#Radiotherapy: Novel lung cancer treatment meets with successan old idea of retreating lung tumors with radiation is new again especially with the technological advances seen in radiation oncology over the last decade.
The Comprehensive Cancer Center of Wake Forest Baptist Medical center is one of only a handful of cancer centers that is attempting to give lung cancer patients out of treatment options a chance to keep the cancer at bay.
For these patients hope lies in a second course of treatment â#repeat radiation. Two complementary papers published back-to-back recently in the journal Radiotherapy
and Oncology and the Journal of Thoracic Oncology outline the treatment success at Wake Forest Baptist. â#oeone of the toughest challenges of lung cancer is
what to do for patients when the cancer comes back in an area thatâ##s been treated previously with radiation treatmentâ#said James J. Urbanic M d. lead author of the studies
and a radiation oncologist at Wake Forest Baptist. â#oewith some of the technological advances in radiation treatments that have occurred in the last five to 10 years weâ##re beginning to re-look at the issue
and ask â#can we target the radiation precisely enough and with a high enough dose to knock the cancer back?
â#Urbanic said the overall findings of the study suggest that there are some patients with recurrent lung cancers who can be treated with another definitive course of radiation therapy
and still have a chance at a cure. â#oeat many cancer treatment centers these patients only get chemotherapy
and have no chance at definitive treatment. The goal of treatment is solely to prevent
or delay symptoms from developing and they are seen as incurableâ#he said. â#oebut with re-irradiation our study shows that maybe we can give a curative intent treatment that we couldnâ##t do in the past.
Itâ##s a layer of hope for some patients that they never had before. â#For this study the researchers looked back at 11 years of clinical data.
Eighty-six patients were identified who received at least two courses of thoracic radiotherapy. Of that number 33 were treated with repeat thoracic radiotherapy using stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) or accelerated hypofractionated radiotherapy (AHRT) as a component of their treatment.
The median age was 66 and the majority of patients (88 percent) were treated for primary lung cancer.
Average tumor size at retreatment was 2. 5 cm. Prior lung resections had been completed in 24 percent of patients.
Urbanic said the typical patient is an older man or woman who got treated with either chemotherapy
and radiation or radiation alone for a lung cancer that couldnâ##t be removed surgically. Theyâ##ve returned for a checkup
and feel well but a CT scan shows that the cancer has returned in the area previously treated.
If the cancer is just in one spot the patients get retreated with 10 radiation treatments done with the SBRT technique
which is targeted tightly to just the tumor and minimizes the dose to the surrounding normal tissue. â#oewake Forest Baptist has been developing expertise in doing thisâ#Urbanic said. â#oeweâ##re finding that there are patients who are alive years later.
We have seen relatively modest toxicity and a good ability to try and control the disease â#upwards of 70 percent of the time. â
#But there is a higher risk of injury involved when someone is radiated a second time which is why other cancer treatment center programs might be reluctant to adopt the practice he said. â#oethis is a fairly niche effort in lung cancer care
and weâ##d like to see a national level clinical trial at some pointâ#he said. â#oethe technology has gotten to the point where
I think itâ##s going to allow radiation oncologists to reassess their ability so that maybe they can take risks they werenâ##t willing to take before.
Eventually this practice will become more widespread. â#Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Wake Forest Baptist Medical center.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal References
#Fungus may help stop invasive spread of tree-of-heavena naturally occurring fungus might help curb the spread of an invasive tree species that is threatening forests in most of the United states according to researchers.
Researchers tested the fungus--Verticillium nonalfalfae--by injecting it into tree-of-heaven or Ailanthus plots according to Matthew Kasson who recently received his doctorate in plant pathology and environmental microbiology from Penn State.
The treatment completely eradicated the tree-of-heaven plants in those forests. It appears that this treatment is effective in Pennsylvania
and could be used as a bio-control agent throughout the United states said Kasson. Since tree-of-heaven's introduction into Pennsylvania in the 1780s the tree has spread from a rare
and prized plant for collectors to a nuisance in at least 40 of the 48 contiguous states according to Kasson.
Trying to find the best way to get rid of tree-of-heaven has become a serious land-management issue said Kasson.
Fire doesn't seem to work and chemicals and mechanical means are expensive and ineffective too.
Usually it takes three blows of the hatchet to deposit the entire inoculation of about 30 million spores for each tree.
The inoculation kills the entire tree including the sprouts. The researchers report their results in a recent issue of Phytopathology.
The Ambrosia beetles may explain some of the long-range spread of the disease said Davis. One theory is that the beetles feed on an infected tree
Principal investigator Dr Roman Ashauer an Anniversary Lecturer with the University of York's Environment Department who formerly worked at Eawag said:
Corresponding author Dr Anna-Maija Nyman now working at the University of Eastern Finland said:
and how to kill the pests without harming other organisms we have to start with mechanisms of toxic action.
Toxicity of these neurotoxicants does vary a lot among species--in our study the shrimps turned out to be much more sensitive than the pond snail.
Principal investigator Dr Roman Ashauer an Anniversary Lecturer with the University of York's Environment Department who formerly worked at Eawag said:
Corresponding author Dr Anna-Maija Nyman now working at the University of Eastern Finland said:
and how to kill the pests without harming other organisms we have to start with mechanisms of toxic action.
Toxicity of these neurotoxicants does vary a lot among species--in our study the shrimps turned out to be much more sensitive than the pond snail.
This is the finding of research by Dr Michael Duncan and colleagues at Coventry University presented today Thursday 8 may 2014 at The british Psychological Society annual conference at the International Convention Centre Birmingham.
Dr Duncan said: It seems that encouraging children to see the benefits of healthy eating through integrated school projects could help to entrench healthy eating behaviour.
And zinc and iron deficiency is a big global health problem already for at least 2 billion people.
The gel shows potential as a bioscaffold to support the regrowth of bone and other three-dimensional tissues in a patient's body using the patient's own cells to seed the process.
but when injected into a patient becomes a gel that would fill and stabilize a space
That process known as syneresis defeats the purpose of defining the space doctors hope to fill with new tissue.
but it's finally all come together said Watson who is pursuing both a Rice doctorate and a medical degree in a joint program with nearby Baylor College of Medicine.
and the underlying molecular mechanismsthe National institutes of health the Keck Center Nanobiology Training program of the Gulf Coast Consortia and the Baylor College of Medicine Medical scientist Training program supported the research.
and inclinations from monogamy to addiction to animals'including humans'underlying biology. To that growing list they're adding division of labor--at least in killer bees.
Climate change will add to both stress and costs. Rising temperatures lead to increased demand for water and energy and impacts on agricultural practices.
The Northwest's economy infrastructure natural systems public health and agriculture sectors all face important climate change related risks.
Impacts on infrastructure natural systems human health and economic sectors combined with issues of social and ecological vulnerability will unfold quite differently in largely natural areas like the Cascade range than in urban areas like Seattle and Portland or among the region
Now the changing climate is imposing additional stresses...Coastal lifelines such as water supply infrastructure and evacuation routes are increasingly vulnerable to higher sea levels
Overview) Climate-Change Impacts on Key Sectors of Society and the U s. Economy â#¢Health:
Climate change threatens human health and well-being in many ways including through impacts from increased extreme weather events wildfire decreased air quality threats to mental health
and illnesses transmitted by food water and disease carriers such as mosquitoes and ticks. Some of these health impacts are already underway in the United states. Climate change will absent other changes amplify some of the existing health threats the Nation now faces.
Certain people and communities are especially vulnerable including children the elderly the sick the poor and some communities of color.
Public health actions especially preparedness and prevention can do much to protect people from some of the impacts of climate change.
Early action provides the largest health benefits. NCA Highlights: Human Health) â#¢Transportation: The impacts from sea level rise
and storm surge extreme weather events higher temperatures and heat waves precipitation changes Arctic warming and other climatic conditions are affecting the reliability and capacity of the U s. transportation system in many ways.
Sea level rise coupled with storm surge will continue to increase the risk of major coastal impacts on transportation infrastructure including both temporary and permanent flooding of airports ports
and health property infrastructure economies and ecology in many basins across the United Statesâ#Increasing resilience and enhancing adaptive capacity provide opportunities to strengthen water resources management and plan for climate-change impacts.
or so others will increasingly suffer from stresses due to extreme heat drought disease and heavy downpours.
and can help reduce the harm to wildlife natural assets and human well-being that climate disruption might cause.
Warmer waters harm coral reefs and alter the distribution abundance and productivity of many marine species. The rising temperature and changing chemistry of ocean water combine with other stresses such as overfishing and coastal and marine pollution to alter marine-based food production
and harm fishing communitiesâ#In response to observed and projected climate impacts some existing ocean policies practices
and management efforts are incorporating climate change impacts. These initiatives can serve as models for other efforts
A new study from Northwestern Medicineâ and Northeastern Illinois University found that the majority of college students are engaging in unhealthy behaviors that could increase their risk of cancer later on.
or more days of vigorous exercise for at least 20 minutes or five or more days of moderate exercise for at least 30 minutes a week Changing unhealthy behaviors in college students now could be a way to reduce the risk of cancer as well as other
diseases later in life said Brian Hitsman principal investigator of the study. Hitsman is an assistant professor in preventive medicine-behavioral medicine and psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of medicine and a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.
Published online May 5 in the journal Preventive medicine the study is the first to evaluate cancer risk behaviors
and conditions in college students and how they vary by race and ethnicity. Data for the study comes from the fall 2010 wave of the National College Health Assessment a self-reported survey of a diverse group of more than 30000 college students in the United states. The majority of all college students
surveyed reported low fruit and vegetable consumption and low physical activity. Other unhealthy behaviors or conditions--alcohol binge drinking tobacco use
Tobacco use and obesity are two health issues that have been vying in the last five years for first place as the major health problem in the United states said Joseph Kang lead author of the study and assistant professor in preventive medicine-biostatistics at Feinberg.
Understanding cancer risk behavior clustering by race and ethnicity is given critical that the number of new cases is projected to increase by 45 percent by 2030
and surpass heart disease as the leading causes of death in the United states. American Society of Clinical Oncology 2014.
The state of cancer care in America 2014: a report by the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
J. Oncol. Pract. 10 119-142..If left unaddressed in college students there is potential for cancer rates to escalate even higher.
There are major cancer disparities both in terms of risk morbidity and mortality with racial and ethnic minorities in the United states Hitsman said.
In this study we see some of these behavioral risk factors already starting in young adulthood.
Future research should monitor the persistence of cancer risk behavior clustering by race and ethnicity.
Other key results from the study broken down by race/ethnicity: Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Northwestern University.
and Elli Slaughter advocate to curb the environmental harm done through the large-scale littering of cigarette butts packaging and matches.
The suggestions are part of a review article in Springer's journal Current Environmental Health Reports. Cigarette butts and other tobacco product waste are the items that are picked most commonly up during urban
Tobacco waste products contain the same toxins nicotine pesticides and carcinogens found in cigarettes and cigars and can contaminate the environment and water sources.
and fresh water and be acutely toxic to aquatic microorganisms and fish. It is not only the cigarette ingredients that harm the environment
but also the materials they are made of. Plastic cigarette filters are practically non-biodegradable and can leach chemicals for up to ten years.
The researchers call filtered cigarettes a farce in terms of consumer safety with a recent National Cancer Institute review showing that these are not healthier
and nuisance costs associated with their products advocating the use of labels on cigarette packages about the toxicity of discarded butts
With two-thirds of all smoked cigarettes numbering in the trillions globally being discarded into the environment each year it is critical to consider the potential toxicity and remediation of these waste products.
and the tropical forests of the Congo region are likely to be affected much less MÃ ller stresses.
even though multiple stresses amplify the vulnerability. Hence the importance of identifying hotspots--and a composite impact measure that explicitly addresses the issue of uncertainty.
Telling them all of the positive health and diet related aspects of Tofu such as being high in protein
Dr. Brian Wansink says If you're trying to convince a friend or family member to join you in becoming a Tofu lover don't belabor its health benefits;
instead focus on it being quick and filling and cooking like chicken. In no time they'll be making Tofu Scramble Stir fry and all the other dishes the Tofu lovers in the study listed as big parts of their diets.
and vegetables depriving them of the health benefits of those foods. However the government provides assistance such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women Infants
and negatively associated with weight status. With this in mind a group of researchers from Emory's Rollins School of Public health
and the Cancer Coalition of South Georgia sought to examine the home food environment and determine which aspects are associated with healthy eating in low-income overweight and obese women who receive healthcare through local federally-qualified community health centers.
Among a group of primarily obese African american female patients in southwest Georgia researchers looked at food inventories food placement grocery shopping food preparation meal serving practices family
meals from non-home sources television watching while eating and family support for healthy eating.
#Factors leading to diabetes may contribute to milk supply problems for new mothersnew studies provide fresh evidence that the same factors that lead to diabetes contribute to low milk supply in some new mothers.
In a study to be presented May 5 Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical center researchers discovered that problems with mothers'insulin metabolism may affect their milk production.
The study found that women diagnosed with low milk supply were 2. 5 times more likely to have experienced gestational diabetes compared to women seen at the clinic solely
and how best to support them in meeting their breastfeeding goals says Sarah Riddle MD a pediatrician at the Center for Breastfeeding Medicine
We also need to develop targeted therapies to support lactation success in women with a history of glucose intolerance.
The study conducted among 561 women seeking help for a breastfeeding problem at Cincinnati Children's Breastfeeding Medicine Clinic will be presented at 4: 15 p m. Pacific time Monday May 5 at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic
In a separate study presented on April 27 at the Experimental Biology annual meeting in San diego Laurie Nommsen-Rivers Phd a researcher at the Cincinnati Children's Perinatal Institute showed that postpartum metabolic health
also affects lactation sufficiency--even among women who did not experience diabetes in pregnancy. She found that elevated body mass index elevated fasting insulin insulin resistance
and especially elevated fasting plasma glucose in the pre-diabetic range were all predictors of insufficient milk supply in women attempting to exclusively breastfeed.
Dr. Nommsen-Rivers is senior author of both of these new studies. The single most important factor in building a strong milk supply is frequent and thorough breastfeeding beginning at birth she says.
This is why it is so important for maternity hospitals to adopt the Ten Steps to Successful Breastfeeding (http://www. babyfriendlyusa. org/about-us/baby-friendly-hospital-initiative/the-ten-steps.
However one consequence of the obesity epidemic is that nearly one out of every four reproductive-aged women is pre-diabetic.
Dr. Nommsen-Rivers and Dr. Riddle are planning to conduct a clinical trial of metformin a drug used to control blood sugar in type 2 diabetes.
whether metformin by improving insulin action in the mammary gland will boost milk production in pre-diabetic mothers diagnosed with low milk supply.
The above story is provided based on materials by Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical center. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
This specialized approach is used by Charles W. Luetje chairman of the department of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology in the UM Miller School of medicine
No toxicologist is going to argue with that. The more interesting question is whether the flies will evolve resistance as human head lice have done.
and often infected by fleas with plague bacteria Knutie says. Permethrin has been sprayed in burrows but that is labor-intensive so it might be used on vegetation the animals drag into their burrows.
Knutie says permethrin-treated cotton has been used in the Northeast to get mice to incorporate it in their nests to kill Lyme disease-carrying ticks.
tomato eaters winscientists from the U s. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have identified a benign bacterium that shows promise in blocking Salmonella from colonizing raw tomatoes.
When applied to Salmonella-contaminated tomato plants in a field study the bacterium known as Paenibacillus alvei significantly reduced the concentration of the pathogen compared to controls.
Since the millennium this pathogen has caused 12 multistate outbreaks of food-borne illness--more than one each year.
After screening many hundreds of potential biocontrol strains of bacteria that were isolated from farms and natural environments in the Mid-atlantic region we found about 10 isolates of bacteria representing very different genera
This bacterium also has known no history of human pathology making it a great candidate as a biological control agent says Zheng.
While farmers and agricultural scientists have used long microbes to prevent plant diseases we now have the opportunity to add a naturally-occurring microbe to a crop in the field with the goal of preventing human disease says Zheng.
and provide low-cost food sources the level of physical activity required also offers a multitude of health benefits.
although many studies have focused on the health benefits of gardening for older adults research on different age groups is limited.
and fitness levels and there was not enough data on the metabolic equivalents of gardening tasks in different age groups to develop a garden exercise program for maintaining
or improving health conditions explained the study's lead author Ki-Cheol Son. Fifteen university students in their 20s participated in the study in South korea.
Determining the exercise intensity of gardening tasks should be useful information for developing garden exercise programs based on physical activity recommendations for health benefits the researchers said adding that the data will also be valuable for designing horticultural therapy program based on
#Glutamine ratio is key ovarian cancer indicatora Rice university-led analysis of the metabolic profiles of hundreds of ovarian tumors has revealed a new test to determine
The study also suggests how ovarian cancer treatments can be tailored based on the metabolic profile of a particular tumor.
The research which appears online this week in Molecular Systems Biology was conducted at the Texas Medical center in Houston by researchers from Rice the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor College of Medicine.
and highly aggressive ovarian tumor cells particularly with respect to their production and use of the amino acid glutamine said lead researcher Deepak Nagrath of Rice.
and in our laboratory studies we showed that depriving such cells of external sources of glutamine--as some experimental drugs do--was an effective way to kill late-stage cells.
The research is part of a growing effort among cancer researchers worldwide to create treatments that target the altered metabolism of cancer cells.
and researchers long believed that all cancers behaved in this way. Intense research in recent decades has revealed a more nuanced picture.
Each type of cancer appears to have its own metabolic signature Nagrath said. For instance kidney cancer does not rely on glutamine
and though breast cancer gets some of its energy from glutamine it gets even more from glycolysis.
For other cancers including glioblastoma and pancreatic cancer glutamine appears to be the primary energy source.
Nagrath director of Rice's Laboratory for Systems Biology of Human Diseases said the new metabolic analysis indicates that ovarian cancer may be susceptible to multidrug cocktails particularly
if the amounts of the drugs can be tailored to match the metabolic profile of a patient's tumor.
The research also revealed a specific biochemical test that pathologists could use to guide such treatments.
The test involves measuring the ratio between the amount of glutamine that a cell takes up from outside
and the amount of glutamine it makes internally. This ratio proved to be a robust marker for prognosis said MD Anderson co-author Anil Sood professor of gynecologic oncology and reproductive medicine and co-director of the Center for RNA Interference and Non-Coding RNA.
A high ratio was correlated directly to tumor aggression and metastatic capability. Patients with this profile had the worst prognosis for survival.
The three-year study included cell culture studies at Rice as well as a detailed analysis of gene expression profiles of more than 500 patients from the Cancer Genome Atlas and protein-expression profiles from about 200
MD Anderson patients. The enzyme glutaminase is key to glutamine uptake from outside the cell
and glutaminase is the primary target that everybody is thinking about right now in developing drugs Nagrath said.
We found that targeting only glutaminase will miss the less aggressive ovarian cancer cells because they are at a metabolic stage where they are not yet glutamine-dependent.
Rice graduate student Lifeng Yang lead author of the study designed a preclinical experiment to test the feasibility of a multidrug approach.
He used a drug to inhibit the early stage production of internal glutamine while also limiting the uptake of external glutamine.
That depleted all sources of glutamine for the cells and we found that cell proliferation decreased significantly Yang said.
Nagrath said the study also revealed another key finding--a direct relationship between glutamine and an ovarian cancer biomarker called STAT3.
and signaling is vital to developing novel strategies to tackle cancer said MD Anderson co-author Prahlad Ram associate professor of systems biology and co-director of the MD Anderson Cancer Center's Systems Biology
STAT3 is the primary marker that is used today to ascertain malignancy tumor aggression and metastasis in ovarian cancer.
Nagrath said The higher STAT3 is the more aggressive the cancer. For the first time we were able to show how glutamine regulates STAT3 expression through a well-known metabolic pathway called the TCA cycle
Ultimately he hopes the investigations will lead to new treatment regimens for cancer as well as a better understanding of the role of cancer-cell metabolism in metastasis and drug resistance.
#Antimicrobial edible films inhibit pathogens in meatantimicrobial agents incorporated into edible films applied to foods to seal in flavor freshness
and nanoparticles against foodborne pathogens associated with meat and poultry. The results demonstrate that the bacterial pathogens were inhibited significantly by the use of the antimicrobial films said Catherine Cutter professor of food science.
She hopes that the research will lead to the application of edible antimicrobial films to meat and poultry either before packaging or more likely as part of the packaging process.
In the study which was published online in the April issue of the Journal of Food Science researchers determined survivability of bacterial pathogens after treatment with 2 percent oregano essential oil 2 percent rosemary essential oil
zinc oxide nanoparticles or silver nanoparticles. The compounds then were incorporated into edible films made from pullulan
and the researchers determined the antimicrobial activity of these films against bacterial pathogens inoculated onto petri dishes.
and poultry products with bacterial pathogens treated them with the pullulan films containing the essential oils
and have them do double duty--releasing antimicrobials and imparting characteristics to protect and improve food we eat.
but effective way to deliver antimicrobial agents to meats Cutter explained because the bacteria-killing action is longer lasting.
The pullulan films adhere to the meat allowing the incorporated antimicrobials to slowly dissolve providing immediate and sustained kill of bacteria.
However the one thing I really want to be able to do in the next few years is to figure out a way to co-extrude antimicrobial edible films with the polyethylene
so we have the true oxygen barrier properties of the plastic with the antimicrobial properties of the edible film.
Knowing that edible films can release antimicrobials slowly over time and keep bacteria in meat at bay further research will be aimed at creating
what Cutter referred to as active packaging--polyethylene film with antimicrobial properties. Right now we have two different packaging materials that are not necessarily compatible leading to a two-step process.
I keep thinking there's a way to extrude edible antimicrobial film in one layer with polyethylene creating all-in-one packaging.
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