Tumors have a unique vulnerability that can be exploited to make them more sensitive to heat and radiation, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report.
The Washington University radiation oncology researchers found that tumors have a built-in mechanism that protects them from heat (hyperthermia) damage and most likely decreases the benefit of hyperthermia and radiation as a combined therapy.
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This research study led by Dr. Javed Yakoob from Aga Khan University, Karachi, has determined that a gastric juice polymerase chain reaction test for the diagnosis of Helicobacter pylori infection has greater sensitivity compared to histology when commonly used potent acid-reducing drugs such as proton pump inhibitors are being used. The use of the gastric juice PCR test can be recommended to confirm H. pylori status in patients taking PPIs.
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Scientists at UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara and MIT have developed nanometer-sized “nanoworms” that can cruise through the bloodstream without significant interference from the body’s immune defense system and—like tiny anti-cancer missiles—home in on tumors.
Their discovery, detailed in this week’s issue of the journal Advanced Materials, is reminiscent of the 1966 science fiction movie, the Fantastic Voyage, in which a submarine is shrunken to microscopic dimensions, then injected into the bloodstream to remove a blood clot from a diplomat’s brain.
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A specially coated metal tube, no larger than a cigarette, could be the key to developing an artificial pancreas to help millions of people with diabetes avoid insulin injections, according to an article scheduled for the May 5 issue of Chemical & Engineering News.
Using a combination of a targeted cancer-fighting agent called DFMO and a low dose of an anti-inflammatory drug, UC Irvine researchers have reduced the risk of reoccurring colorectal polyps, an early sign of colon cancer, by as much as 95 percent with fewer toxic side effects.
The study marks a breakthrough in the effort to combat colon cancer, the third leading cause of cancer in men and fourth in women, according to Dr. Frank L. Meyskens Jr., the Daniel G. Aldrich Chair at UC Irvine and director of its Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.
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Hormones produced by the heart eliminated human pancreatic cancer in more than three-quarters of the mice treated with the hormones and eliminated human breast cancer in two-thirds of the mice, according to researcher David Vesely, a doctor at the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa and a professor at the University of South Florida (USF).
The lesson learned in eradicating dandelions from your yard could apply in treating breast cancer as well, said researchers from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston in a report that appears online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
“It’s not enough to kill the dandelion blossom and stalk that appear above ground,” said Dr. Michael Lewis, assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology and a faculty member in the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Cancer Center at BCM. “You have to kill the root beneath the soil as well.”
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