Cancer, neoplasms and tumors

Cancer (3241)
Leukemia (66)
Neoplasms and tumors (1662)

Synopsis: Health: Illness: Cancer, neoplasms and tumors:

Light-switchable drugs have been explored in other fields such as cancer therapy, but not for antibiotics. Organic chemist Ben Feringa at Groningen and his co-workers used an existing light-switchable unit called azobenzene,

#The teenage scientist revolutionising cancer detection Pancreatic cancer is a killer and one that is very hard to detect.

It can also be used to test for lung and ovarian cancer. He tells BBC Future about his quest s

#Moffitt researchers discover mechanism leading to drug resistance metastasis in melanoma Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have discovered a mechanism that leads to resistance to targeted therapy in melanoma patients

and improve outcomes for many cancer patients, when compared to the adverse effects of standard chemotherapeutic drugs.

resulting in more aggressive cells that can spread to other sites or cause regrowth of primary tumors.

B-Raf is a protein that is frequently mutated in human cancers leading to increased tumor cell growth, survival and migration.

Drugs that target B-Raf or another protein in the same network called MEK have proved effective in clinical trials.

and a MEK inhibitor being the current standard of care for patients with B-Raf mutant melanoma.

They found that melanoma cells that are resistant to B-Raf inhibitors tend to be more aggressive and invasive,

thereby allowing the tumor to spread to a new organ site. They used a large screening approach

"said Keiran S. Smalley, Ph d.,scientific director of the Donald A. Adam Comprehensive Melanoma Research center of Excellence at Moffitt.

The research also showed that targeting Epha2 reduced the aggressive behavior of the melanoma cells.

#Enzymes believed to promote cancer actually suppress tumors Upending decades-old dogma, a team of scientists at the University of California,

San diego School of medicine say enzymes long categorized as promoting cancer are, in fact, tumor suppressors and that current clinical efforts to develop inhibitor-based drugs should

instead focus on restoring the enzymes'activities. The findings are published in the January 29 issue of Cell.

which are cancer-relevant activities, such as cell survival, proliferation, apoptosis, and migration. The discovery that they are receptors for tumor-producing phorbol esters,

plant-derived compounds that bind to and activate PKC, created a dogma that activation of PKCS by phorbol esters promoted carcinogen-induced tumorigenesis."

"For three decades, researchers have sought to find new cancer therapies based on the idea that inhibiting

or halt tumor development,"said Alexandra Newton, Phd, professor of pharmacology and the study's principal investigator,

PKCS do not promote cancer progression; rather, they act to suppress tumor growth. Using live cell imaging, first author Corina Antal, a graduate student in the Biomedical sciences program at UC San diego,

characterized 8 percent of the more than 550 PKC mutations identified in human cancers. This led to the unexpected discovery that the majority of mutations actually reduced

or abolished PKC activity, and none were activating. The mutations impeded signal binding, prevented correct structuring of the enzyme,

tumor growth in a mouse model was reduced, demonstrating that normal PKC activity inhibits cancer. One possible explanation, said the researchers,

is that PKC typically represses signaling from certain oncogenes-genes that can cause normal cells to become cancerous.

When PKC is lost, oncogenic signaling increases, fueling tumor growth.""Inhibiting PKC has so far proved not only an unsuccessful strategy in a number of cancer clinical trials,

but its addition to chemotherapy has resulted in decreased response rates in patients, "said Newton.""Given our results,

"How could this misconception of PKC promoting tumors have arisen? Long-term activation of PKCS by phorbol esters results in their degradation, said first author Antal.

In models of tumor promotion, a sub-threshold dose of a carcinogen is painted on mouse skin,

Thus, their tumor-promoting function may arise because a brake to oncogenic signaling has been removed

#UCLA study IDS two genes that boost risk for posttraumatic stress disorder Why do some people develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

#Vanderbilt-led team studies blood test for prostate cancer Vanderbilt University researcher William Mitchell, M d.,Ph d,

. and colleagues in Germany and Canada have demonstrated a method for detecting"cell-free"tumor DNA in the bloodstream.

Mitchell believes the technique will be transformative in providing improved cancer diagnostics that can both predict treatment outcomes and monitor patient responses to therapy.

"could accurately distinguish prostate cancer from normal controls without prior knowledge of the genetic"signature"of the tumors,

I believe the'liquid biopsy'will revolutionize cancer diagnostics, not only before a patient begins therapy

The study collected serum from more than 200 patients with prostate cancer and more than 200 controls.

The researchers reported that the technique distinguished prostate cancer from normal controls with 84-percent accuracy,

and cancer from benign hyperplasia and prostatitis with an accuracy of 91 percent. Because the method quantifies the inherent chromosomal instability of cancer

and can be followed as a function of time without having to do an invasive tissue biopsy,

including tumor cells, shed DNA into the bloodstream. But only recently has technology, notably"next-generation sequencing,

and quantify cancer-specific DNA from normal controls by the identification and chromosomal location of billions of specific DNA fragments present in blood as cell-free DNA.

The prostate cancer study identified 20"hotspots"of greatest chromosomal instability as additions or deletions in less than 0. 5 percent of the total DNA present in human chromosomes.

"which may be generating previously unrecognized chromosomal control elements in prostate cancer. The other 19"hotspots"were involved rich in genes in replication

and cell control processes that are highly relevant to cancer.""Since cell-free DNA has a relatively short half-life in the circulation,

sequencing of cell-free DNA soon after therapy may be used to detect minimal residual disease in solid tumors,

Mitchell further predicted that liquid biopsies will quantify immediate tumor responses to therapy y

#CWRU researchers discover byproducts from bacteria awaken dormant T-cells and HIV viruses Dental and medical researchers from Case Western Reserve University found another reason to treat periodontal disease as soon as possible.

a research scientist with SDSC as well as the UC San diego Moores Cancer Center and the Department of Neurosciences. evertheless when these changes seem to be random on first glance,

Wolf Wrasidlo from the Moores Cancer Center; and Cassia Overk, Tania Gonzalez, Margarita Trejo, Brian Spencer,

"This technology can potentially also help cancer patients from the side effects of radiation therapy and astronauts from chronic exposure to cosmic rays on their journey to Mars. s

too much expression of the protein that Myc encodes has been linked closely to cancer, making it a well-known but elusive target of drug developers.

any drug that can target Myc directly is likely to find many applications beyond cancer r

#Scientists Create Device for Extracting Tumor Cells from Blood An international group led by scientists at UCLA California Nanosystems Institute has developed a new method for effectively extracting

Circulating tumor cells are cancer cells that break away from tumors and travel in the blood, looking for places in the body to start growing new tumors called metastases.

Capturing these rare cells would allow doctors to detect and analyze the cancer so they could tailor treatment for individual patients.

In his laboratory at the UCLA California Nanosystems Institute, Hsian-Rong Tseng a professor of molecular and medical pharmacology, used a device he invented to capture circulating tumor cells from blood samples.

The device, called the Nanovelcro Chip, is a postage-stampized chip with nanowires that are 1,

000 times thinner than a human hair and are coated with antibodies that recognize circulating tumor cells.

the tumor cells stick to the nanowires like Velcro. Capturing the tumor cells was just part of the battle, though.

To analyze them, Tseng team needed to be able to separate the cells from the chip without damaging them.

and release (at 4 degrees Celsius) circulating tumor cells at their optimal purity. Polymer brushes on the Nanovelcro nanowires respond to the temperature changes by altering their physical properties

who is also a member of UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. e combined the thermoresponsive system with downstream mutational analysis to successfully monitor the disease evolution of a lung cancer patient.

#Radiation Hormone Therapy Prolong Survival for Older Men With Prostate Cancer Adding radiation treatment to hormone therapy saves more lives among older men with locally advanced prostate therapy than hormone

The researchers found that hormone therapy plus radiation reduced cancer deaths by nearly 50 percent in men aged 76 to 85 compared to men who only received hormone therapy.

Past studies have shown that 40 percent of men with aggressive prostate cancers are treated with hormone therapy alone exposing a large gap in curative cancer care among baby boomers aging into their 70s.#

#ailure to use effective treatments for older patients with cancer is a health care quality concern in the United states.#

Perelman School of medicine and Abramson Cancer Center.##atients and their physicians should carefully discuss curative treatment options for prostate cancer

and reduce the use of hormone therapy alone. ocally advanced prostate cancer is cancer that has spread outside but near the prostate gland.

Unlike slower growing tumors locally advanced prostate cancer is an aggressive malignancy that is prone to metastasize

and cause cancer deaths. Hormone therapy lowers or blocks the levels of testosterone and other androgens (male hormones) that feed prostate cancer tumors.

Two landmark clinical trials have shown that radiation plus hormone therapy produces a large and significant improvement in survival in younger men relative to hormone therapy alone

but until now there has been no comparable research on treatment for older men with advanced prostate cancer.

Addressing this question for the first time Penn research team compared the combination of radiation plus hormone therapy

versus hormone therapy alone among 31 541 men with prostate cancer ranging in age from 65 years to 85 years.

Among men age 65 to 75 years old radiation plus hormone therapy was associated with a reduction in prostate cancer deaths of 57 percent relative to hormone therapy alone

Similarly among men age 76 to 85 years old radiation plus hormone therapy was associated with a reduction in prostate cancer deaths of 49 percent relative to hormone therapy alone

Importantly the clinical trials have shown that the side effects of radiation plus hormone therapy are very acceptable relative to hormone therapy alone. lder men with aggressive prostate cancers should know that the combination of radiation plus

#Only three percent of cancer patients participate in clinical trials; thus confirming that treatments work in real-world care is a crucial aspect of translating medical evidence to clinical practice.

Bekelman study is an example of patient-centered cancer comparative effectiveness research which provides reliable useful information to help individual patients make informed cancer care decisions

and improve cancer care outcomes. The Penn-led study examined radiation treatment and hormone therapy in the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Medicare database.

SEER collects data from population-based cancer registries that cover 26 percent of the U s. population and Medicare

which covers 97 percent of the U s. population 65 years of age or older. Patients received treatments not by random assignment but as part of their normal clinical care.

and to identify which treatments are best for men of different age groups and cancer severity e

#Technology Detects Lingering Cancer cells During Breast Surgery Many patients undergoing lumpectomy surgery at NYU Langone Medical center for the removal of an early detected breast tumor the surgical option of choice for this diagnosis

--are benefitting from new intra-operative technology that detects microscopic amounts of cancer cells on removed tumor tissue not visible during or following surgical intervention.

It concluded that the utilization of Marginprobe was as much as three times more effective in finding additional cancer on the margins of removed tumor tissue,

and other assessment tools. e found that adjunctive use of the Marginprobe device in the operating room significantly improved surgeonsability to identify additional cancer cells on the margins of removed tumors,

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer affecting women in the U s, . with over 285,000 new cases diagnosed each year.

It causes lung diseases like the malignant form of cancer called mesothelioma. Yet asbestos is still with us.

#The gold standard for cancer treatment Humanity battle against cancer is an unceasing one, and in recent years, new technologies have improved steadily the odds of beating the disease.

But doctors have discovered that they are not effective against all cancers; tumours tend to become resistant during lengthy treatment,

The team focused on two types of cancer: breast and prostate. Experiments on female mice bearing highly metastatic human breast cancer cells,

and Aud8, revealed a 53%reduction in cancer growth compared to the control treatment, within a month.

in order to undertake the experimental phase among terminally ill cancer patients. Project details Project acronym PERMIDAS Participants:

#Massive study closes in on cancers risk markers Cancer research has taken a huge leap forward with scientists now able to identify more than 80 genetic markers found to increase the risk of breast ovarian and prostate cancer.

for cancer in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Genetics. The research was led by scientists at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, the University of Cambridge and the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in the UK,

with support from more than 160 research groups worldwide. This international network brought together five global studies on 100 000 patients with breast, ovarian or prostate cancer.

Another 100 000 healthy volunteers comprised a control group. Scientists took DNA from all 200 000 subjects

and compared those with cancer, and those without, to assess each individual's inherited risk.

Overall, the study found that common genetic variation links all these cancers. This can be described as a genetic'spelling mistake'

Each alteration was seen to raise the risk of ovarian, breast or prostate cancer by a small amount,

although a small minority of men with several markers saw their risk of prostate cancer increase more than fourfold.

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men worldwide, contributing to 14%of all new cancer cases.

It is predicted that the number of cases will almost double to a figure of 1. 7 million by 2030.

In addition, the test also identified those with a smaller than average risk of developing the cancers.

and take us a step closer to having an effective prostate cancer screening programme.''With this new information, researchers now have a clearer picture of the total number of genetic changes that can explain the risk of getting these cancers.

The next step is to calculate the individual cancer risk, which will help to better understand how these cancers start

and grow so that new treatments can be developed. It is possible this could lead to a DNA screening test within five years.

COGS coordinator Professor Per Hall from the Karolinska Institutet says:''COGS is the largest genotyping project in the world targeting identification of genetic changes that influence the risk of common cancers.

The collaborative efforts have been tremendous and the key to its success.'Other financial contributors to the COGS project are the Märit and Hans Rausing Initiative against Breast cancer, the Swedish Research Council, Cancer Research UK and the Cancer Risk Prediction

Center (CRISP). Project details Project acronym: COGS Participants: Sweden (Coordinator), Germany, United kingdom, Australia, Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, France, Finland, Belgium Project FP7 223175 Total costs:#

#Developing new weapons in the fight against cancer Cancer causes some 13%of deaths worldwide.

Of these deaths some 90%are caused not by the original cancer but by its spread to other parts of the body.

These secondary cancers known as metastases are caused most often by'circulating tumour cells'(CTCS) which escape from the primary tumour and travel around the body in the bloodstream.

the greatly improved quantity and quality of information that can be gathered about the cells opens up the possibility of more complex diagnosis and treatment of cancers.

With cancers often behaving differently in different patients, and displaying different characteristics, the technology developed by CAMINEMS should allow clinicians to move closer to the ideal of personalised medical diagnosis and treatment.

The more advanced a cancer is, the more difficult it is to treat. The new CAMINEMS technology could help detect sooner

if a cancer is developing resistance to a treatment, and thus save precious months or years in switching to a new,

#Sweetening the bitter pill of cancer treatment Despite a massive research effort, cancer is still a major killer in Europe.

the Cyclon project is developing biocompatible sugar-based drug-delivery systems that could lead to a breakthrough in the fight against various cancers.

and are gaining valuable knowledge in many aspects of drug delivery for cancer treatment development,

and cancer detection A multidisciplinary EU-funded research team has tested successfully a pioneering HIV-detection technique that is ten times more sensitive than any identification method used to date.

has achieved also positive results in similar early detection tests for different types of cancer. The EU-funded MIMIC project is currently working towards a breakthrough in cancer diagnostics

which is based on an ultra-sensitive detection system that is able to pick up minute concentrations of disease-related molecules in body fluids.

A similar diagnostic approach to that being used in MIMIC's cancer research has already proven effective in detecting HIV/AIDS.

This HIV breakthrough is a triumph for the diagnostic approach MIMIC first developed for cancer detection,

while MIMIC's work does not improve cancer treatment per se, it can improve its diagnosis

."Since it can detect cancer-related molecules at ultra-low concentrations, it might be possible to detect the tumour at a very early stage before it spreads

The scientist reveals that the process has shown already potential in detecting cancer reoccurrence in prostate cancer patients."

"Patients who have undergone total prostatectomy may benefit from ultra-sensitive systems that can detect the prostate-specific cancer biomarkers at much lower concentrations

and ground-breaking nature of their work in both cancer and HIV could provide a valuable boost to the competitiveness of the EU in the fields of health care and nanotechnology e

After supporting the development of informatics at Avantium he moved to Novartis in Switzerland to expand the company's expertise and now works with the Institute of Cancer Research in London.

#EPICENTROMERE#Unlocking the secrets of cell behaviour Understanding how our cells behave strengthens our ability to tackle genetic diseases and cancer.

It gradually evolves into cancers that can attack the bladder, lungs and kidneys and induce diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.

Meanwhile, other diseases for which it is envisaged that GM plants could provide new drugs include cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and others which,

chronic pain and all types of brain cancer, said Cardinale. The robot, developed within the EU Robocast project, is a year away from surgical trials.

It can take years of exposure to arsenic before clear symptoms may appear, such as pigmentation changes, yperkeratosis'(patches of thickening skin), neurological side effects and signs of possible cancers in major organs (skin

#Cell phones and risk of brain tumor The ordinance, called the Right to Know law, will start to require retailers to give customers a handout,

Although Moskowitz said that it is"highly probable"that long-term cell phone use causes brain tumors,

In 2011, the World health organization classified the kind of low energy radiation that cell phones emit as"possibly carcinogenic"because of a link between cell phone use and a type of malignant brain tumor called glioma and a benign brain tumor called acoustic neuroma.

Both types of brain tumors are rare. About 5 in 10,000 adults are diagnosed with glioma in the United states every year,

whereas about 10 in a million people develop acoustic neuromas every year. Although THE WHO classification sounds ominous, it puts cell phones on the same level of cancer risk as caffeine and pickled vegetables.

The position of numerous health organizations, including the American Cancer Society and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is measured even more,

stating that current evidence is not conclusive and more research is needed."("Since 2011), I don't think any evidence has come along that would necessarily move from this uncertain designation to something on one side or the other...

Many large studies have failed to detect an association between cell phone use and brain tumors. One study of nearly 360,000 adults in Denmark did not find an increase in the number of brain tumors even among those who had been using a cell phone for at least 13 years.

However, as Samet said, THE WHO panel took into account studies that suggested that those who used cell phones did have higher rates of certain brain tumors.

The Interphone study is the largest study to date looking at cell phones and brain tumors. It involves 13 countries,

including Canada, the United kingdom, Denmark and Japan. Researchers asked more than 7, 000 people who had been diagnosed with a brain tumor

and 14,000 healthy people about their previous cell phone use. The study found no association between cell phone use

and glioma rates except in the group of participants who reported using their cell phone for at least 1, 640 hours in their lifetime without a headset.

Those participants were 40%more likely than those who never used a cell phone to have a glioma.

However authors of the Interphone study stated that people with brain tumors might be more likely than healthy people to exaggerate their cell phone use

and brain tumor risk in the study might not be real.""It's quite plausible that there would be excess reporting in people who suffered a life-threatening disease.

Another set of studies by researchers in Sweden also looked at reported cell phone use among people diagnosed with glioma

A recent analysis found that people who used a mobile phone were 30%more likely to have a glioma,

had 40%to 70%higher glioma risk.""There are individual studies and findings that do produce a risk,

Another argument against the possibility that cell phones cause cancer is that there has not been an increase in the incidence of brain tumors in the United states,

Although there has been an increase in brain tumors among 20 to 29-year-old females in the United states,

In addition to the lack of strong evidence showing a link between cell phone use and brain tumors,

000 people who were diagnosed with brain tumors at 10 to 24 years of age with 2, 000 healthy young people.

#Chip lets scientists see how cancer spreads Johns hopkins university rightoriginal Studyposted by Phil Sneiderman-JHU on November 12 2014a new lab chip is giving researchers an unprecedented look at the complex process that spreads cancer from its birthplace

By showing scientists precisely how tumor cells travel the tool may help them plot new strategies for preventing metastasis

which leads to more than 90 percent of cancer deaths. The work is published in the journal Cancer Research.

There s still so much we don t know about exactly how tumor cells migrate through the body partly

because even using our best imaging technology we haven t been able to see precisely how these individual cells move into blood vessels says lead researcher Andrew D. Wong a graduate student in materials science and engineering at Johns hopkins university.

The material resembles the human tissue that surrounds tumors when cancer cells break away and try to relocate elsewhere.

and begin to form deadly new tumors. Wong then replicated the processes in a small transparent chip that incorporates the artificial blood vessel and the surrounding simulated tissue material.

Cancer researchers should now have a much clearer look at the complex physical and biochemical interplay involved in leaving a tumor moving through surrounding tissue and approaching a blood vessel.

Cancer cells would have a tough time leaving the original tumor site if it weren t for their ability to enter our bloodstream

So it s actually the entry of cancer cells into the bloodstream that allows the cancer to spread very quickly.

or even stop the spread of cancer. Next the researchers plan to use the device to try out various cancer-fighting drugs within this device to get a better look at how the medications perform

and how they might be improved. The device is protected by a provisional patent. A grant from Johns Hopkins Institute for Nanobiotechnology and a National Cancer Institute grant supported the work.

Source: Johns Hopkins Universit t

#Paper circuit might diagnose Ebola in the field The first case of the Ebola outbreak currently ravaging West Africa appeared in Guinea in December 2013.

Diets rich in fruit and vegetables have been linked to important health outcomes including reductions in cardiovascular disease type 2 diabetes and some forms of cancer.

and has been shown to cause cancer. Because biochar can be produced from various waste biomass including agricultural residues this new technology provides an alternative

If cancer markers are found in a cell the circuit could for example activate a cellular suicide program.

Healthy cells without cancer markers would remain unaffected by this process. Biocomputers differ significantly from their counterparts made of silicon

This switch is driven by p53 the well-documented tumor-suppressing protein. Researchers showed that increasing the level of p53 in scar-forming cells significantly reduced scarring

or apoptosis which reduces the likelihood that they will go on to form tumors.####As luck would have it that was the first gene

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