Recent Posts
- MicroRNA-Mediated Metastasis Suppression
- A New Explanation Of ‘Asian Paradox’
- Toward Bold New Anti-cancer Medicines
- Celsion And Yakult Honsha Announce Treatment Of First Patient In Japan In Celsion’s Global Phase III ThermoDox(R) Trial For Primary Liver Cancer
- $6.5 Million Gift To UCSF From Irwin And Joan Jacobs For Head And Neck Cancer Research
Random Posts
- Statement From Otis W. Brawley, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, American Cancer Society
- ASCO: Kids Who Survive Cancer Not Watching for Later Disease
- Look for DVT with Superficial Vein Clots (CME/CE)
- ASCO: Breast Cancer Drug Also Targets Stomach Tumors (CME/CE)
- Chemotherapy Plus Radiotherapy, With Or Without Surgery, Are Options For Patients With Stage Iiia (N2) Non-Small-Cell Lung Cancer
- $2.5 Million NIH Grant To Study Cells' Reaction To Physical Force
- Low-Fat Diet Helps Genetically Predisposed Animals Avoid Liver Cancer
- ASCO: Bevacizumab Benefit in Early CRC Vanishes Over Time
- Acrylamide Gets Clean Bill on Lung Cancer
- DDW: Better Polyp Detection with Deep Sedation (CME/CE)
Prescription Cancer Drugs
Risk of Dying from Cancer Has Declined Steadily Since Mid-20th Century (CME/CE)
Posted by: admin in Prescription Cancer Drugs on August 15th, 2009
- Explain to interested patients that these results indicate that the risk of dying from cancer has steadily declined since the middle of the last century.
Although the incidence of cancer hasn’t changed much, the mortality rate for all types of the disease peaked in the middle of the 20th century and has retreated steadily since then, researchers found.
Among individuals born in 1925 or later, the decline in cancer mortality has been more pronounced in the youngest age groups than in the older ones (drop of 25.6% versus 6.8% per decade), according to Eric Kort, MD, of Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids, Mich., and colleagues.
“Whereas there are likely other contributory factors, this analysis suggests that efforts in prevention, early detection, and/or treatment have significantly affected our society’s experience of cancer risk,” the researchers said.
They reported their findings in the Aug. 15 issue of Cancer Research.
The researchers examined cancer mortality rates broken down by both age and birth cohort (10-year intervals), which they said improves detection of trends.
“The conventional practice of analyzing overall age-adjusted cancer mortality rates heavily emphasizes the experience of older, higher-mortality age groups,” they said. “This may conceal shifts in lifetime cancer mortality experience emerging first in younger age groups.”
So, using mortality data from 1955 to 2004 from the World Health Organization’s Statistical Information System, they tracked the burden of cancer death in individuals born as early as 1875.
Rates of cancer death peaked in individuals born from 1915 through 1924, and declined thereafter.
Beginning with the birth cohort of 1925 through 1934, each subsequent cohort had a lower lifetime risk of dying from cancer for almost all age comparisons. The trend held true for both males and females.
There were two exceptions. The cancer mortality rate for 10- to 14-year-olds born in 1935 was the same as that for children of similar ages born in 1945. The rate was also equal in 5- to 9-year-olds born in 1985 and 1995.
The declining cancer mortality rate cannot be attributed to decreasing cancer incidence, the researchers said. In fact, with the exception of lung cancer, the incidence of most cancer types has remained relatively stable.
“Rather,” they explained, “the net improvement in cancer mortality in birth cohorts born since 1925 seems to reflect a succession of public health and medical care efforts.”
The analysis of cancer mortality rates by age group and birth cohort allows for a interpretation of mortality trends that differs from conventional analyses, the researchers said.
“The canonical interpretation of age-adjusted, all-site cancer mortality data is that mortality rates were rising through most of the 20th century and only began to decline slightly in the mid-1990s,” they said.
But the current findings indicate that “our efforts against cancer, including prevention, early detection, and better treatment, have resulted in profound gains,” Kort said. “But these gains are often unappreciated by the public due to the way the data are usually reported.”
The researchers acknowledged that the study was limited by the recording of death events that is subject to changes in coding, legislative requirements, and recording habits.
The study was supported by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and by Jay and Betty Van Andel.
The authors reported no conflicts of interest.
Primary source: Cancer Research
Source reference:
Earn CME/CE credit
for reading medical news
Can Sequential TACE And Cryosurgery Improve Survival Times For Patients With HCC?
Posted by: admin in Prescription Cancer Drugs on August 15th, 2009
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)–a liver cancer–is recognized as one of the most common cancers in the world that disproportionately affects Southeast Asians and Africans. While there are therapies that possibly provide a cure, surgical removal and liver transplantation are invasive and radical options. However, even these approaches only benefit a small proportion of the total number HCC patients. Cryosurgery is a minimally invasive technique of using extreme low temperatures to freeze and kill tumors, improve patient’ survival times, and reduce surgical complications. Cryosurgery can be potentially applied to any surgery for solid organ cancers where conventional surgery would otherwise be used to remove undesirable tissue. It is anticipated that in the near future, cryosurgery will increasingly replace the use of traditional techniques of ablation.
A research article discussed was published on August 7, 2009 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology. This article will address the best method to treat HCC which can not be removed by operation. The findings of this study are significant to the procedures that are performed daily at Fuda Cancer Hospital Guangzhou, and will hopefully change the practices at other cancer centers as well.
TACE is based on the fact that normal liver gets its blood supply from two sources: the portal vein (about 70%) and the hepatic artery (30%). HCC gets its blood exclusively from the hepatic artery. TACE works by sending a catheter up the hepatic artery and its branch, and then injecting embolic material. Embolization blocks the tumor-feeding vessels and leads to cancer cell death and tumor shrinkage. Without this procedure, the hepatic artery and branches would continue to feed the liver tumor and allowing it to continue growing.
TACE perfor
Potential New Avenue To Attack Cancer Identified By Researchers
Posted by: admin in Prescription Cancer Drugs on August 15th, 2009
New insight into how human cells reproduce, published by cancer researchers at Michigan State University and the Van Andel Research Institute in Grand Rapids, could help scientists move closer to finding an “off switch” for cancer.
Cancer cells divide uncontrollably and can move from one part of the body to another. They undergo dramatic shifts in shape when they do so, said Aaron DeWard, an MSU cell and molecular biology doctoral candidate who published his research recently in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. He’s trying to figure out how certain proteins trigger cell movement and division and how cancer hijacks the system to create genomic instability.
DeWard and his academic adviser, VARI senior scientific investigator Art Alberts, investigated proteins called formins that help determine the shape of a cell during division and movement. They identified a new mechanism for regulation of formins during cell division.
“One of the cool things about these proteins is that they’re tightly regulated - they will only do their jobs when they’re told to do so,” DeWard said, describing formins as the workers that put together the pieces that shape a cell.
“A lot of work has been done on how to get these proteins to work, but not when to stop working,” he said. “We identified the way in which these proteins get flagged for destruction. This mechanism is pretty common for a lot of proteins, but had never been shown for this family of proteins before, and no one really knew how to shut them off completely.”
The family of proteins DeWard and Alberts are studying could lend themselves well to pharmaceutical treatment, he added.
“Aaron’s observation gives us a handle on the molecular machinery controlling cell division,” Alberts said. “Our goal now is to exploit this information in the development of strategies to specifically stop the process of uncontrolled cell division that characterizes cancer.”
“I don’t think shutting them off will stop cancer, but by better understanding the mechanism of this we might find ways to manipulate the system,” DeWard said.
The MSU-VARI connection constitutes a vibrant, research-oriented dimension to the university’s growing presence in the western Michigan health care complex. Michigan State opens its new College of Human Medicine building, the Secchia Center, in downtown Grand Rapids near VARI parent Van Andel Institute, Spectrum Health and other health care organizations in 2010. It signed a research collaboration agreement with the VAI in 2006.
“Collaboration is essential to developing West Michigan as a center for life sciences,” said Steve Heacock, VAI chief administrative officer and general counsel. “A solid connection and interaction between students, scientists, medical professionals and the entire life science community is vital. We have a strong collaboration. MSU students work in VAI laboratories, MSU and VAI researchers collaborate on studies and there will be a two-way connection between VAI and the new MSU College of Human Medicine.”
A joint graduate school program allows graduate students in several medicine-related programs to take one of their laboratory “rotations” at VARI, and afterward to complete their thesis project there. Four VARI fellowships also are awarded to MSU first-year graduate students interested in cancer research or cell biology.
Source:
Mark Fellows
Michigan State University
online pharmacy ambien no prescription buy xanax online no prescription online tramadol buying xanax online buy soma