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Posts Tagged ‘cancer’

Cancer vaccines.
Cancer remains one of the largest and most troubling diseases century. Although there are several avenues of investigation open, now a two vaccines opens a door to hope for mestastásicos ovarian tumors and breast cancer.
Cancer vaccines

The research has been published already in the journal Clinical Cancer Research. The vaccine, which has been developed from a family of virus-poxvirus compounds of DNA whose function is to create antigens and molecules that stimulate the immune response in cancer cells. Ie, that end with these tumor cells. Furthermore, the only side effect is that the patient has the same symptoms or similar to the flu.

For the moment, although there are still more conclusive results as to whether the vaccine is effective in this difficult disease, they are certainly positive results have been obtained in America. In a group of 26 patients with this cancer, all in an advanced stage of disease was achieved several months of survival.

The last week was held in Denver (USA), thanks to the American Association for Cancer Research, the most important meeting at the level of oncology, where it presented studies that show the constant and intense look of “substances of great potential” to detect tumors in early stages, within which presented the possibility of predicting the evolution of cancer with a blood sample.

Oxford Gene Technology Company in the UK has been working in one of the most important research related to cancer. The study consists of set of biomarkers that can determine whether a prostate cancer at a rate of 90% security. According to other previous studies, it is considered a procedure that detects colon cancer, breast, lung and bladder, through the blood. Which would allow it to identify the presence of cancer cells when just starting to take shape this disease?

According to the researchers, this type of procedure in the future could eventually replace current methods, such as mammography, colonoscopy and biopsies. Thus, biomarkers are the holy grail of early diagnosis and personalized treatment in oncology.

However, so far only projects for the future. According to Jesus Garcia-Foncillas, codirector of the Program of Biomarkers in Oncology and director of the Roche Institute of Oncology Department of the University Hospital of Navarra, “there is a very clear rational basis for asserting that since the dawn of a tumor, tumor cells secrete molecules that can be detected in peripheral blood. ”

Added to this, it is considered that the biomarkers can be nonspecific, as they might relate to a disease, but they are also elevated in other conditions or circumstances.

Finally, although in the last decade has intensified the search for biomarkers for early diagnosis of cancer in the blood. But because of these difficulties, “today, what we have in everyday clinical practice is very little,” said Felix Bonilla, Chief of Oncology, Hospital Universitario Puerta de Hierro Majadahonda Madrid.

London. (EP). – A team from the Institute of Cancer Research UK (ICR, its acronym in English) has discovered a variant in the genetic code that may favor the development of bladder cancer, as reported in its latest issue the journal PLoS Genetics.

Specifically, research has shown that if people have changes in a single letter of DNA code in the rs16888589 produce more protein via a gene called EIFH3, which leads to the development of these tumors.

The researchers believe that this finding may be useful in developing new drugs to combat this disease that kills around half a million people each year and is the second most common cause of cancer death in the world. “It’s interesting that even a single change in DNA sequence can alter how much protein is produced and increase the risk of this disease. To find proteins involved in cancer development is crucial, since they are potential targets for new drugs,” said Richard Houlston, of the ICR.

Previous research had helped identify 14 DNA variations that increase the risk of bladder cancer from 1.5 to 2 times. These mutations, called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are single-letter changes in the DNA code, the sequence of letters that represent the genetic fingerprint of each person. Houlston’s team wanted to see which of these variations were not only associated with bladder cancer but what causes it, since they believed that there would be various disease-causing mutations among 14 options.

In research, experts monitored 2,000 patients with bladder cancer and another 2,000 healthy people and found four SNPs that were highlighted. All were near a gene called EIFH3, and more studies showed how one of them, rs16888589, caused a change in the amount of protein produced by the EIFH3.

“This study is another important step toward understanding the genetic flaws that put some people at increased risk for bladder cancer and also gives us clues about how the disease develops,” said Lesley Walker, director of scientific information Cancer Research UK charity, which partially funded the research.

He adds, “Studies like this open up possibilities to develop new treatments that target cancers with specific genetic variants.”

According to a few hours ago was published in several newspapers around the world, computed tomographic colonography (CTC) or virtual colonoscopy identifies not only colorectal cancer, it doubles the benefit of early identifying extracolonic lesions outside the colon key, which can save lives , according to a study by the Walter Reed Medical Center of the Army, Washington (USA), published in September in “American Journal of Roentgenology.”

The virtual journal larazon.es, Spain, The CTC is a rapidly emerging technique for noninvasive imaging that is used in colorectal cancer screening. It is less invasive than optical colonoscopy and improves patient compliance and control of this tumor.

Apparently, in addition to exploring the colon, the CTC examines the entire abdomen and pelvis as you would a ‘CT scan’, a technique that uses X rays to produce images of the body radiological longitudinal sections, a distance of half an inch.

Within larazon.es revised publication, Dr. Ganesh R. Veerappan, who led the research project: “The ability of CTC to identify significant extracolonic lesions early, treatable stage can increase the benefits of ‘screening’ in colorectal cancer, making the CTC in the main technique of ‘screening’” .

The examination procedure included a total of 2770 participants who underwent CTC. In 1,037 of these patients underwent extracolonic findings, unimportant in 787 cases and the 240 remaining relevant. Which allowed the researchers to reach conclusions that can mean a breakthrough in detecting early cancers?

Dr. Veerappan states that: “When considering the extracolonic findings, the CTC increases the likelihood of identifying high-risk lesions in 78 percent. The CTC should be considered as an alternative for Colonoscopies optimal for ‘screening’ of cancer colorectal or a procedure to identify important extracolonic lesions intracolonic and that can be treated. ”

We are waiting to know the full publication of the scientific paper, in order to get into the results that the study allowed to know.

According to disclose much of the world’s newspapers during the 52 th annual meeting of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine in Philadelphia, was announced the new intervention against cancerous tumors. Apparently a team of researchers has used tiny carbon capsules with iron to improve the process of tumor destruction.

This implements the laser technique, refers to the “iron-carbon capsules, visible on the screen of a scanner, are accurately located within the body and are heated by laser when it reaches a tumor.”

Ding Xuanfeng asserts Baptist Medical Center Wake Forest University (North Carolina), the intervention is done with “carbon nanotubes with multiple layers that contain iron and are 10,000 times thinner than a human hair.” Through a escancer magnetic resonance imaging were performed lab tests, scientists were able to track particles within living tissue.

This method revealed to the world, is the development and evolution of the experimental technique for cancer treatment known as laser-induced thermal therapy (TTIL) that uses laser energy to heat and destroy tumors.

The researchers found “the TTIL works because certain nanoparticles can absorb the energy of a laser and convert it into heat. If the nanoparticles are struck by lightning while inside the tumor free energy of high temperature and kill cancer cells. “However, the technical difficulty was that the scanner that doctors use the tumor can be clearly seen, but the particles are not seen, which may mean a high risk to the patient because it could end up destroying healthy tissue.

Therefore, the development towards the new method, an important step forward in clinical research, as to the extent that the iron particles are charged they become visible to the scanner.

In the national newspaper El Espectador published a new news given by scientists from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) this month who will present the results of his work on gene therapy against cancer is to alter the system immune and prepare to attack the disease, told Efe Spanish doctor Antoni Ribas.

“Part of the work is to alter the immune system of a mouse and do be prepared to attack the cancer. The results of these investigations will be published this month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’” said Ribas, who works together with seven researchers to create genetic therapy could be a hope for cancer control.

“I deal with patients suffering from a type of cancer that begins in the skin and then goes to the internal organs, called melanoma,” said Efe Ribas, associate professor of Oncology at the Jonsson Comprehensive Center for cancer research at UCLA.

But “when the cancer is in internal organs there is no effective treatment so far. That’s why research in gene therapy that we have done over 15 years in mouse now we are applying in human volunteers, with results surprising, “he said.

Ribas heads the research group composed of Richard C. Koya, Stephen Moka, Begoña Comin-Anduixa, Thinle Chodonb, Caius G. Raducan, Michael I. Owen N. Nishimura Wittec, which are responsible for a team of 20 health professionals who, in turn, are advised by David Baltimore, Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine in 1975.

“The other part of the research is to understand cancer biology and used to block specific treatments that activate genes,” explained Ribas.

On your computer, the doctor showed a series of images of shapes of mice and human volunteers taken scanner, which when compared over a period of two weeks of therapy cancer tumors are reduced.

“The cancer gene is activated in human melanoma and treated him with the PLX4032 chip, which, unlike chemotherapy which is the whole body, goes directly to cancer. We are seeing positive results in 80% of patients, “he said.
Born in Barcelona on March 19, 1966, Ribas is a physician graduated from the University of Barcelona.

“I did not want to spend my life giving chemotherapy to patients not understanding how things work and so thought I’d come to UCLA to work in laboratory research with the doctor whom did Jim Economou studies to stimulate the immune system to attack cancer” recalled Ribas.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA by its initials in English) on Thursday approved the first drug for prostate cancer chemotherapy to extend the survival of men who can no longer be helped by other treatments.

The drug is called Jevtana and is produced by French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis. The FDA approved to treat Jevtana prostate cancer unresponsive to hormonal treatment or Docetaxel inhibition, the drug most commonly used to fight prostate tumors. Earlier this year, a study showed that lasted 10 weeks Jevtana survival of these patients.

Jevtana was approved for use in combination with the steroid prednisone, which is often used in cancer treatment.

In that study, patients received a treatment regimen that included Jevtana lived about a year and three months after starting treatment. Those who received the standard treatment lived for about a year and three weeks. There is hope that the drug will have a stronger effect in patients who are not so sick.
“Patients have few treatment options at this stage of the disease,” said Richard Pazdur, director of the Office of Oncology Products at the FDA. Sanofi-Aventis said it expects the drug will be available this summer.

The injection Jevtana applies. In the study, patients were more likely Jevtana their fears to shrink, those who received standard chemotherapy. However, no patients in the study had a complete remission or disappearance of all signs of the disease.

The FDA said side effects include decreased Jevtana levels of infection-fighting white blood cells, anemia, low platelets, diarrhea, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, constipation, weakness and kidney failure.

The FDA has approved this year two treatments for prostate cancer potentially revolutionary. In April approved the vaccine Provenge Dendreon Corp. The agency said prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men in the United States. The disease usually occurs in older men.

The determination of Jevtana occurred more than three months before the FDA and schedules your decision making on the drug for 30 September. The drug was developed under the name of cabazitaxel. Jevtana is also being reviewed by regulators in other markets, including the European Union.

The experts in the field say that with a simple test of just five minutes, could reduce by up to 40 percent the numbers of death from cancer of the colon and rectum.

According to the statistics of mortality, colorectal tumors listed as the second most common cause of cancer death in the world, and about half of the die, is a risk factor for death, his late detection.

Apparently, the Flexi-Scope trial is one reason for relief. This is done with a flexible sigmoidoscope (a thin tube with a camera) inserted into the rectum to examine the lower intestine and remove any abnormal growths (polyps) that can become cancerous if left untreated.

The study was conducted by a research group at Imperial College London for 16 years, allowing the monitoring of medical records of more than 170,000 people, of which 40,000 were subjected to the Flexi-Scope. The sample group included ages between 55 and 64 years based on the assumption that the polyps that could potentially cause problems are found in individuals over 50 years.

The results revealed a decrease in the incidence of colorectal cancer by 35% and mortality rates up to 43%. Experts say that if achieved removal of polyps can reduce the possibility of developing the disease.

This research was published in the medical journal “The Lancet”, which presented the results and highlighted this medical breakthrough as a great achievement in medicine. According to reports, the traditional method for detecting colorectal cancer analyzed traces of blood in the stool, one of the main symptoms of the disease. If the positive test, the patient is referred to a specialist to undergo further tests such as colonoscopy.

With the new type of analysis, scientists report that the procedure would be simpler than colonoscopy. Since the exam is a nurse and does not require sedation as with the traditional procedure. The patient should only take laxatives to cleanse the bowel before performing the test.

The research team followed up and monitoring of patients on average of 11 years and found that it was necessary to perform another test. According to Dr Wendy Atkin, director of the study: “Our study demonstrates for the first time we can dramatically reduce the incidence of colorectal cancer and the number of people who die from this disease.” He adds, “if you combine the Flexi-Scope Test with current blood analysis to detect any cancerous growth in the colon, thousands of lives could be saved.”

According to recent reports that women ovaries removed and undergo premature menopause because of this, amounting to almost double your chances of getting lung cancer.

An investigation by the University of Montreal determined, after evaluating 422 women with lung cancer and 577 healthy women, the menopause raises the risk of this cancer. You can specify that it is only in cases of premature menopause by removing the ovaries, but also the natural premature menopause.

It also ruled that factors that have to do with menstruation or pregnancy figures involved in cancer risk. But it was confirmed that women who were younger at the time of onset of menopause developed lung cancer.

This discovery could lead to a future women opt for surgery does not take care of the ovaries and increase their rate of lung cancer risk. Further studies on this subject are expected to elucidate what causes menopause increase cancer cases. So far no one knows what is the determining factor, only that there is an increase in the case of young women with menopause and is something that should be investigated in depth.

A diet that includes a high intake of calcium-rich dairy may reduce the incidence of cancer in the colon and rectum, especially in women, but do not have any apparent effect on the reduction of other evils, he found a study by National Cancer Institute U.S..

What has not been clear to researchers involved in this study is the difference between the effects in men and women. So they say that only one could speculate that hormonal and metabolic factors, which are different in men and women, could contribute to this difference is thus marked see.

In this study, about 500.00 for men and women who completed a questionnaire about their eating habits and were followed for an average of seven years. They found that both men and women were closely related dairy intake of calcium and the reduction of cancers in the digestive system.

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