News on Breast cancer.Useful.
Story:
Scientists have identified an enzyme that is crucial for turning breast tissue into tumours, according to a study published in the journal Cell.
The Institute of Cancer Research says blocking the enzyme lysyl oxidase (LOX) reduced the size and frequency of tumours in mice.
They say LOX stiffens collagen, a major component of the supportive tissue in the breast.
A cancer charity said the study added to knowledge about how tumours develop.
The supportive tissue surrounding cancer cells is shaped differently to healthy tissue as well as being stiffer and more fibrous.
These properties have helped doctors to detect breast cancers, but until now scientists have not known what was causing these changes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8369377.stm
Tag: cancer cure
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Breast cancer study ‘identifies tumour-causing enzyme’-BBC.
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Do Yearly Mammograms Save Women’s Lives?
Please note that apart from smoking, there is not much one can do about prevention of Cancer.
Even Smoking is linked to Cancer by the logic that the percentage of people who have cancer are smokers, are higher than those who do not smoke.
Strictly speaking in logical terms this is not correct.
Any way this is the other side of the problem.
Following is another view point on efficacy of mammography.
Story:
These six independent groups — located at academic medical centers — were comprised of researchers from CISNET, the National Cancer Institute-funded Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network. Each group used their own model to examine 20 screening strategies with different starting and stopping ages and intervals. Modeling estimates the lifetime impact (outcomes including benefits and harms) of breast cancer screening mammography.Their findings were remarkably consistent. In the Times article, Donald A. Berry, a statistician at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and head of one of the modeling groups says, “The models were the only way to answer questions like how much extra benefit do women get if they are screened every year.”
‘We said, essentially with one voice, very little,” Dr. Berry said. “So little as to make the harms of additional screening come screaming to the top.”
In fact, the CISNET analysis showed that screening every other year in women over 50 maintains almost all of the benefit of annual screening with only half the number of false-positives.
To summarize their other findings, the task force panel determined that the “harms” or risks of yearly mammography screening for women under 50 outweighed its benefits. These risks include anxiety, false positives that lead to surgical biopsies and over-diagnosis (and over-treatment) of precancerous lesions that would never progress or might disappear on their own. The group found that in women 40-49, 1,904 women must be screened for 10 years before one cancer death is prevented. That ratio drops to 1 death prevented for 1,300 women age 50-59 screened, and 1 for 377 for women 60 to 69 years old.
I’ve written about the overuse of mammography and the many studies that back up the task force’s recommendations here and here in previous posts. It’s an issue that has gained traction in recent months, and despite rejection of the new recommendations by some prominent cancer groups, there are others, like the National Breast Cancer Coalition, who support them — or at least see the guidelines as important tools for helping women make informed decisions about their care. They are too important to be shrugged off as outliers.
The massive campaign to screen early and screen regularly has become so much a part of our culture that it is very difficult to accept an alternative view. Change will not come easily — and by necessity, it must be gradual. Women have been told for the last 20 years that they should have yearly mammograms starting at age 40. They have been told by countless magazine articles and public health campaigns to conduct self-exams in the shower — another screening technique the Preventative Task Force no longer recommends.
Through all of these entreaties — along with the powerful anecdotes from survivors who credit mammography with saving their lives — women have been made to believe that screening is the same as prevention. Those ideas are hard to dislodge, says Nancy Berlinger, a research scholar at The Hastings Center who has written about comparative effectiveness studies and cancer treatment. “Apart from not smoking, there are not a lot of things you can do to prevent cancer. The idea of a test like mammography as a kind of safety belt, something that provides personal protection against cancer, is very strong.” The worry, she says, is that if you take away mammograms, “you leave nothing but fear in its place.
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/144053/do_yearly_mammograms_save_women’s_lives/ -
Cancer Cure in Amazon?
Nature, in its bounty, has cures for all illnesses. Diligence is required along with greater understanding of indigenous medicines and respect for age old cures practiced the world over.
Story:
SAO SEBASTIAO DE CUIEIRAS, Brazil (Reuters) – The task of harvesting the secrets of Brazil’s vast Amazon rain forest that could help in the battle against cancer largely falls to Osmar Barbosa Ferreira and a big pair of clippers.In jungle so dense it all but blocks out the sun, the lithe 46-year-old shimmies up a thin tree helped by a harness, a strap between his feet, and the expertise gained from a lifetime laboring in the forest.
A few well-placed snips later, branches cascade to a small band of researchers and a doctor who faithfully make a long monthly trip to the Cuieiras river in Amazonas state in the belief that the forest’s staggeringly rich plant life can unlock new treatments for cancer.
They may be right.
About 70 percent of current cancer drugs are either natural products or derived from natural compounds, and the world’s largest rain forest is a great cauldron of biodiversity that has already produced medicine for diseases such as malaria.
But finding the right material is no easy task in a forest that can have up to 400 species of trees and many more plants in a 2.5-acre (1-hectare) area, and in a country where suspicion of outside involvement in the Amazon runs strong.
“If we had very clear rules, we could attract scientists from all over the world,” said the doctor, Drauzio Varella, with a mix of enthusiasm and frustration. “We could transform a big part of the Amazon into an enormous laboratory.”
As it stands, though, foreigners are barred from helping oncologist Varella and the researchers from Sao Paulo’s Paulista University, who are among a tiny handful of Brazilian groups licensed to study samples from the Amazon.
Varella, 66, believes his high profile has helped. He is a well-known writer and television personality who shot to fame in 1999 with a book and subsequent hit movie based on his work as a doctor in a brutal Sao Paulo prison called Carandiru.
But a move by his team in the 1990s to partner with the U.S. National Cancer Institute produced a storm of accusations of “bio-piracy” and for years it has been blocked from the international cooperation and funding that could increase the chances of finding the Holy Grail of a cancer cure.
Their work has also been regularly delayed by bureaucratic demands, once stopping their collections for two years.
In more than a decade of searching, the group has brought back 2,200 samples from this tributary of the mighty, tea-dark Rio Negro (Black River) to its laboratory in Sao Paulo, of which about 70 have shown some effect against tumors. Just those samples have given the team enough analysis work for 20 years, said Varella, a lanky marathon runner whose younger brother died of cancer.
“If we can find 70, imagine what a big university with international resources could do — they could screen for an absurd amount of diseases,” said Varella, who still spends part of his time treating prisoners in Sao Paulo.
“As well as the impact this could have on human health, it could bring resources for preservation and to improve the quality of life of people who live here.”
Ironically, it was a foreigner who inspired Varella to begin his search. Robert Gallo, a U.S. researcher and leading AIDS expert who co-discovered the HIV virus, asked Varella during a trip to the Amazon in the early 1990s if anyone was researching the medical potential of the forest.
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE5AG00V20091117 -
A Breast Cancer Preview.Dispense with mammography?
Shameful.The Government seems to evaluate results of medical tests on the basis of the confirmation of the disease.Extending the same logic shall we dispense with Doctors if disease diagnosis comes down or when people become healthy?
Story:
A government panel’s decision to toss out long-time guidelines for breast cancer screening is causing an uproar, and well it should. This episode is an all-too-instructive preview of the coming political decisions about cost-control and medical treatment that are at the heart of ObamaCare.As recently as 2002, the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force affirmed its recommendation that women 40 and older undergo annual mammograms to check for breast cancer. Since regular mammography became standard practice in the early 1990s, mortality from breast cancer—the second leading cause of cancer death among American women—has dropped by about 30%, after remaining constant for the prior half-century. But this week the 16-member task force ruled that patients under 50 or over 75 without special risk factors no longer need screening.
So what changed? Nothing substantial in the clinical evidence. But the panel—which includes no oncologists and radiologists, who best know the medical literature—did decide to re-analyze the data with health-care spending as a core concern.
The task force concedes that the benefits of early detection are the same for all women. But according to its review, because there are fewer cases of breast cancer in younger women, it takes 1,904 screenings of women in their 40s to save one life and only 1,339 screenings to do the same among women in their 50s. It therefore concludes that the tests for the first group aren’t valuable, while also noting that screening younger women results in more false positives that lead to unnecessary (but only in retrospect) follow-up tests or biopsies.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704204304574543721253688720.html?mod=djemEditorialPage
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Cancer, The Facts
Facts worth knowing.
Story:
One in three of us will be diagnosed with cancer during our life.The disease tends to affect older people – but can strike at any time.
Excluding certain skin cancers, there were almost 290,000 new cases of the disease in 2005.
Some cancer, such as breast, are becoming more common, while new cases of lung cancer are expected to fall away due to the drop in the number of smokers.
However, while the overall number of new cancers is not falling, the good news is that successful treatment rates for many of the most common types are improving rapidly.
Latest Study:
Latest Figures indicate that the incidence of Cancer is declining marginally.
However, the incidence of Cancer is also rising.
The overall trends in declining cancer death rates continue. However, increases in incidence rates for some HPV-associated cancers and low vaccination coverage among adolescents underscore the need for additional prevention efforts for HPV-associated cancers, including efforts to increase vaccination coverage.
The initial report documented the first steady decline in cancer death rates, beginning in the early 1990s, since national record keeping on vital statistics began in 1930 (1). In addition to providing updates on incidence and mortality patterns, each report features a topic of special interest (2–14). This report features the burden and trends in human papillomavirus (HPV)–associated cancers among persons aged 15 years or older and HPV vaccination coverage levels among adolescents aged 13 to 17 years.
Exposure to HPV is common through sexual contact, and most infections resolve over time. However, persistent infection with oncogenic HPV types is etiologically linked to cervical cancer (15), as well as cancers of the oropharynx (16), anus (17), vagina and vulva (18), and penis (19,20). Virtually all cervical cancers are due to HPV infection, along with 90% of anal cancers, more than 60% of certain subsites of oropharyngeal cancers, and 40% of vagina, vulva, and penile cancers (20). Although there are approximately a dozen oncogenic HPV types, HPV 16 and 18 are the most common HPV types and are found in approximately 70% of cervical cancers. Human papillomavirus 16 is found in approximately 90% of the noncervical cancers often associated with HPV infection (20). Human papillomavirus types 6 and 11 are associated with the development of 90% of anogenital warts (21). Two vaccines (bivalent and quadrivalent) are available to protect against HPV types 16 and 18. Data from clinical trials have shown that both vaccines prevent vaccine type–related cervical precancers (22,23); the quadrivalent vaccine has been shown to also prevent vaginal, vulvar, and anal precancers (24,25). Although data show the vaccines prevent various outcomes, no data are available on the efficacy for prevention of HPV-associated cancers or lesions of the oropharynx. Because HPV 16 is responsible for the majority of HPV-associated cancers (20), the vaccines likely protect against these outcomes. The quadrivalent vaccine also protects against HPV 6 and 11, and clinical trials show the vaccine prevents vaccine type–related genital warts (26). The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommends routine vaccination of girls aged 11 or 12 years with three doses of either vaccine and routine vaccination of boys aged 11 or 12 years with three doses of quadrivalent vaccine (27–29). Vaccination is also recommended for women aged 13 through 26 years and men aged 13 through 21 years who were not vaccinated previously. Men aged 22 through 26 years may also receive the vaccine. The goals of the current vaccination recommendations for adolescents are to prevent persistent HPV infections and the occurrence of anogenital warts beginning in young adulthood and cervical, vaginal, vulvar, and anal cancers that occur later in life. The occurrence of cervical cancer can also be prevented through screening (eg, Papanicolaou [Pap] and HPV testing) (30–32), and Pap testing has contributed to the substantial declines in cervical cancer rates in the United States and other developed countries over the past several decades (33).
For detailed report Link below.
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