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Mars Base

Novel noninvasive therapy prevents breast cancer formation in mice - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...y-breast-cancer-formation.html

scibyte115 exoplanet

shared by Mars Base on 08 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • A novel breast-cancer therapy that partially reverses the cancerous state in cultured breast tumor cells and prevents cancer development in mice
  • a new way to treat early stages of the disease without resorting to surgery, chemotherapy or radiation
  • The therapy emerged from a sophisticated effort to reverse-engineer gene networks to identify genes that drive cancer
  • ...31 more annotations...
  • The same strategy could lead to many new therapies that disable cancer-causing genes no current drugs can stop, and it also can be used to find therapies for other diseases
  • The findings open up the possibility of someday treating patients who have a genetic propensity
  • idea would be start giving it early on and sustain treatment throughout life to prevent cancer development or progression
  • more women than ever are undergoing early tests that reveal precancerous breast tissue
  • early diagnosis could potentially save lives; however, few of those lesions go on to become tumors and doctors have no good way of predicting which ones will
  • many women currently undergo surgery, chemotherapy and radiation who might never develop the disease.
  • some women with a high hereditary risk of breast cancer have chosen to undergo preemptive mastectomies.
  • A therapy that heals rather than kills cancerous tissue could potentially help all these patients, as well as men who develop the disease
  • to date the only way to stop cancer cells has been to kill them.
  • he treatments that accomplish that, including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, often damage healthy tissue, causing harsh side effects
  • First they had to identify the culprit genes among the thousands that are active in a cell at any moment
  • Molecular biologists typically
  • looking for cancer-causing genes, they search for individual genes that become active as cancer develops.
  • But because genes in cells work in complex networks
  • innocent genes being fingered for crimes they did not commit.
  • To improve the odds of finding the real culprits,
  • a systems biology expert who has developed a sophisticated mathematical and computational method to reverse-engineer bacterial gene networks.
  • honed the computational network to work for the first time on the more complex gene networks of mice and humans
  • The refined method helped the scientists spot more than 100 genes that acted suspiciously just before milk-duct cells in the breast begin to overgrow
  • The team narrowed their list down to six genes that turn other genes on or off, and then narrowed it further to a single gene called HoxA1 that had the strongest statistical link to cancer
  • researchers wanted to know if blocking the HoxA1 gene could reverse cancer in lab-grown cells
  • grew healthy mouse or human mammary-gland cells in a nutrient-rich, tissue-friendly gel
  • Healthy cells ensconced in the gel formed hollow spheres of cells akin to a normal milk duct
  • cancerous cells, in contrast, packed together into solid, tumor-like spheres.
  • treated cancerous cells with a short piece of RNA called a small interfering RNA (siRNA) that blocks only the HoxA1 gene
  • The cells reversed their march to malignancy, stopping their runaway growth and forming hollow balls as healthy cells do
  • they specialized as if they were growing in healthy tissue
  • The siRNA treatment also stopped breast cancer in a line of mice genetically engineered to have a gene that causes all of them to develop cancer
  • They packed the siRNA into nanoparticles called lipidoids that allow for genes to be silenced for weeks inside the body
  • they injected these nanoparticles
  • The treated mice remained healthy, while untreated mice developed breast cancer
Mars Base

New drug raises potential for cancer treatment revolution - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...ncer-treatment-revolution.html

scibyte125 Cancer

shared by Mars Base on 24 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • A new study
  • has developed a new drug that can manipulate the body's natural signalling and energy systems, allowing the body to attack and shut down cancerous cells.
  • ZL105,
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • the drug is a compound based on the precious metal iridium
  • The study has found ZL105 could potentially replace currently used anticancer drugs
  • which become less effective over time, cause a wide-range of side-effects and damage healthy cells as well as cancerous.
  • study co-author
  • said "The energy-producing machinery in cancer cells works to the limit as it attempts to keep up with quick proliferation and invasion
  • This makes cancer cells susceptible to minor changes in the cell 'power-house'.
  • drug pushes cancer cells over the limit causing them to slow and shut down, whilst normal cells can cope with its effects
  • Preliminary data indicate that the novel drug may be ten times more effective in treating ovarian, colon, melanoma, renal, and some breast cancers, according to data obtained by the US National Cancer Institute
  • researchers now aim to expand the study to cancers that are inherently resistant to existing drugs and to those which have developed resistance after a first round of chemotherapy treatments.
  • Existing cancer treatments often become less effective after the first course, as cancer cells learn how they are being attacked
  • The drug we have developed is a catalyst and is active at low doses
  • It can attack cancer cells in multiple ways at the same time, so the cancer is less able to adapt to the treatment
  • means the new drugs could be much more effective than existing treatments
  • Platinum-based drugs are used in nearly 50% of all chemotherapeutic regimens
  • damaging DNA and cannot select between cancerous and non-cancerous cells
  • leading to a wide-range of side-effects from renal failure to neurotoxicity, ototoxicity, nausea and vomiting
  • the new iridium-based drug is specifically designed not to attack DNA,
  • growth
  • novel mechanism of action, meaning that it could not only dramatically slow down and halt cancer growth, but also significantly reduce the side effects
  • This research could also lead to substantial improvements in cancer survival rates
Mars Base

Nontoxic cancer therapy proves effective against metastatic cancer - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...rapy-effective-metastatic.html

scibyte98 Cancer

shared by Mars Base on 11 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • A combination of nontoxic dietary and hyperbaric oxygen therapies effectively increased survival time in a mouse model of aggressive metastatic cancer
  • a research team from the Hyperbaric Biomedical Research Laboratory at the University of South Florida has found.
  • the research shows the effects of combining two nontoxic adjuvant cancer therapies, the ketogenic diet and hyperbaric oxygen therapy, in a mouse model of late-stage, metastatic cancer
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • demonstrates the potential of these cost-effective, nontoxic therapies to contribute to current cancer treatment regimens
  • Metastasis, the spreading of cancer from the primary tumor to distant spots, is responsible for over 90 percent of cancer-related deaths in humans
  • In the study, mice with advanced metastatic cancer were fed either a standard high carbohydrate diet or carbohydrate-restricted ketogenic diet
  • Mice on both diets also received hyperbaric oxygen therapy, which uses a special chamber to increase the amount of oxygen in the tissues
  • The ketogenic diet forces a physiological shift in substrate utilization from glucose to fatty acids and ketone bodies for energy
  • Normal healthy cells readily adapt to using ketone bodies for fuel, but cancer cells lack this metabolic flexibility, and thus become selectively vulnerable to reduced glucose availability
  • Solid tumors also have areas of low oxygen, which promotes tumor growth and metastatic spread
  • Hyperbaric oxygen therapy involves breathing 100 percent oxygen at elevated barometric pressure, saturating the tumors with oxygen
  • When administered properly, both the ketogenic diet and hyperbaric oxygen therapy are non-toxic and may even protect healthy tissues while simultaneously damaging cancer cells
  • both therapies slowed disease progression independently, animals receiving the combined ketogenic diet and hyperbaric oxygen therapy lived 78 percent longer than mice fed a standard high-carbohydrate diet
Mars Base

Study finds switch that lets early lung cancer grow unchecked - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...rly-lung-cancer-unchecked.html

Cancer GrabBag

shared by Mars Base on 12 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Cellular change thought to happen only in late-stage cancers to help tumors spread also occurs in early-stage lung cancer as a way to bypass growth controls
  • study points to EMT as a key step in lung cancer progression during the earliest stages of cancer development
  • Normal cells recognize when they are dividing too rapidly, and turn on programs that block inappropriate cell division
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • found that early-stage lung cancer cells switch on EMT in order to bypass these controls
  • discovery could offer a new way to prevent progression to late-stage lung cancer
  • Because EMT is a well-recognized late-stage transition that occurs in all sorts of solid tumors, the researchers say they believe that the same early-stage use of EMT they found in lung cancer is likely occurring in other cancers.
  • Late-stage cancer uses EMT to change tumor cells into a form that can migrate through blood.
Mars Base

Lactation protein suppresses tumors and metastasis in breast cancer, scientists discover - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...presses-tumors-metastasis.html

scibyte69

shared by Mars Base on 24 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • protein that is necessary for lactation in mammals inhibits the critical cellular transition that is an early indicator of breast cancer and metastasis
  • first confirmed report that this protein, called Elf5, is a tumor suppressor in breast cancer
  • findings provide new avenues to pursue in treating and diagnosing breast cancer and possibly cancers of other organs as well
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • includes findings from both animal and human breast cancer models.
  • Under normal circumstances, Elf5 is a transcription factor that controls the genes that allow for milk production
  • epithelial cells in the mammary glands also became more mesenchymal, that is, more like stem cells, an early harbinger of cancer
  • when Elf5 levels are low or absent, epithelial cells become more like stem cells, morphing into mesenchymal cells, changing their shape and appearance and migrating elsewhere in the body
  • how cancer spreads
  • Elf5 keeps normal breast cells in their current shape and restricts their movement
  • the protein
  • suppressing the epithelial-mesenchymal transition by directly repressing transcription of Snail2, a master regulator of mammary stem cells known to trigger the EMT
  • Elf5 loss is frequently detected early
  • experiments
  • conducted
  • also found that little or no Elf5 in human breast cancer samples correlated with increased morbidity.
  • loss of Elf5 is an initial event in the disease
  • could also be an important diagnostic tool
  • how early does the loss of Elf5 occur?
  • use loss of Elf5 as a reliable diagnostic tool?"
  • EMT-Snail 2 pathway is a valuable one to target for early breast cancer intervention
Mars Base

Cell therapy shows remarkable ability to eradicate cancer in clinical study - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...arkable-ability-eradicate.html

scibyte121 MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 20 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • The largest clinical study ever conducted to date of patients with advanced leukemia found that 88 percent achieved complete remissions after being treated with genetically modified versions of their own immune cells.
  • Adult B cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL), a type of blood cancer that develops in B cells, is difficult to treat because the majority of patients relapse.
  • Patients with relapsed B-ALL have few treatment options; only 30 percent respond to salvage chemotherapy.
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • In the current study, 16 patients with relapsed B-ALL were given an infusion of their own genetically modified immune cells, called T cells.
  • The cells were "reeducated" to recognize and destroy cancer cells that contain the protein CD19.
  • one of the first patients to receive this treatment more than two years ago. He was able to successfully undergo a bone marrow transplant and has been cancer-free and back at work teaching theology since 2011
  • Cell-based, targeted immunotherapy is a new approach to treating cancer that harnesses the body's own immune system to attack and kill cancerous cells.
  • Cell-Based Therapies
  • Unlike with a common virus such as the flu, our immune system does not recognize cancer cells as foreign and is therefore at a disadvantage in eradicating the disease.
  • researchers
  • have been exploring ways to reengineer the body's own T cells to recognize and attack cancer.
  • In March 2013, the same team of researchers first reported the results of five patients with advanced B-ALL who were treated with cell therapy. Remarkably, all five patients achieved complete remissions.
  • In 2003, they were the first to report that T cells engineered to recognize the protein CD19, which is found on B cells, could be used to treat B cell cancers in mice.
  • In the current study, seven of the 16 patients (44 percent) were able to successfully undergo bone marrow transplantation
  • the standard of care and the only curative option for B-ALL patients
  • following treatment.
  • Three patients were ineligible due to failure to achieve a complete remission
  • three were ineligible due to preexisting medical conditions
  • two declined
  • one is still being evaluated for a potential bone marrow transplant.
  • Historically, only 5 percent of patients with relapsed B-ALL have been able to transition to bone marrow transplantation.
  • The study also provides guidelines for managing side effects of cell therapy, which can include severe flu-like symptoms such as fever, muscle pain, low blood pressure, and difficulty breathing
  • The researchers developed diagnostic criteria and a laboratory test that can identify which patients are at greater risk for developing this syndrome.
  • Additional studies to determine whether cell therapy can be applied to other types of cancer are already underway
  • studies to test whether B-ALL patients would benefit from receiving targeted immunotherapy as frontline treatment are being planned.
Chris Fisher

U.S. Government Glossed Over Cancer Concerns As It Rolled Out Airport X-Ray Scanners - ... - 1 views

www.propublica.org/...as-it-rolled-out-airport-x-ray

cancer government scibyte19

shared by Chris Fisher on 01 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • Research suggests that anywhere from six to 100 U.S. airline passengers each year could get cancer from the machines.
  • Because of a regulatory Catch-22, the airport X-ray scanners have escaped the oversight required for X-ray machines used in doctors’ offices and hospitals. The reason is that the scanners do not have a medical purpose, so the FDA cannot subject them to the rigorous evaluation it applies to medical devices.
  • FDA has limited authority to oversee some non-medical products and can set mandatory safety regulations. But the agency let the scanners fall under voluntary standards set by a nonprofit group heavily influenced by industry.
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • As for the TSA, it skipped a public comment period required before deploying the scanners. Then, in defending them, it relied on a small body of unpublished research to insist the machines were safe, and ignored contrary opinions from U.S. and European authorities that recommended precautions, especially for pregnant women.
  • Both the FDA and TSA say due diligence has been done to assure the scanners’ safety.
  • ProVision, made by defense contractor L-3 Communications, a passenger enters a chamber that looks like a round phone booth and is scanned with millimeter waves, a form of low-energy radio waves, which have not been shown to strip electrons from atoms or cause cancer.
  • In July, the European Parliament passed a resolution that security “scanners using ionizing radiation should be prohibited” because of health risks.
  • Some scientists argue the danger is exaggerated. They claim low levels stimulate the repair mechanism in cells, meaning that a little radiation might actually be good for the body.
  • But in the authoritative report on low doses of ionizing radiation, published in 2006, the National Academy of Sciences reviewed the research and concluded that the preponderance of research supported the linear link. It found “no compelling evidence” that there is any level of radiation at which the risk of cancer is zero.
  • Rebecca Smith-Bindman, a radiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, estimated that the backscatters would lead to only six cancers over the course of a lifetime among the approximately 100 million people who fly every year. David Brenner, director of Columbia University’s Center for Radiological Research, reached a higher number — potentially 100 additional cancers every year.
  • the same 100 million people would develop 40 million cancers over the course of their lifetimes. In this sea of cancer cases, it would be impossible to identify the patients whose cancer is linked to the backscatter machines.
  • But in 1982, the FDA merged the radiological health bureau into its medical-device unit. “I was concerned that if they were to combine the two centers into one, it would probably mean the ending of the radiation program because the demands for medical-device regulation were becoming increasingly great,” said Villforth, who was put in charge of the new Center for Devices and Radiological Health. “As I sort of guessed, the radiation program took a big hit.”
  • The government used to have 500 people examining the safety of electronic products emitting radiation. It now has about 20 people.
  • the FDA has not set a mandatory safety standard for an electronic product since 1985.
  • As a result, there is an FDA safety regulation for X-rays scanning baggage — but none for X-rays scanning people at airports.
  • The U.S. Customs Service deployed backscatter machines for several years but in limited fashion and with strict supervision. Travelers suspected of carrying contraband had to sign a consent form, and Customs policy prohibited the scanning of pregnant women.
  • “Establishing a mandatory standard takes an enormous amount of resources and could take a decade to publish,” said Dan Kassiday, a longtime radiation safety engineer at the FDA.
  • Federal Aviation Administration’s medical institute has advised pregnant pilots and flight attendants that the machine, coupled with their time in the air, could put them over their occupational limit for radiation exposure
  • It was made up of 15 people, including six representatives of manufacturers of X-ray body scanners and five from U.S. Customs and the California prison system. There were few government regulators and no independent scientists.
  • The FDA delegated the task of establishing the voluntary standards to the American National Standards Institute.
  • In July, a federal appeals court ruled that the agency failed to follow rule-making procedures and solicit public comment before installing body scanners at airports across the country
  • and before 9/11, many states also had the authority to randomly inspect machines in airports. But that ended when the TSA took over security checkpoints from the airlines.
  • Last year, in reaction to public anger from members of Congress, passengers and advocates, the TSA contracted with the Army Public Health Command to do independent radiation surveys. But email messages obtained in a lawsuit brought by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a civil liberties group, raise questions about the independence of the Army surveys.
  • One email sent by TSA health and safety director Jill Segraves shows that local TSA officials were given advance notice and allowed to “pick and choose” which systems the Army could check.
  • The TSA considered the scanners again after two Chechen women blew up Russian airliners in
  • 2004.
  • Facing a continued outcry over privacy, the TSA instead moved forward with a machine known as a “puffer” because it released several bursts of air on the passengers’ clothes and analyzed the dislodged particles for explosives. But after discovering the machines were ineffective in the field and difficult to maintain, the TSA canceled the program in 2006.
  • Around that time, Rapiscan began to beef up its lobbying on Capitol Hill. It opened a Washington, D.C., office and, according to required disclosures, more than tripled its lobbying expenditures in two years, from less than $130,000 in 2006 to nearly $420,000 in 2008. It hired former legislative aides to Rep. David Price, D-N.C., then chairman of the homeland security appropriations subcommittee, and to Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss.
  • It started a political action committee and began contributing heavily to Price; Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., then head of the homeland security committee; Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., also on that committee; and Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., the top Republican on the Senate appropriations committee.
  • In addition, it opened a new North Carolina plant in Price’s district and expanded its operations in Ocean Springs, Miss., and at its headquarters in Torrance, Calif., in Harman’s district.
  • “Less than a month after U.S. Senator Trent Lott and other local leaders helped officially open Rapiscan Systems’ new Ocean Springs factory,” Lott’s office announced in a news release in late 2006, “the company has won a $9.1 million Department of Defense contract.”
  • in 2007, with new privacy filters in place, the TSA began a trial of millimeter-wave and backscatter machines at several major airports, after which the agency opted to go with the millimeter-wave machines. The agency said health concerns weren’t a factor.
  • But with the 2009 federal stimulus package, which provided $300 million for checkpoint security machines, the TSA began deploying backscatters as well. Rapiscan won a $173 million, multiyear contract for the backscatters, with an initial $25 million order for 150 systems to be made in Mississippi.        
  • Chris Fisher on 01 Nov 11
     
    I'm not really sure this is a SciByte story. But it was a good example of a story, with lots of great bits to capture.
Mars Base

Breakthrough cancer-killing treatment has no side-effects, study finds - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...ng-treatment-side-effects.html

scibyte89 scibyte90 Cancer

shared by Mars Base on 07 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • Cancer cells grow faster than normal cells and in the process absorb more materials than normal cells
  • took advantage of that fact by getting cancer cells to take in and store a boron chemical
  • When those boron-infused cancer cells were exposed to neutrons, a subatomic particle, the boron atom shattered and selectively tore apart the cancer cells, sparing neighboring healthy cells
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • The technique worked excellently in mice
  • ready to move on to trials in larger animals, then people
  • This innovative treatment produced none of the harmful side-effects of conventional chemo and radiation cancer therapies.
  • A particular form of boron will split when it captures a neutron and release lithium, helium and energy
  • the helium and lithium atoms penetrate the cancer cell and destroy it from the inside without harming the surrounding tissues.
Mars Base

Making cancer less cancerous: Blocking a single gene renders tumors less aggressive - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...rous-blocking-gene-tumors.html

scibyte93 Cancer

shared by Mars Base on 03 May 13 - No Cached
  • Researchers at Johns Hopkins have identified a gene that, when repressed in tumor cells, puts a halt to cell growth and a range of processes needed for tumors to enlarge and spread to distant sites
  • "This master regulator is normally turned off in adult cells, but it is very active during embryonic development and in all highly aggressive tumors studied to date," says Linda Resar, M.D.
  • affiliate in the Institute for Cell Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • work shows for the first time that switching this gene off in aggressive cancer cells dramatically changes their appearance and behavior
  • In the new
  • study, the
  • team applied the same techniques to several strains of human breast cancer cells in the laboratory, including the so-called triple negative cells
  • Triple-negative breast cancer cells tend to behave aggressively and do not respond to many of our most effective breast cancer therapies
  • the cells with suppressed HMGA1 grow very slowly and fail to migrate or invade new territory
  • next implanted tumor cells into mice
  • The tumors with HMGA1 grew and spread to other areas, such as the lungs, while those with blocked HMGA1 did not grow well in the breast tissue or spread to distant sites.
Mars Base

Soybeans soaked in warm water naturally release key cancer-fighting substance - 0 views

phys.org/...cancer-fighting-substance.html

scibyte46 medical Cancer MedicalTreatment

shared by Mars Base on 10 May 12 - No Cached
  • Soybeans soaked in warm water naturally release key cancer-fighting substance
  • Protease Inhibitor (BBI), has shown promise for preventing certain forms of cancer in clinical trials.
  • BBI derived from the large amounts of soybeans in traditional Japanese diets might underpin low cancer mortality rates in Japan
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • the current method of extracting BBI from soybeans is time-consuming and involves harsh chemicals
  • soybean seeds incubated in water at 122 degrees Fahrenheit naturally release large amounts of BBI that can easily be harvested from the water
  • protein appeared to be active
  • tests showing that it stopped breast cancer cells from dividing in a laboratory dish
Mars Base

'Post-it note' on breast cancer gene signals risk of disease spreading - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...reast-cancer-gene-disease.html

Cancer GrabBag

shared by Mars Base on 12 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • Methylation of the gene could be used to flag up breast cancer patients who have a greater chance of the disease spreading – helping doctors decide what treatment plan would be most effective.
  • high levels of a molecular modification called methylation on a gene called CACNA2D3, were linked to the spread of the disease in breast cancer patients
  • gene CACNA2D3 is a known tumour suppressor gene which prevents cancer
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • next stage is to repeat these findings in larger studies with patients to confirm whether analysing methylation of the gene could be a useful test
  • research suggests that methyl groups can muffle the messages given by the CACNA2D3 gene - blocking its potential protective effect against breast cancer
Mars Base

Drug's 'double hit' overcomes leukaemia resistance - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...drug-leukaemia-resistance.html

Cancer GrabBag

shared by Mars Base on 13 Jul 12 - No Cached
  • drug that uses a unique ‘double hit’ to kill leukaemia cells could be a potential new treatment for patients with acute myeloid leukaemia
  • 30 per cent of patients with AML have faults in the FLT3 gene
  • linked to more aggressive leukaemias and poor survival
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • drugs that target these faults are available, the disease eventually builds resistance, leaving treatments ineffective.
  • researchers at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in London
  • developed a unique drug that targets AML cells in a “double hit”.
  • blocks the protein made by the faulty FLT3 gene along with another key protein – called Aurora kinase – which are both involved in driving cancer growth
  • healthy blood cells, FLT3 sends a signal to the cells telling them when to proliferate, while Aurora kinase plays a role in cell division
  • Leukaemia cells with faulty FLT3 can proliferate out of control
  • many cancer cells have higher levels of Aurora kinase, causing errors during cell division
  • drug is also unique because it can destroy cells even if they develop new faults in the FLT3 genes that would make them resistant to other inhibitors
  • There has been great interest in using FLT3 drugs to treat AML
  • effectiveness has been limited because leukaemia cells gain new mistakes in the FLT3 gene, causing resistance.
  • new drug has the potential to overcome this and has a range of possible uses in AML
  • those over 60 who don’t tolerate chemotherapy well, and also to treat  leukaemia patients who have relapsed
  • We’re excited about the potential of our new ‘double hit’ drug and are now planning to take it into clinical trials to see if it is effective in patients
  • faults that occur in the FLT3 gene cause rapid cell division
  • Each year around 2,380 people are diagnosed with AML in the UK
  • creating cells in the lab that mimic how drug resistance develops in AML the researchers were able to show that their new drug delivers a ‘double hit’ to halt cancer cells in their tracks
Mars Base

Radiation-Free MRI Scans Now Viable to Assess Cancer in Children - 0 views

www.scienceworldreport.com/...-assess-cancer-in-children.htm

scibyte121 MedicalDevice

shared by Mars Base on 20 Feb 14 - No Cached
  • Researchers
  • discovered that MRI-based imaging techniques may be just as effective as other conventional scanning methods minus the radiation risks that come with cancer detection
  • medical officials often must send radioactive traces through the body as part of PET-CT scans that expose a patient to the equivalent of 700 chest X-rays
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • For pediatric patients, this can be particularly risky
  • radiation exposure could potentially lead to secondary forms of cancer later in life.
  • The study-composed of 22 children with malignant lymphomas or sarcomas
  • -showed that exposure can almost triple the risk of cancer in children, compared to those over 30
  • the team worked to investigate the safety and effectiveness of an MRI-based approach that mimics the PET-CT scan's results, via an iron supplement
  • a larger group of patients will need to be tested in order to confirm the validity of the results
  • the study shows that an iron supplement can increase the visibility on traditional MRI scans with no adverse reactions from ferumoxytol supplements.
Mars Base

Cholesterol-lowering eye drops could treat macular degeneration - 0 views

medicalxpress.com/...s-atherosclerosis-macular.html

scibyte89

shared by Mars Base on 03 Apr 13 - No Cached
  • A new study raises the intriguing possibility that drugs prescribed to lower cholesterol may be effective against macular degeneration, a blinding eye disease.
  • Researchers
  • have found that age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of vision loss in Americans over 50, shares a common link with atherosclerosis
  • ...25 more annotations...
  • Both problems have the same underlying defect: the inability to remove a buildup of fat and cholesterol
  • researchers shed new light on how deposits of cholesterol contribute to macular degeneration and atherosclerosis and even blood vessel growth in some types of cancer
  • Patients who have atherosclerosis often are prescribed medications to lower cholesterol and keep arteries clear
  • This study suggests that some of those same drugs could be evaluated in patients with macular degeneration
  • we need to investigate whether vision loss caused by macular degeneration could be prevented with cholesterol-lowering eye drops or other medications that might prevent the buildup of lipids beneath the retina
  • The new research centers on macrophages, key immune cells that remove cholesterol and fats from tissues
  • In macular degeneration, the excessive buildup of cholesterol begins to occur as we age, and our macrophages begin to malfunction
  • In the "dry" form of age-related macular degeneration, doctors examining the eye can see lipid deposits beneath the retina
  • As those deposits become larger and more numerous, they slowly begin to destroy the central part of the eye, interfering with the vision needed to read a book or drive a car
  • As aging macrophages clear fewer fat deposits beneath the retina, the macrophage cells themselves can become bloated with cholesterol, creating an inflammatory process that leads to the formation of new blood vessels that can cause further damage
  • Those vessels characterize the later "wet" form of the disease
  • that inflammation creates a toxic mix of things that leads to new blood vessel growth
  • Most of the vision loss
  • is the result of bleeding and scar-tissue formation related to abnormal vessel growth
  • the scientists identified a protein that macrophages need to clear fats and cholesterol
  • As mice and humans age, they make less of the protein, and macrophages become less effective at engulfing and removing fat and cholesterol
  • team found that macrophages, from old mice and in patients with macular degeneration, have inadequate levels of the protein, called ABCA1, which transports cholesterol out of cells
  • As a result, the old macrophages accumulated high levels of cholesterol and couldn't inhibit the growth of the damaging blood vessels
  • when the researchers treated the macrophages with a substance that helped restore levels of ABCA1, the cells could remove cholesterol more effectively, and the development of new blood vessels was slowed
  • able to deliver the drug, called an LXR agonist, in eye drops
  • found that we could reverse the macular degeneration in the eye of an old mouse
  • could focus therapy only on the eyes, and we likely could limit the side effects of drugs taken orally
  • since macrophages are important in atherosclerosis and in the formation of new blood vessels around certain types of cancerous tumors, the same pathway also might provide a target for more effective therapies for those diseases
  • can reverse the disease cascade in mice by improving macrophage function, either with eye drops or with systemic treatments,
  • Some of the therapies already being used to treat atherosclerosis target this same pathway, so we may be able to modify drugs that already are available and use them to deliver treatment to the eye
Mars Base

Science Retractions: Top 5 Withdrawn Studies Of 2012 - 0 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...ithdrawn-papers_n_2353421.html

scibyte76 Retraction

shared by Mars Base on 01 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Hyung-In Moon is a genius, says Hyung-In Moon
  • Korean scientist Hyung-In Moon took the concept of scientific peer review to a whole new level by reviewing his own papers under various fake names
  • Moon's research — which included a study on alcoholic liver disease and another on an anticancer plant substance — can't be trusted
  • ...33 more annotations...
  • admitted to falsifying data in some of his papers
  • , 35 of his papers have been retracted in 2012.
  • Peer review is a process in which scientific peers in the same field judge the merit of a submitted journal paper
  • editors at the Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry grew suspicious when four of his glowing reviews came back within 24 hours. Anyone who has ever submitted a paper for peer review knows that reviewers take weeks or months to reply
  • Math paper a big, fat zero
  • "In this study, a computer application was used to solve a mathematical problem"
  • Neither the one-sentence abstract
  • nor the co-author's e-mail address, ohm@budweiser.com
  • publishing this one-page gem entitled "A computer application in mathematics"
  • published in January 2010 but not retracted until April 2012, despite silly sentences such as "Computer magnification is a Universal computer phenomenon" and "This is a problematic problem."
  • retracted the paper because it "contains no scientific content." The editors chalked it up to "an administrative error
  • Maybe his failure doesn't feel better than success
  • The Dutch social psychologist Diederik Stapel
  • has found that,
  • failure sometimes feels better than success
  • The only problem is that his research appears to be either mostly or completely fabricated
  • work has appeared in top journals
  • his good looks and clever research topics made him a media darling
  • So far, 31 papers have been retracted
  • meat eaters are absolved: One of Stapel's studies, now suspected to be fabricated, found that meat eaters are more selfish and less social than vegetarians
  • Studies proposing a link between cellphone use and cancer often rely on weak statistics. This one just used fudged data
  • in 2008, scientists published a paper
  • stating that cellphones in standby mode lowered the sperm count and caused other adverse changes in the testicles of rabbits
  • although small and published in a rather obscure journal, made the news rounds.
  • In March 2012, the authors retracted the paper
  • the lead author didn't get permission from his two co-authors and, according to the retraction notice, there was a "lack of evidence to justify the accuracy of the data presented in the article."
  • Stem-cell cure for heart disease likely faked
  • biologist Shinya Yamanaka had just won the 2012 Nobel Prize for his discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), which are adult cells that can be reprogrammed to their "embryonic" stage
  • claimed at a New York Stem Cell Foundation meeting in early October to have advanced this technology to cure a person with terminal heart failure
  • Two institutions listed as collaborating on Moriguchi's related papers
  • denied that any of Moriguchi's procedures took place there
  • origuchi has admitted only to making some "procedural" mistakes
  • He is sticking to his story, however, that one patient was cured … at a Boston hospital not yet named
Mars Base

Breath Test Could Sniff Out Infections in Minutes | Observations, Scientific American B... - 0 views

blogs.scientificamerican.com/...niff-out-infections-in-minutes

scibyte77 MedicalDevice

shared by Mars Base on 12 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Researchers have developed a test that can detect the presence of common infectious bacteria based just on the breath
  • The test picks up signature volatile organic compound (VOC)—particles emitted in gasses—profiles that the bacteria produce that are distinct those that the body—or other bacteria—give off
  • researchers
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • conducted the studies in lab mice that were infected with different types of common bacteria
  • two different strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which can cause pneumonia, and one strain of Staphylococcus aureus, which can cause respiratory infections
  • The next day, the researchers tested the animals’ breath by ionizing breath samples then shooting them through a mass spectrometer to analyze concentrations of various VOCs in a process called secondary electrospray ionization mass spectrometry
  • The test detected the different bacterial infections as well as differentiated between healthy and infected
  • also located the difference between the two strains of P. aeruginosa
  • technique will have to be tested in large human trials before it makes an appearance in the clinic
  • the rapidity of the test is appealing. And it could at least make it a good first step in detecting bacterial infections, with a follow-up culture coming later if deemed necessary—to detect drug-resistant TB, for example
  • suspect that we will also be able to distinguish between bacterial, viral and fungal infections of the lung
  • Similar breath tests have also been studied for detecting other ailments, such as diabetes and cancer
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