cancer tumor and discern its genetic activity. The study, designed to help doctors obtain the molecular details of a specific tumor or disease without having to do an invasive biopsy........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 5/21/2007 12:31:49 PM)
Hair relaxers do not increase riskAs per scientists at Boston Universitys Slone Epidemiology Center, hair relaxers are not linked to increased risk of breast cancer in black women. The findings would be reported in the recent issue of Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention.
Hair dye use has been linked to an increased risk of various cancers in some studies, but these results have generally not been confirmed. The present study is the first to assess hair relaxers in........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 5/17/2007 5:23:32 AM)
Gene's Effect On Bone Loss In Breast Cancer PatientsWomen with estrogen-responsive breast cancer are often prescribed a drug that reduces their estrogen levels. But because estrogen is important to bone health, there is widespread concern about how the estrogen-reducing drugs - called aromatase inhibitors - affect bones.
A study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis will investigate bone loss in women taking aromatase inhibitors, and scientists are calling for interested........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 5/13/2007 10:00:54 PM)
Regulating Californian stem cell researchHow is California regulating its $3 billion stem cell research initiative?
Regulations governing human stem cell research must strive to assure strict oversight while simultaneously fostering scientific innovation through collaboration, says a group of researchers from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), one of the world's largest supporters of such research.
In November 2004, California voters approved $3 billion........Go to the What-media-blog (Added on 5/7/2007 10:56:51 PM)
MRI to determine features of osteoarthrosisAbnormalities in the ligaments found on the outside of the knee (lateral collateral ligament complex or LCLC) are usually seen on MRI in patients with knee osteoarthrosis (OA), as per a research studyconducted by scientists from Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, PA.
The study consisted of 96 patients (53 women, 43 men), 51 with knee osteoarthrosis, and 44 patients with knee pain........Go to the What-media-blog (Added on 5/6/2007 5:32:09 PM)
Strengthening Swallowing RehabilitationJust thinking about swallowing makes it harder to do.
Head and neck cancer, a stroke, brain tumor, brain injury or even a tracheostomy tube and mechanical ventilation needed to sustain life can make it impossible.
Dysphagia, or swallowing problems, can also result from aging and accompanying loss of muscle strength.
"We swallow a thousand times or more per day, just our own saliva, without even thinking about it," says Dr. Lori........Go to the What-media-blog (Added on 4/30/2007 7:13:47 PM)
Increased Survival In Metastatic Colorectal CancerA phase III trial of 1,298 colorectal cancer patients has found that a combination of the drugs cetuximab (Erbitux) and irinotecan showed a significant improvement in progression-free survival over just irinotecan alone, according to an international team of researchers.
The Erbitux Plus Irinotecan in Colorectal Cancer (EPIC) study looked at survival in metastatic colorectal cancer patients who had already shown resistance to conventional........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 4/17/2007 5:08:14 AM)
Pancreas Cancer Risk ModelPeople with a family history of pancreatic cancer now have a way to accurately predict their chance of carrying a gene for hereditary pancreatic cancer and their lifetime risk of developing the disease. Developed by Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center researchers, the novel computer software tool is designed to help genetic counselors and physicians decide who would most benefit from early screening.
An estimated 10 percent of aggressive and........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 4/16/2007 10:10:33 PM)
Is treatment for prostate cancer is working?Scientists at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have identified a new imaging technique that can measure the effectiveness of therapy for prostate cancer that has spread to the bones. The technique involves measuring diffusion of water within tumors.
"Currently, we have no way of detecting bone tumor response to treatment, even with all of the imaging options we have available. The magnitude of this problem is huge as a........Go to the Cancer-articles (Added on 4/15/2007 8:49:19 PM)
Mold By-product Kills Multiple MyelomaMayo Clinic Cancer Center scientists have observed that chaetocin, a by-product of a common wood mold, has promise as a new anti-myeloma agent. Results of their study, being presented today at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting, show the by-product to be more effective than currently used therapies at killing multiple myeloma cells. The complete findings are also available online in Blood.
"There were many........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 4/15/2007 8:45:36 PM)
Low education and lower quality of life for prostate cancer patientsAmong men who have received similar therapys for prostate cancer, those with less education especially those who did not graduate from high school experience a significant drop in their quality of life after therapy compared with men who have more education, as per a research studyled by scientists at the San Francisco VA Medical Center (SFVAMC).
These men did not start out with a lower quality of life before cancer, says lead author Sara........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 4/12/2007 6:00:46 PM)
Measuring calcium intake in men with prostate cancerMeasuring a mans daily calcium intake is an effective way of identifying patients with prostate cancer with a higher than average risk of osteoporosis, as per the recent issue of the urology journal BJU International.
Scientists from the Autonoma University School of Medicine, Barcelona, Spain, looked at a cross-section of 372 men with prostate cancer. 72 per cent were receiving androgen-deprivation treatment (ADT) and 28 per cent had........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 4/11/2007 11:11:21 PM)
Depiction of Tobacco Smoking in MoviesHarvard School of Public Health (HSPH) today is releasing materials presented to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in a scientific briefing requested by the MPAA last February 23, 2007 in Hollywood on the health impact of youth smoking and the behavioral influence of films that depict tobacco use.
The presentations can be accessed at www.hsph.harvard.edu/mpaa/.
From the perspective of public health, tobacco use is the........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 4/3/2007 10:52:39 PM)
Gender linked to skin cancerInherent gender differences instead of more sun exposure may be one reason why men are three times more likely than women to develop certain kinds of skin cancer, say researchers at Ohio State University Medical Center.
Squamous cell carcinoma is the second most common form of skin cancer, accounting for nearly 200,000 new cases in the United States each year. While occurring more often than melanoma, squamous cell carcinoma is not nearly........Go to the The-cancer-blog (Added on 4/1/2007 9:13:46 PM)
|
