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[Edisi Penyelidikan] Penemuan-Penemuan Berkaitan Kanser

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Post time 8-10-2014 10:04 AM | Show all posts |Read mode
Edited by awanearisu at 8-9-2016 01:31 PM

Penafian: Segala maklumat yang dikongsikan di sini merupakan kajian yang masih berjalan. Dalam ertikata lain, keberkesanan kaedah-kaedah rawatan yang dikongsi ini masih sedang diuji oleh para penyelidik yang terlibat. Walau bagaimanapun, semoga artikel-artikel berikut memberikan sinar harapan kepada para pesakit kanser di Malaysia.

Thread ni khas untuk perkongsian artikel-artikel suratkhabar atau journal berkaitan topik di atas.  Sebarang perkongsian akademik adalah dialu-alukan

Kalau nak promosi supplemen atau pemakanan yang tiada sokongan dari hasil penyelidikan, boleh kongsi di thread lain yang sedia ada ye.

Kalau mod rasa kurang kukuh je justifikasi kita ni.. katup lah thread ni

Senarai artikel:



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Cancer awareness low among Malaysians
BY THE STAR ONLINE
September 28,2014

EXCLUSIVE: PETALING JAYA: Over the years, cancer has become a common phenomenon in Malaysia, as more and more people are diagnosed with the disease, but many Malaysians are unaware of the specifics of the condition.

When the Star Online talked to people in the streets and cafés of  Bangsar, we learnt that many are generally only aware of three types of cancer ... lung, breast and leukemia.

Engineering student, Resh, 26 said that she only knew of two cancers and was surprised when she was told of the 200 types of cancer.

"We all know of breast cancer because we have an annual mammogram thing in our university, plus breast cancer awareness is everywhere, even in bars.

"I knew about leukemia after I read this book called My Sister's Keeper,” she said explaining that the only thing she knew about it was it needed the bone marrow of someone else,” she said.

School teacher Nazlina said that she did not find the need to read up about cancer- yet. “I have never found the need to do so and I hope that I never have to.

"I am not demeaning those who have cancer, but I personally believe that it is not of utmost importance for me to know much about,” said Nazlina who could only list breast cancer off the top of her head.

Research by the National Cancer Institute shows that over 200 types of cancer have been identified to this point and the three types which Malaysians are aware about are in fact not the most common among Malaysians.

Statistics by the Health Ministry show that the most common cancer among Men in the period of 2007 until 2011 was colorectal, followed by lung, nasopharynx, lymphoma and prostate.

For females on the other hand, the most common is breast cancer, followed by colorectal, cervical, ovary and lung.

Director General Hisham Abdullah said in recent years, approximately 30,000 new cancer cases are diagnosed annually.

"In 2012, lung cancer contributed to 19.9 percent of all deaths caused by cancer in MOH hospitals throughout the country.

"This number was followed by 9.6 percent for breast cancer, 8.7 percent for colorectal cancer, 7.3 percent for liver cancer and 6.8 percent for leukemia," he said when contacted.

It is high time for the community to realise that awareness is the first step to prevention as the ability to identify the symptoms at an early stage helps with treatment for the patient.

Sumber: The Star Online

Last edited by awanearisu on 11-10-2014 07:56 PM

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 Author| Post time 8-10-2014 10:25 AM | Show all posts
Scientists discover cancer-fighting berry on tree that only grows in Far North Queensland
BY JESSICA VAN VONDEREN
October 8, 2014, 11:35 am

Scientists have been surprised by the rapid cancer-fighting properties of a berry found only in Far North Queensland.  An eight-year study led by Dr Glen Boyle, from the QIMR Berghofer medical research institute in Brisbane, found a compound in the berry could kill head and neck tumours as well as melanomas.  An experimental drug derived from the berry, EBC-46, has so far been used on 300 animals, including cats, dogs and horses.  

Dr Boyle said in 75 per cent of cases, the tumour disappeared and had not come back.  "There's a compound in the seed - it's a very, very complicated process to purify this compound and why it's there in the first place, we don't know," he said.  "The compound works by three ways essentially: it kills the tumour cells directly, it cuts off the blood supply and it also activates the body's own immune system to clean up the mess that's left behind."  

There were no side effects, but what amazed scientists most was how fast it worked: the drug took effect within five minutes and tumours disappeared within days.

"The surprising thing for us and the thing that we don't see very often is the speed with which this occurs," Dr Boyle said.  "Usually when you treat a tumour it takes several weeks for it to resolve, but this is very, very rapid.  "There's a purpling of the area, of the tumour itself, and you see that within five minutes and you come back the next day and the tumour's black and you come back a few days later and the tumour's fallen off."  


Blushwood berries in the wild

The berry grows on the blushwood tree, which only grows in pockets of Far North Queensland.  "The tree is very, very picky on where it will grow," Dr Boyle said.  "It's only on the Atherton Tablelands at the moment and they're trying to expand that to different places of course because it'd be nice to be able to grow it on a farm somewhere.  

Dr Boyle said the findings of the pre-clinical trials suggested the drug could be effective in human patients.  But Dr Boyle warned the drug could only be used for tumours that can be accessed by direct injection and was not effective against metastatic cancers.  

He said it would be an additional treatment option, rather than a replacement for chemotherapy or surgery.  "Elderly patients for example who just can't go through another round of chemo or can't go through another general anaesthetic for example, this could be used to treat those sorts of tumours and hopefully improve quality of life for people," he said.  

Biotechnology company QBiotics has obtained ethical approval to begin human trials.


Credit to Yahoo News Last edited by awanearisu on 11-10-2014 07:51 PM

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 Author| Post time 8-10-2014 10:41 AM | Show all posts
Researchers develop green tea-based 'missiles' to kill cancer cells more effectively
BY PHYS.ORG
October 6, 2014




Green tea has long been known for its anti-oxidant, anti-cancer, anti-aging and anti-microbial properties. A group of researchers from the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) of A*STAR has taken the health benefits of green tea to the next level by using one of its ingredients to develop a drug delivery system, which kills cancer cells more efficiently.

A key ingredient in green tea, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), is an antioxidant which is known to have therapeutic applications in the treatment of many disorders including cancer.  Using EGCG, IBN researchers have successfully engineered nanocarriers that can deliver drugs and kill cancer cells more efficiently. Their work was published recently in the leading journal Nature Nanotechnology.  

"The numerous health benefits of green tea have inspired us to utilize it in drug delivery systems. This is the first time that green tea has been used as a material to encapsulate and deliver drugs to cancer cells. Our green tea nanocarrier not only delivered protein drugs more effectively to the cancer cells, the combination of carrier and drug also dramatically reduced tumor growth compared with the drug alone. This is an exciting breakthrough in nanomedicine," said IBN Executive Director, Professor Jackie Y. Ying.  

A key challenge in chemotherapy is ensuring that the drugs are delivered only to the tumor in order to avoid harming the surrounding healthy tissues and organs. To address this, researchers have focused their efforts on developing more effective drug carriers. When injected into the body, these carriers act like homing missiles, traveling through the body to zoom in on the target cells where they will release the cancer-destroying drugs.  

A major stumbling block in designing more effective carriers for drugs has been the drug-to-carrier ratio. Specifically, the capacity of a particular carrier limits the amount of drug that it can deliver. Effective therapy would typically require the administration of substantial amounts of drug-encapsulating vessels into the body. Unfortunately, existing carriers are made of materials that have no therapeutic effect, and they may even cause side effects if used in large quantities.  

To solve this problem, IBN has designed a therapeutic nanocarrier for drug delivery using novel compounds derived from EGCG. The core of this carrier is made of an oligomer of EGCG (OEGCG), which can encapsulate drugs and proteins, such as Herceptin, a protein drug currently used to treat breast cancer. Polyethylene glycol (PEG)-EGCG was used to form the shell of this carrier. This novel compound is constituted of PEG, which is a known 'stealth' molecule that acts to camouflage the carrier, preventing it from being detected and filtered out of the body by the immune system before it reaches the tumor. Micellar nanocomplexes of less than 100 nanometers in dimension are formed from the OEGCG core and PEG-EGCG shell, protecting the protein drug from rapid proteolysis and renal clearance, while providing for tumor targeting.  

The research team conducted animal studies to evaluate the performance of IBN's green tea-based protein delivery system. The study revealed that IBN's green tea nanocomplex loaded with Herceptin reduced tumor growth much more effectively when compared to administering Herceptin on its own. Using the new nanocarrier, twice as much drug accumulated in the cancer cells, indicating an improved tumor targeting ability. At the same time, the drug accumulation in the other organs was lowered substantially, by 70% in the liver and kidney, and by 40% in the lung.  

"We have developed a green tea-based carrier, in which the carrier itself displayed anti-cancer effect, and can boost cancer treatment when used together with the protein. Unlike conventional therapy, our green tea carrier can eradicate more cancer cells, and accumulate significantly less drugs in vital organs where they could cause adverse side effects. This invention could pave the way for a better drug delivery system to fight cancer," said Dr Motoichi Kurisawa, IBN Principal Research Scientist and Team Leader.  

IBN has filed a patent on their green tea nanocarrier and is developing this technology for clinical applications. The green tea-based micellar complexes are also being examined for the delivery of active ingredients in personal care and nutritional products.


More information: J. E. Chung, S. Tan, S. J. Gao, N. Yongvongsoontorn, S. H. Kim, J. H. Lee, H. S. Choi, H. Yano, L. Zhuo, M. Kurisawa and J. Y. Ying, "Self-Assembled Micellar Nanocomplexes Comprising Green Tea Catechin Derivatives and Protein Drugs for Cancer Therapy", Nature Nanotechnology, 2014,[url=http://www.nature.com/nnano/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nnano.2014.208.html]DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2014.208.


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-10-green-tea-based-missiles-cancer-cells.html#jCp



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 Author| Post time 8-10-2014 10:49 AM | Show all posts
Urine test for cervical cancer virus offers alternative to smear
BY REUTERS
September 17, 2014


A simple urine test for the virus that causes cervical cancer could offer a less invasive and more acceptable alternative to the conventional cervical smear test, researchers said on Tuesday.  In a study comparing the accuracy of urine sample testing with smear testing conducted by a doctor, scientists from Britain and Spain found the results were good and said using the urine test to detect human papillomavirus (HPV) could lead to more women agreeing to be screened.  “The detection of HPV in urine is non-invasive, easily accessible and acceptable to women, and a test with these qualities could considerably increase uptake,” the researchers said on Tuesday in thebmj.com, the online version of the British Medical Journal.  

The study, which analyzed 14 studies involving 1,443 sexually active women, was led by Neha Pathak of the women’s health research unit at Queen Mary University of London.  Compared with cervical smear samples, urine HPV testing had an overall sensitivity — the proportion of positives correctly identified — of 87 percent, and a specificity — the proportion of negatives correctly identified — of 94 percent.  Urine testing for the particularly high risk strains of HPV that cause the majority of cervical cancer cases, had an overall sensitivity of 73 percent and a specificity of 98 percent compared with cervical samples.  

HPV is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections, with up to 80 percent of sexually active women infected at some point in their lives.  Infection with specific high risk strains of HPV can cause cervical cancer, which kills around 266,000 women a year globally, according to the World Health Organization.  By the far the vast majority of cervical cancer deaths are in poorer countries where access to screening and prevention methods is less widely available.

In a smear test, an instrument called a speculum is inserted into the vagina to allow access to the cervix and a brush is used to collect cells from the surface of the cervix.  In wealthier developed countries, cervical screening for HPV has been in place for many years and have been able to catch many potential cancer cases before they develop.  

More recently, national immunization programs using vaccines from drugmakers Merck and GlaxoSmithKline have been launched to protect girls from HPV.  Yet in developing nations, where some 445,000 cases were diagnosed and 230,000 women died of cervical cancer in 2012, infrastructures have not yet been established to run national screening programs and HPV vaccination is still rare.

In a commentary on Pathak’s study, Henry Kitchener, professor and chair of gynecological oncology at Manchester University noted that even in developed countries such as Britain, for example, cervical screening coverage has fallen below 80 percent in recent years.  This is partly due to some complacency about cervical cancer as it starts to be come less common, he said, but also partly due to emotional factors such as embarrassment or fear of an invasive speculum examination.  Using a urine test instead of a smear could persuade those reluctant women to come for regular screening, Kitchener said, while in lower income countries that lack infrastructure “self sampling (urine testing) might even be beneficial and cost effective for all women who are eligible for screening”. - Reuters

Credit to FreeMalaysiaToday News
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Post time 11-10-2014 05:41 PM | Show all posts
yang ni Reading University, UK punya research, a better Malaysian versian can be searched at Fb "SEVO Cancer Alternative Therapy". Results are as good as miracle! Di barat ni consider penemuan baru, tapi di Jepun patented in 1969!

Analysis of Ge-132 and development of a simple oral anticancer formulation

    Sara M. Ogwapit*

+ Author Affiliations

    School of Pharmacy, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AH, UK

    *↵Corresponding author: Email: [email protected]

    Supervisors: Dr Katja Strohfeldt-Venables and Dr Clare Rawlinson Malone, School of Pharmacy, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 6AD, UK.

    Received September 20, 2010.
    Accepted February 20, 2011.
    First published online May 6, 2011.

Abstract

The anticancer activity of synthetic organogermanium, β- or bis-carboxyethylgermanium sesquioxide (Ge-132), has been demonstrated in several cancer cell models and human studies. Ge-132 increases pro-inflammatory responses by enhancing interferon-γ (IFN-γ), natural killer cell and T-cell activity, and is significantly less toxic than other widely used metal-based anticancer drugs such as cisplatin. In this small-scale laboratory study, we effectively assessed the physicochemical characteristics and purity of Ge-132, our main objective being to develop a novel oral anticancer formulation, using conventional tabletting excipients which do not alter the chemistry of Ge-132. We determined that solid Ge-132 decomposes at 330°C; is virtually insoluble in most common organic solvents; and readily dissolves in water (saturation solubility ≈1.28 g/100 ml) to form germane triol (pH 3.06–3.12). 1H and 13C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy confirmed the structure of our compound showing two identical proton environments at 1.55 and 2.65 ppm (triplets) and three distinct carbon environments at 178.31, 27.37 and 12.93 ppm. The mass spectrum indicated the formation of numerous complex ion fragments with masses ranging from m/z 123.1 to m/z 478.3. FT-infrared and FT-Raman spectra showed characteristic sesquioxide peaks at 900.51, 900.26 and 800.04 cm−1 and, most importantly, confirmed the absence of toxic, inorganic GeO2, at 850 cm−1. While parenteral formulations exist for many anticancer medicines, here we successfully developed uncoated tablets containing Ge-132 (5% w/w) by manual direct compression (powder particle size ≤180 µm). The tablets passed British Pharmacopoeia (BP) content uniformity testing (Ultraviolet–visible, 212 nm), and BP disintegration testing in both acidic and basic media, disintegrating between 2 min 55 s and 3 min 10 s, respectively. We prepared gastro-resistant formulations using Eudragit®; however, these failed content uniformity tests and had lower disintegration times (≤1 min 36 s), indicating that compatibility of polymers with Ge-132 requires further investigation. The results presented here support further larger-scale research on Ge-132 as a novel metal-based oral anticancer drug which can be conveniently administered alone or included within a chemotherapy regimen. Future formulation studies on Ge-132 could focus on compatibility assessments with nano-formulations in keeping with current advancements in metal-based anticancer therapies.

Nak full account tengok sini http://biohorizons.oxfordjournals.org/content/4/2/128.abstract

   


Last edited by arnauld on 11-10-2014 05:43 PM

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 Author| Post time 11-10-2014 07:03 PM | Show all posts
arnauld posted on 11-10-2014 05:41 PM
yang ni Reading University, UK punya research, a better Malaysian versian can be searched at Fb "SEV ...

tq for sharing
oral medication sebelum ni memang belum ada kan? bagus ni

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 Author| Post time 11-10-2014 07:27 PM | Show all posts
Edited by awanearisu at 1-2-2016 01:16 PM

This device could detect dozens of cancers with a single blood test
BY ISSIE LAPOWSKI
October 10, 2014


Miriam detects microRNA in blood to determine whether patients might have cancer.  Miroculus

Early detection, we’re often told, is the surest way to beat cancer. It’s the reason why, year after year, men and women of a certain age dutifully visit their doctors and undergo uncomfortable tests to screen for things like prostate and breast cancer.  But what about the other hundred or so types of cancer out there—the brain cancers, the ovarian cancers, the leukemias and lymphomas? And what of the millions of young people who never get tested at all, even though they’ve been found to have worse outcomes than adults?  Current diagnostic methods for other cancers are invasive and expensive, so the vast majority of cancer patients never realize they might have cancer until something goes wrong with their health. By that point, in many cases, it’s already too late.

MIROCULUS COULD MAKE REGULAR CANCER SCREENINGS AS SIMPLE AS GETTING BLOOD DRAWN.
That’s why a new startup, dubbed Miroculus, is building a device that could easily and affordably check for dozens of cancers using a single blood sample. Known as Miriam, this low-cost, open source device made its public debut at the TEDGlobal conference in Rio De Janeiro on Thursday, with TED curator Chris Anderson calling it “one of the most thrilling demos in TED history.”

For the company’s founders—a global team of entrepreneurs, microbiologists, and data scientists—the goal is to make Miriam so simple that even untrained workers in clinics around the world could use it. The project is still in the early stages, but if the early trials of Miriam are to be believed, Miroculus could make regular cancer screenings as simple as getting blood drawn.

A Biological Warning Sign
The Miroculus technology is based on microRNA, a class of small molecules that can act as a type of biological warning sign, appearing and disappearing based on what is happening in our bodies at that moment. As a result, they’ve become effective indicators of diseases—including cancer—ever since they were first discovered in 1993. They can reveal not just whether a person may have cancer, but what specific type of cancer that person might have.

For years, however, researchers believed microRNA could only be found inside of cells, making these biomarkers less accessible. But in 2008, a group of researchers discovered microRNA circulating in blood, spawning a wave of interest from other scientists, who viewed microRNA as the key to early cancer detection.

Fay Christodoulou was one such researcher. After spending years studying microRNA’s effects on evolution, Christodoulou, a Greek molecular biologist, shifted her focus to study the connection between microRNA and thyroid cancer. Last year, she decided to take some time off to enter a graduate studies program at Singularity University, a Silicon Valley incubator that challenges people to spend 10 weeks developing a business idea with the power to impact one billion people or more.

It was there that she met Alejandro Tocigl, a Chilean entrepreneur; Gilad Gome, an Israeli biotechnologist; Pablo Olivares, a Chilean doctor; Ferrán Galindo, a serial entrepreneur from Panama; and Jorge Soto, a Mexican electronic engineer and former general director of civic innovation for the Mexican government. Together, they formed a team and developed the bones of what would eventually become Miriam.

“In 10 weeks, to make something from nothing is practically impossible. But what they teach you—in my personal case, for the first time in my life—was in order to disrupt, you don’t need to do 10 years of research,” Christodoulou says. “You’re capable of using pre-existing tools but combining them in a way no one had thought of before.”


Miroculus’s three full-time founders, from left to right: Alejandro Tocigl, CEO; Fay Christodoulou, CSO; Jorge Soto, CTO.  Miroculus

Not Reinventing the Wheel
Miriam capitalizes on much of the research and science that already exists around microRNA and cancer. You can prepare the blood sample, for instance, using a standard off-the-shelf RNA extraction kit, as well as a Miroculus “master mix” (another means of preparing the raw sample for the test). Then, once the sample is prepared, you pipette the blood into a 96-well plate, which Christodoulou refers to as the company’s “secret sauce.”

That’s because each well has been pre-treated with Miroculus’s patented biochemistry to act as a sort of trap for various types of microRNA, most commonly associated with cancer. When Miroculus goes to market, it will be these plates—and not the $500 devices themselves—that will generate the most revenue.

After the wells are full, the plate goes into the device, and the reaction begins. When microRNA is present, the wells start to glow. The stronger the glow, the stronger the presence of microRNA. In an hour, the reaction is complete, and the results get sent to a cloud server. There, the system reads the luminosity of the various wells, determines which microRNA is present in the sample, and compares that result to a database of information on which microRNA patterns are associated with which cancers. Then the system is able to make a judgment.

While at Singularity, the team completed a proof of principle experiment, in which they successfully detected liver cancer in mice. But that, says Christodoulou, is just the first step in a long process of proving the technology works. “We’re talking about a decentralized system; the main challenge is to make it robust enough so it can be done by an untrained person anywhere in the world in not-so-optimal laboratory conditions,” she says.

Data, Data, and More Data
The company—which is now run full-time by Tocigl, Christodoulou, and Soto—must also build its database to ensure the system can read the results accurately. According to Muneesh Tewari, who heads up his own research lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and was part of the team that first discovered microRNA in blood, that will take some doing.

The challenge with microRNA, he says, is that it doesn’t only show up in the case of cancer. Something as simple as taking aspirin or having a respiratory infection could affect which microRNA gets expressed in blood. To guarantee accuracy, Miroculus’s technology must know not only which results mean cancer, but also how other health conditions, medications, and environmental factors can alter or inhibit those results.

“There are so many stories of biomarkers that get discovered, and then there are things you didn’t know that basically kill the marker,” Tewari says. “Bringing the device to the point where, in fact, it is robust and reliable when you put it in the hands of a large number of people who are truly untrained, that’s always the next barrier to be overcome.”

SOMETHING AS SIMPLE AS TAKING ASPIRIN OR HAVING A RESPIRATORY INFECTION COULD AFFECT WHICH MICRORNA GETS EXPRESSED IN BLOOD.
The Miroculus team understands that data is, in some ways, just as important to Miriam’s success as the science behind it. “We’re a data-driven company, and we believe our value will be in the information we gather, how we correlate the information, and the conclusions we’re able to make,” says Tocigl.

That’s one reason why Miroculus is launching the product not with the doctors and clinics—it would require FDA approval for that, anyway—but with pharmaceutical companies, who will use the tool to track how patients react to new drugs. As these companies track results, Miroculus will, in turn, be able to collect mountains of microRNA related data. Once that trove of information is robust enough, and that could take a number of years, then and only then will Miroculus begin to seek FDA approval to market Miriam as a diagnostic tool. Until then, Miroculus will continue tweaking the device and running its own studies out of the European Molecular Biology Lab in Heidelberg, Germany.

A New Definition of Cancer
Tewari says this method is a smart one, and he credits Miroculus for taking a Silicon Valley approach to the problem, forging ahead with the technology, even while the research that powers it is ongoing. “I think these tracks need to move in parallel,” he says. “I think you need both before we change the world.”

And yet, he brings up an interesting point, and that is the fact that early detection, long considered the only real cure for cancer, is now the subject of heated debate in the medical community. It’s become so pointed that last year, a group of experts at the National Cancer Institute went as far as to call for a new definition of the word “cancer.”

Their argument was that science has come so far that some conditions we still refer to as cancer are basically harmless, such as ductal carcinoma in situ, a non-invasive type of breast cancer. In continuing to call them cancer, they say, society is only causing patients undue stress, and that leads, in many cases to undue surgeries and treatments, as well. Routine cancer screenings like the one Miroculus suggests could, theoretically, create the problem of over-diagnosis of indolent cancers, Tewari says.

“Early detection can have a massive impact on mortality in the world,” he says, “but one can’t be too naïve about the real issues related to the problem of early detection, either.”

Still, he says, it’s important not to allow this fear to inhibit the development of novel new ways of catching cancer early. “The idea of having a system, that really performs well, that’s very robust and can be done at the point of care, without an expert,” Tewari says, pausing. “Well, that idea is very powerful, and important, and could really be potentially transformative.”

Credits to: WIRED

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 Author| Post time 11-10-2014 07:39 PM | Show all posts
Surgeon's 'map' helps make breast cancer operation quicker and safer
It locates sentinel lymph nodes, helping doctors remove them quickly, safely
BY KASH CHEONG
September 15,2014

A surgeon here has come up with a "map" that can reduce the risks and duration of a common early-stage breast cancer surgery.  In such surgery, or a sentinel lymph node biopsy, doctors remove the body structures that cancer cells are most likely to spread to.  

Dr Ong Kong Wee, head of SingHealth Duke-NUS Breast Centre, has identified the positions of these structures, known as sentinel lymph nodes, within the patient's armpit. This saves time and cuts the risk of accidentally cutting nerves and blood vessels.  For if doctors do not know where the nodes are, said Dr Ong, they might make more incisions.

Click image for full article


Credits to: The Straits Time and National Cancer Centre Singapore

- See more at: http://www.straitstimes.com/news ... thash.sQFIUz9q.dpuf

Last edited by awanearisu on 11-10-2014 07:40 PM

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 Author| Post time 11-10-2014 07:51 PM | Show all posts
Warning labels about cancer on alcohol: do we need them?
BY PAULA GOODYER
October 6, 2014

How would you feel if your bottle of merlot or cider came with a health warning about the increased risk of cancer from drinking alcohol? Doesn't sound like an idea to be warmly embraced by those who like a drink but the findings of a recent West Australian survey of more than 2000 drinkers suggests we might be more receptive than you'd think.  This is especially when the messages are more specific – such as "alcohol increases your risk of bowel cancer" rather than a more general "alcohol causes one in 20 cancer deaths".

The researchers – from Curtin University, the University of Western Australia and the Cancer Council WA – were trying to gauge how drinkers might respond to warning labels about cancer on alcohol and which messages might work best. They found that younger, more educated drinkers – especially women – were more likely to find the messages believable and relevant. Especially interesting was the finding that heavy drinkers – those tippling more than two drinks a day and more than four drinks in one sitting – were also more likely to consider the messages personally relevant than people who drank less.  "This is encouraging because this group is most at short-term and long-term risk from the harmful effects of alcohol," Professor Simone Pettigrew of Curtin University's School of Psychology says.

Pettigrew argues that we need warning labels on alcohol because although it is well known that drinking can get us into trouble on the road, we're less aware of the cancer connection.  "People we interview tend to think that drinking "in moderation" – which typically they don't define – isn't harmful and that red wine especially can benefit heart health," she says. "The "good" news about alcohol consumption seems to be more readily accepted than "bad" news and the negatives of drinking are usually seen as confined to young binge drinkers or alcoholics."  

It's a point backed up last week by findings from a Cancer Council NSW survey of 2482 adults that only 47 per cent identified drinking too much as a risk factor for cancer.  The cancers with the strongest alcohol link are breast cancer, bowel cancer in men, cancer of the mouth and throat, along with cancer of the oesophagus and liver, Kathy Chapman, director of cancer programs at the Cancer Council NSW, says.  

It's not clear exactly how alcohol contributes to all these cancers, but with breast cancer the belief is that it works by increasing a woman's levels of oestrogen, Chapman explains.  "With cancers of the mouth, throat and oesophagus, it's likely that alcohol damages the lining of these areas, allowing carcinogens to get in more easily, especially in smokers" she says.  "We know the risk of these cancers goes up the more you drink, so cutting down is an especially important message for those who are heavier drinkers. It's not about becoming teetotal but if you drink a lot each night, reducing it is one of the positive measures you can take."  Still, we'll need more research before we can be sure that labels on alcohol are the best way to boost awareness, she adds.  

"We don't want to rush in and say labels are the way to go – they're likely to be one of a raft of measures to support lower levels of drinking. But if food is required to have health related information on the label, why not alcohol?"  We might not have health warnings on alcohol in Australia yet – although warnings about drinking in pregnancy are on the way – but plenty of other countries do, including Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, France, Guatemala, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, and the US, Pettigrew says. However, the warnings are more about drink driving, pregnancy or risks to general health rather than specific diseases.  

It's a good bet that any moves to slap warning labels about cancer on alcohol in Australia will provoke the usual grumblings about nanny states and "everything gives you cancer" – and someone's bound to remind us their grandad smoked and drank until he was 102.  However, the reality is that as time goes on we are understanding more about what makes us more vulnerable to some cancers and it's generally a mixed bag of factors, some of which we can avoid or at least reduce. If the knowledge is there, why not spread it around so that the rest of us can decide whether we want to lower the risk or not?  

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-fitness/warning-labels-about-cancer-on-alcohol-do-we-need-them-20141002-10pb8d.html#ixzz3FW3Qy05Y

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 Author| Post time 23-1-2016 04:26 PM From the mobile phone | Show all posts
Edited by awanearisu at 23-1-2016 04:37 PM

New era in the war on cancer: Revolutionary treatment that will save thousands hailed as 'biggest breakthrough since chemotherapy'

By Sophie Borland, Health Correspondent For The Daily Mail In Chicago
00:01 01 Jun 2015, updated 11:40 01 Jun 2015

   *Immunotherapy teaches body to attack cancer cells and destroy tumours
   *The treatment will replace chemotherapy within five years, say researchers
   *It is particularly effective against skin and lung cancer, experts believe
   *Trial patients expected to only survive months went on to live normal lives


A cancer treatment that teaches the body to attack tumours will save the lives of tens of thousands of patients, researchers claim.

Experts believe it could be the biggest step forward since chemotherapy and could replace it within five years.

The treatment is particularly effective against some of the deadliest types of the disease including lung and skin cancer.

Patients who underwent immunotherapy in a trial showed remarkable progres.



Trials show that it has eradicated tumours in patients who were expected to survive for only a few months and they are now leading normal lives.

Called immunotherapy, it works by training the immune system to attack cancerous cells.

Groundbreaking study on brain cancer treatment reveals negative effects of radiosurgery on memory, speech and thinking skills outweigh the benefits
As well as lung and skin cancer, it has been hugely effective against kidney, bladder, and head and neck cancers, research from a number of key trials presented at the American Society for Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago shows.

These are some of the most aggressive types which are extremely difficult to treat and, together, claim the lives of 54,000 Britons every year.

In one British trial, patients with advanced skin cancer who would have been declared terminally ill are now back at work and are predicted to live until old age. Some may never need treatment again, others just require top-up sessions every few weeks or months.

Survivor: Vicky Brown said the treatment felt like 'a miracle drug'
One who has benefited from the new treatment is former college teacher Vicky Brown, 61, who was diagnosed with skin cancer in 2006 which returned and spread to her breasts and lungs. She was told in 2013 that she might live for only a few more months.

But she took part in the clinical trials at the Royal Marsden which began that August and within weeks the tumours had disappeared completely. Although it returned again, it was again eradicated by immunotherapy. It has come back a third time and doctors plan to use the same technique.

Mrs Brown, from Cardiff, said: 'It felt like a miracle drug. It has given me at least two years of life to enjoy – and hopefully many more.'

Professor Peter Johnson, director of medical oncology at Cancer Research UK, said: 'The evidence suggests we are at the beginning of a whole new era for cancer treatments. Not for every type of cancer, but for some of the ones we have struggled with the most.

'We are hoping that in many cases these effects will be maintained in the long term, possibly leading to cures for some.'

Professor Roy Herbst, chief of medical oncology at Yale Cancer Centre in the US, said that immunotherapy could replace chemotherapy as the 'standard treatment' for cancer within the next five years.

'I think we are seeing a paradigm shift in the way oncology is being treated,' he said. 'You can see a response as quickly as a couple of weeks. Some patients have amazing survival.'

Roger Perlmutter, president of research at the drugs firm Merck, which makes one of the main types of immunotherapy treatments, said: 'Immune manipulation may turn out to be an even more important intervention than chemotherapy was – maybe the most important ever.'

Although our immune system is trained to fight infections and cancer, some tumours are able to develop protective shields, meaning that the body's immune system, chemotherapy and other drugs are all ineffective.

Impact: During one trial in Britain 60 per cent of skin cancer cells, pictured under microscope, had either shrunk or been brought under control
But immunotherapy breaks down these shields and trains our body how to attack the tumours. Treatments are given in a drip every few weeks and typically cost around 100,000 per patient a year. Some types are already available on the NHS but others are awaiting approval by European regulators.

One trial, involving 950 British patients with advanced skin cancer, showed that for 60 per cent the tumours had either shrunk or been brought under control.

Dr James Larkin, a consultant at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, who is overseeing it, said it was a 'game changer'. Although the trial began only two years ago, he said he hoped many would survive until old age.

More important than chemotherapy  
'We have to be cautious about using the word cure but we've got patients who are basically free of melanoma (skin cancer) now, they're leading normal lives,' he said.

'By giving these drugs together you are effectively taking two brakes off the immune system rather than one so the immune system is able to recognise tumours it wasn't previously recognising and react to that and destroy them.

'For immunotherapies, we've never seen tumour shrinkage rates over 50% so that's very significant to see.

'This is a treatment modality that I think is going to have a big future for the treatment of cancer.'

The treatment does not work for all patients and some trials showed it was effective in only 25-50 per cent because it depends on the characteristics of their tumour.

But results from the skin cancer trial showed that combining two types of immunotherapy treatment benefited many more patients. So while one type was effective for 15 per cent of patients, two types combined worked for 60 per cent.

Experts hope that for all types of cancer, immunotherapy will be effective for at least half of patients.

The treatment is currently available for some NHS patients with skin cancer and the researchers argue its use should be widened for other cancers as soon as possible. The side-effects are less severe than for chemotherapy but include rashes, sickness and tirednes.

Experts hope that for all types of cancer, immunotherapy will be effective for at least half of patients (file image above shows chemotherapy)
Dr Alan Worsley, Cancer Research UK's senior science information officer, said: 'This research suggests that we could give a powerful one-two punch against advanced melanoma by combining immunotherapy treatments.

'Together these drugs could release the brakes on the immune system while blocking cancer's ability to hide from it.

'But combining these treatments also increases the likelihood of potentially quite severe side effects. Identifying which patients are most likely to benefit will be key to bringing our best weapons to bear against the disease.'

Chemotherapy was not routinely used on cancer patients until the 1960s and 1970s. It causes extreme tiredness, sickness and hair loss and makes patients susceptible to infection, meaning many patients stop chemotherapy early even if it could prolong their lives.

Sumber:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ ... h-chemotherapy.html
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 Author| Post time 23-1-2016 04:57 PM From the mobile phone | Show all posts
Edited by awanearisu at 23-1-2016 05:06 PM

Skin cancer breakthrough: Melanoma patients welcome new skin cancer drug, Nivolumab approved by NHS, UK
By Ritwik Roy
@ritwikroy1985
on January 23 2016 6:45 PM


People walk next to beach towels laid out during an event organized by the Cancer Council at Bondi Beach in Sydney November 15, 2009.1700 towels with a "crime scene" style body on them were laid out in Bondi beach to represent the rate of skin cancer related deaths in Australia. Reuters/Dean Lewins/Pool


UK’s NHS has approved a new drug to treat advanced skin cancer cases. Nivolumab, also known as Opdivo has been recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice). It is a type of immunotherapy that stimulates a person’s immune system to fight cancer cells. It has been confirmed by researchers that patients taking the drug survive much longer than when on traditional chemotherapy. The one-year survival rate for Nivolumab was 73 percent whereas that of chemotherapy was only 42 percent.

The NHS gave the go-ahead after the drug cost watchdog was happy with the 5,700 (AU$11,612) per month price, which they thought is a good value for money. It is believed that the new skin cancer drug Nivolumab can treat 1,400 patients a year, though health experts have urged Nice to make the drug available to more patients.

“It's vital that we get novel and exciting cancer treatments to patients as quickly as possible,” said Prof. Paul Workman, chief executive of the Institute of Cancer Research in London.

Drug Nivolumab targets and blocks PD-1, a protein found on the surface of certain immune cells known as T-cells. Blocking the PD-1 activates T-cells to find and kill cancer cells. The drug was previously rejected by Nice, especially for patients suffering from advanced lung cancer, despite the fact that patients with non-small cell lung cancer treated with Nivolumab lived an average of 12.2 months compared to chemotherapy’s average of 9.4 months, reports Telegraph.co.uk.

Although a final decision on the medicine with respect to lung cancer patients is awaited, it is expected that the final guidance for lung cancer patients will be issued by May 2016.

“We welcome today's decision from Nice, which is positive news for melanoma patients in the UK,” said Johanna Mercier, general manager of Bristol-Myers Squibb, the company that makes the drug.

In 2011, more than 13,000 melanoma cases were reported in the UK, melanoma is the third most common cancer in both Australian women and men, and the most common cancer in Australians aged 15-44 years.

Sumber:
International Business Times
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Post time 30-1-2016 03:49 PM | Show all posts
awanearisu replied at 23-1-2016 04:57 PM
Skin cancer breakthrough: Melanoma patients welcome new skin cancer drug, Nivolumab approved by NHS, ...

Good postings.
All these -umabs, -imabs and -inibs however are so expensive and the patient selection, ie of whom who is going to benefit most, is pertinent sangat.

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Post time 31-1-2016 11:33 AM | Show all posts

http://www.cancer.gov/about-canc ... abis-pdq#section/_3

Cannabis and Cannabinoids (PDQ®)
Questions and Answers About Cannabis

What are cannabinoids?

Cannabinoids are active chemicals in Cannabis that cause drug-like effects throughout the body, including the central nervous system and the immune system. They are also known as phytocannabinoids. The main active cannabinoid in Cannabis is delta-9-THC. Another active cannabinoid is cannabidiol (CBD), which may relieve pain and lower inflammation without causing the "high" of delta-9-THC.

Cannabinoids may be useful in treating the side effects of cancer and cancer treatment.

  • Other possible effects of cannabinoids include:
  • Anti-inflammatory activity.
  • Blocking cell growth.
  • Preventing the growth of blood vessels that supply tumors.
  • Antiviral activity.
  • Relieving muscle spasms caused by multiple sclerosis.


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 Author| Post time 1-2-2016 12:49 PM | Show all posts
ipes2 replied at 30-1-2016 03:49 PM
Good postings.
All these -umabs, -imabs and -inibs however are so expensive and the patient selec ...

Terima kasih untuk maklumat tersebut Dr. Ipes
Patutlah selama ni kita pelik kenapa susah untuk pesakit dari negara lain nak dapatkan ubat-ubat sebegini.
Kasihan pesakit luar hanya mampu mendengar je tapi nak mencuba pastilah sumber kewangan dan sumber ubat juga terhad.
Kalau di U.K., ubat-ubat baru macam ni adakah berada di bawah kawalan pusat penyelidikan, atau di bawah kawalan kementerian kesihatan ye?
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 Author| Post time 1-2-2016 12:50 PM | Show all posts
Acong replied at 31-1-2016 11:33 AM
http://www.cancer.gov/about-canc ... abis-pdq#section/_3

Cannabis and Cannabinoids (PDQ®)
...

Terima kasih bang Acong.  Dialu-alukan sumbangan artikel-artikel berkaitan lagi jika ketemu
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Post time 1-2-2016 04:28 PM | Show all posts
awanearisu replied at 1-2-2016 12:49 PM
Terima kasih untuk maklumat tersebut Dr. Ipes  
Patutlah selama ni kita pelik kenapa s ...

Depa byk guna jugak imabs umabs tinibs bi semua actually.
mahal nya ya Rabbi.. berpuluh ribu satu suntikan.. tetapi depa betul betul pilih pesakit..
Ya, di UK ada body yg pantau betul ke tak ubat ni cost effective dan docs ni bukan main bagi je pada sesapa
body ni nama NICE.. depa la buat NICE guidelines

kekadang kita rasa mcm tak berbaloi
kita kata alah tambah umur 4 bulan aje.. kos beratus ribu.. tapi 4 bulan itu adalh nyawa kehidupan orang lain, maka kita tak dapat lah menilai kemanisannya..
mujurlah Allah beri kita nyawa lagi, kan?
syukur
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 Author| Post time 8-9-2016 12:46 PM | Show all posts

'Cancer Moonshot' Panel: Focus on Immune Therapies
by MAGGIE FOX
Sept 7, 2016

Cancer research should focus on getting more tailored data from individual patients — and provide that information to them and their doctors in a useful way, experts said Wednesday.

And because a new approach called immunotherapy seems to work so spectacularly for some patients, researchers and doctors should create networks to focus on that approach, a panel of cancer experts working on the Obama administration's "cancer moonshot" initiative said in a new report.


Dr. Arjun Balar of New York University Langone Medical center pointing to an MRI or CT scan on his computer screen.

Balar is working on new methods to treat cancer.
Immunotherapies include techniques that manipulate the body's own immune defenses against tumor cells, including direct changes to patient's individual cells, drugs that boost immune activity and engineered antibodies trained to recognize particular tumors.

They include the new class of drugs that appear to have made former President Jimmy Carter's melanoma disappear, such as Keytruda and Opdivo, which block the mechanisms that tumors use to hide from immune cells.

"Immunotherapy is important. We need to understand it better," said Dr. Douglas Lowy, acting director of the National Cancer Institute.

"It is an extremely exciting area of medicine and science today but even now it only benefits a subset of patients," added Tyler Jacks, director of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a panel co-chair.

"We must learn why some patients who have melanoma (such as President Carter) or lung cancer respond to checkpoint blockade immunotherapy, whereas patients with many other types of adult cancers, including ovarian, breast, pancreatic, brain, and prostate cancer—as well as most pediatric cancers—have brief responses or do not respond at all," the report reads.

Related: Silicon Valley Billionaire Funds Cancer Immune Therapy Effort

"Current immunotherapy treatments represent only the tip of the iceberg of what is possible," it adds.

The report repeats much of what's already been said about the "Cancer Moonshot," spearheaded by Vice President Joe Biden and vulnerable to the funding decisions of a deadlocked and partisan Congress.

It focuses on 10 areas that might help the program achieve its goal of making 10 years worth of progress in half that time.

There's also a new approach to the old-fashioned bone marrow stem cell transplant. Called chimeric antigen receptor T-cell, or CAR-T, these treatments use a patient's own immune system T-cells, engineered to better recognize cancer cells. But they require destruction of the patient's existing immune system and that can kill the patient before it cures.

One of the main changes proposed by the panel would be to offer tailored tumor profiling to more cancer patients. Right now, patients usually need to be treated at a big cancer center and take part in a major clinical trial to get an individual genetic sequence done.

The panel's report proposes offering this service to cancer patients everywhere.

"Many patients are eager to provide their data, and gathering this information in a linked network of databases would enable more precise knowledge about what works, in whom, and in which types of cancer," the report reads.

And this data could help researchers with a third goal -- creating a big, 3-D atlas of cancer. It ideally would show how cancer starts in the first place and the mechanisms by which it grows and spreads.

Cancer is the No. 2 killer in the U.S. It has replaced heart disease as the No. 1 cause of death in 21 states and it will kill nearly 600,000 people this year, the American Cancer Society says. About 1.68 million Americans will be diagnosed with some form of cancer this year.

President Barack Obama launched the "moonshot" initiative in February, asking for close to $1 billion in extra spending over the next two years.

Source:NBC News

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Immunotherapy is a way forward... all of these monoclonal antibodies; in the future tho, we will all go genetics and the genes for say retinitis pigmentosa if detected then will be spliced out etc  Post time 9-9-2016 03:12 AM

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 Author| Post time 8-9-2016 01:01 PM | Show all posts
Edited by awanearisu at 8-9-2016 01:03 PM

Cord-blood transplants could be new answer for cancer patients
Originally published September 7, 2016 at 2:00 pm | Updated September 7, 2016 at 7:52 pm


Crystal Day, 30, of Seattle was treated for a relapse of acute myeloid leukemia with an umbilical cord-blood transplant at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance in conjunction with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Cord blood is an option for mixed-race people like Day, who is half white and half Hispanic, because it’s difficult to find matches through traditional stem-cell sources. (Lindsey Wasson/The Seattle Times)

Stem-cell transplants are the key to survival for patients with some life-threatening cancers. A new Fred Hutch study finds that results from cord-blood transplants may be as good — or better — than other types.

By JoNel Aleccia
Seattle Times health reporter

When Crystal Day’s cancer came back, the Seattle architect and designer thought she was out of options.

She’d been through chemotherapy to halt the acute myeloid leukemia first diagnosed in 2011, when she was 25. Three years later, doctors said she needed a stem-cell transplant to attack the relapsed disease and reboot her damaged immune system.

The problem? She couldn’t find a match, someone to donate bone marrow or blood stem cells. Not from her family, and not from any of the nearly 27 million potential donors available through an international registry.

“There was no match in the whole world — not even a bad match,” Day now 30, recalled.

But Day’s doctors at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center had a different idea, one borne out in a new study published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine. They used blood from umbilical cords, two of them, based on growing evidence that such transplants, which don’t require as strict a match, might be as good as — or better than — other common types of stem-cell transplants for blood-cancer patients.

“We had a gut feeling that things were doing well,” said Dr. Filippo Milano, a cord-blood expert at Fred Hutch and first author on the paper. “Our analysis proved that the choice was the right one.”

In their review of nearly 600 leukemia and blood-disorder patients — including Day — who got any stem-cell transplant at the Seattle center between 2006 and 2014, Milano and his colleagues found the chance of survival was at least as high, or higher, in patients who received cord blood rather than two other types of transplants.

Plus, they found that the risk of relapse was lower overall in those who received cord blood versus bone-marrow or blood-cell transplants that were well-matched or mismatched according to human leukocyte antigen typing. That’s HLA, a group of proteins on cells that can trigger an immune-system response.

The study looked at patients aged 1 to 67 and included 140 cord-blood transplants, 344 HLA-matched adult unrelated donors and 98 HLA-mismatched adult unrelated donors.

The findings were particularly strong in about a third of patients in each group, those with what’s called minimal residual disease — in remission with no symptoms, but with cancer cells that can be detected in their system.

The risk of death was almost three times higher in patients who received HLA-mismatched transplants from unrelated donors than in the cord-blood group. It was about 70 percent higher in the HLA-matched group, too, though that didn’t reach statistical significance, the study said.

At the same time, the risk of relapse was about three times lower in patients with some residual disease who received cord-blood transplants versus the other transplants.

In patients with no detectable disease, like Day, the effects were similar, but not as robust, the study found. There was no evidence that the risk of relapse was greater in the cord-blood group, nor evidence of higher death rates than in the HLA-mismatched group. In the HLA-matched group, the risk of death was lower, but not statistically significant.

Stem-cell transplants, no matter what type, are a go-to treatment for some cancer. High-dose chemotherapy and/or radiation kill the cancer cells, then donor cells are transplanted to repopulate the bone marrow.

The new study underscores what Dr. Colleen Delaney, director of the Fred Hutch cord-blood program, has long maintained: Cord blood safely and effectively expands options for high-risk cancer patients.

“Major contribution”
Delaney, who was last author on the paper, said she shudders when she hears that blood-cancer patients think bone-marrow drives are their only option. This study should spur doctors to think twice about the best source of stem-cell transplants for their patients.

“Nearly everyone will have a cord-blood match,” she said.

That’s important, for several reasons, the Hutch experts said. Although the best donors for a stem-cell transplant are HLA-identical siblings who can provide bone marrow or blood cells, only about 30 percent of patients will have such a match.

The next best option is an unrelated donor who’s a good match for all the HLA markers, followed by an unrelated donor who matches many, but not all, of the markers.

The trouble is, matches can be tough to find, especially for racial and ethnic minorities, according to the National Marrow Donor Program, a Minneapolis nonprofit. It operates Be the Match, a registry of about 13.5 million people, with access to nearly 27 million donors around the world.

In the U.S., nearly 20,000 stem-cell transplants are performed each year, including 900 to 1,000 cord-blood transplants, federal figures show.

While about 97 percent of white patients are likely to have a match, that figure falls to 34 percent for black patients, 28 percent for Asians and 20 percent for Hispanics, NMDP figures show.

For patients like Day, who is half white and half Hispanic, the chances are even lower. Her sister wasn’t a match and neither was anyone in the entire registry. An experimental cord-blood transplant was her only hope — and even that took time.

“I waited for three months before they said they had a cord-blood match,” she said.

It finally worked because cord-blood transplants are different from the others, experts explained. They don’t have to be as closely matched to the patient and they’re more adaptable to the new host, Milano said.

In addition, approximately 680,000 units of cord blood worldwide are stored in public banks, so they can be used right away.

Those benefits and more were apparent in the Fred Hutch study, said Dr. Juliet Barker, director of the cord-blood-transplant program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, who wasn’t involved in the work but called it “a major contribution to the field.”

“This report supports not only cord blood taking the priority over a mismatched unrelated donor, but the consideration of cord blood as an immediate alternative source of stem cells to matched adult volunteer donor transplants, especially in high-risk patients,” she said in an email.

Barker called for a national, randomized, controlled trial of patients with high-risk leukemia, comparing those who receive matched unrelated donor transplants and those who get cord-blood transplants.

Day admitted she was initially wary of the expanded cord-blood transplant. “At first it was scary because it hadn’t been tried before,” she said.

But within four weeks of receiving two umbilical-cord transplants, the cells “engrafted,” or took hold, and she started making her own blood and platelets. For the rest of her life, there will be evidence of the dominant graft — an American baby boy — in her bodily fluids.

“My spit shows 100 percent Irish male,” she said, laughing.

Two years later, Day is in remission. She has returned to work at the Seattle architecture firm Perkins+Will, where, in a coincidence, part of her job was designing new labs and office spaces in the 1100 Eastlake Ave. building on the Fred Hutch campus.

Her experience as a cancer patient has colored her work as a designer, she said.
“My doctor once said that thousands of people have died to help cure you,” she said. “I would like my design work to help the doctors.”

JoNel Aleccia: 206-464-2906 or [email protected]. On Twitter @JoNel_Aleccia

Source: Seattle Times

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 Author| Post time 8-9-2016 01:28 PM | Show all posts
Edited by awanearisu at 8-9-2016 01:35 PM

New cancer treatment which can kill off tumours in just TWO HOURS has been developed
21:11, 3 JUL 2016 UPDATED 22:00, 3 JUL 2016
BY MARK WAGHORN , JIM LEFFMAN
The remarkable technique is non-invasive and requires just a single jab and a beam of light


A new cancer treatment has been developed that can kill off tumours in just two hours.
The remarkable technique is non-invasive and requires just a single jab and a beam of light.


It may be of particular help for patients with inoperable or hard to reach growths, as well as young children stricken with the disease, a study shows.

Biologist Professor Matthew Gdovin tested his newly patented method against triple negative breast cancer, one of the most aggressive types of cancer and most difficult to cure.
In experiments on mice he was able to stop the tumour from growing and double their chances of survival after just one treatment in the laboratory.
The new treatment involves injecting a chemical, nitrobenzaldehyde, into the tumour and allowing it to diffuse into the tissue.

Prof Gdovin then aims a beam of ultraviolet light at the cancerous cells causing them to become very acidic and, essentially, commit suicide.


Cancer cells
The treatment is meant to target 95% of cancer cells in just two hours

Within two hours, he estimates up to 95 per cent of the targeted cancer cells are dead.

Prof Gdovin, of the University of Texas at San Antonio, said: “Even though there are many different types of cancers, the one thing they have in common is their susceptibility to this induced cell suicide.”

He added: “All forms of cancer attempt to make cells acidic on the outside as a way to attract the attention of a blood vessel, which attempts to get rid of the acid.

“Instead, the cancer latches onto the blood vessel and uses it to make the tumour larger and larger.”

Chemotherapy treatments target all cells in the body, and certain therapeutics try to keep diseased ones acidic as a way to kill them.


Breast cancer cell
The method is more precise than chemotherapy and can target just the tumour

This is what causes many patients to lose their hair and become sickly. Prof Gdovin’s method is more precise and can target just the tumour.

In the past two years, he’s developed his ‘photodynamic’ therapy to the point where it is non invasive.

It now requires just an injection of the nitrobenzaldehyde fluid followed by a flash of an ultraviolet light to cause the cancer killing reaction.

He has now begun to test the method on drug resistant cancer cells to make his therapy as strong as possible.

It could also help people who have received the maximum amount of radiation and can no longer cope with the scarring and pain that goes along with it, or children who are at risk of developing mutations from radiation as they grow older.

The new treatment could make us less dependent on chemotherapy
Added Prof Gdovin: “There are so many types of cancer for which the prognosis is very poor. We are thinking outside the box and finding a way to do what for many people is simply impossible.”

Meanwhile, other scientists have claimed deadly toxin anthrax might hold the key to fighting cancer.

Researchers discovered that combining anthrax proteins with chemotherapy drugs could eliminate or reduce tumours.

Using mice, the team from National Institutes of Health , found that engineered proteins from anthrax target the cells that line the inner walls of the blood vessels feeding the tumour.

However on their own they produce an immune response but to get around this they were combined with chemotherapy drugs.

The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that this produced "durable, anti-tumour effects worthy of further exploration",
Source: Mirror UK

Boleh komen sikit Dr.
@ipes2

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Good story; however, we hear stories like this very frequently; it is a very big journey from the bench to bedside. Watch this space, is all we can say  Post time 9-9-2016 03:09 AM

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Post time 26-9-2016 06:09 PM From the mobile phone | Show all posts
..good..hehe...
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