Medical and Health Congress

Archive for the ‘Cancer’ Category

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Argentina medical issues (EMO), a web space that aims to disseminate information on medical advances, yesterday reported a study of the Hospital Universitario de La Ribera, which has demonstrated the effectiveness of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) the diagnosis of breast cancer, considering that the test has correctly adjust the treatment in one of every five women involved, as reported by the Generalitat Valenciana.

EMO, based on a publication of JANO Spain, relates that the research involved the participation of 465 patient’s alcireño center, who have been studying. Thanks to the study mentioned here, as Manuel Cervera, Minister of Health, has won national awards and international research.

The research was led by the head of the center of Radiology, Dr. Julia Camps, who says that “with MRI is properly adjusted initial therapeutic approach to the specific needs of each patient, ie, the treatment had been decided follow based on the results of ultrasound and mammography, one of five women, representing 21% of cases.”

Hospital Universitario de La Ribera is one of the pioneers in Spain in hospitals routinely use MRI to determine the characteristics of breast tumors, its location and extent, and thus decide the best course of treatment , according to the source.

Dr. Julia Camps relates that once a patient has tested positive breast cancer, through the results of mammography, ultrasound and biopsy techniques, the most important thing is to see what size and tumor extension is because it “is not the same for the surgeon and oncologist cancer measure 1 inch and there is only one focus, or that measures 3 and has more of a focus scattered throughout the breast or even the other breast.”

In this way, it is considered that MRI allows better planning of surgery, as best detected the tumor and the extent, and even detects tumors that might otherwise go unnoticed to mammography or ultrasound. In the study, was taken into account not only the number of women in whom there has been a change in treatment after practicárseles an MRI, but also long-term results in the number of reoperations and recurrences.

Thus, of the women studied had returned to only intervene at the edges of the tumor excised piece affections, to 12% of patients, whereas in the case of women studied with MRI, this percentage tends to increase between 19 % and 25%.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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