Unique Screening for Breast Cancer

I have often thought about how painful the test for detecting breast cancer is going to be. I know the pain will be worth it. But sometimes the pain is what keeps women from being tested, however, what if there was a painless way to detect breast cancer?  Looking at cancer news, a story from Louisville Kentucky writes about BRAS Thermography it is a screening with a highly sensitive camera. This camera uses thermography to detect what is coming off of the body. There is no radiation, no pain or compression. This screening takes 10 to 15 minutes and the results can be seen right away for the doctors to interpret the picture. The doctor looks for amount and type of inflammation and the asymmetry in the breast to detect if there is any growth. Of course pairing this with annual mammogram will help patients to have early detection.

 

This advancement is not recognized by the American Medical Association, but do you think it should be? Would you want to pair this will mammogram or just trust the thermograph itself?

 

Here is the story if you would like to read it:

http://www.wdrb.com/story/23799469/unique-screening-to-help-detect-breast-cancer

Vitamin Supplements Linked to Breast Cancer

My mom is very interested in what type of supplements can be used to help with the chances of surviving cancer. She asked me to look up herbal supplements that are under study for helping cancer patients survive; well I have finally found where there is a study linking breast cancer survival and vitamin supplements.

 

This study is not saying if you are developing breast cancer and you take multivitamin you are cured, but a link is seen that women who took multivitamin before they developed breast cancer have a 30% lower mortality rate. This study is involves vitamin D, which is related to a similar report that vitamin D has been found to lower the risk of breast cancer. The effect the vitamin D has to guard against the breast cancer is still unknown. Most studies that are done on this subject have not been to clinical trial but in an epidemiologic investigation. To have proof, clinical results are needed.

 

Another study done on older men who received vitamins experienced an 8% lower rate of most forms of cancer. This did not have any reduction in prostate cancer.

 

This study is different from another study stating that older women who took daily vitamin supplements had an increase risk of dying of cardiovascular disease and cancer. They say that the study is different simply by the fact that this study is based on women who already have cancer.

 

Based on the information from both studies, does this encourage you to take vitamin supplements? Do you think taking vitamin supplements will increase your longevity or decrease your risk of dying of cancer?

 

Here is the story if you would like to read it:

http://www.turnto23.com/news/breast-cancer-survival-vitamin-supplements-link-found-study-says-102013

Way to tell kids that sunscreen is a superhero against cancer

We all have heard either from our parents and/or grandparents don’t forget to put on sunscreen. What if they told us that sunscreen shields superhero genes that protect us from getting cancer, would that change your mind and apply sunscreen?

Queensland University of Technology did the world’s-first human study on the impact of sunscreen at the molecular level. It was found that sunscreen provides 100 % protection against all three forms of skin cancer and shields the p53 gene that prevents cancer.  If our skin is sun burned regularly, the p53 mutates and can no longer do its job. This study was done with proper supplication of SPF 30+ sunscreen.

Fifty-seven people underwent a series of skin biopsies to determine the molecular changes of the skin before and after UV exposure, some had sunscreen and others did not. After 24 hours where the sunscreen had been applied there was no DNA change to the skin. The skin could have been red but there has to be a change to the molecular structure to enhance cancer development. The molecular responses to UV expose can now be used to investigate post-sun treatments to assist in repair of sun damaged.

Most people think that they don’t burn and don’t need sunscreen but by reading this would they now use sunscreen? Does this change your mind on how you apply sunscreen? If you don’t use sunscreen will you start?

Here is the article if you would like to read it:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131008102551.htm

Just a Hint for New Treatments

In honor of breast cancer awareness month, here is another article on breast cancer. This article focuses on new models of drug-resistance breast cancer to hint at better treatments.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine are transplanting breast tumors into mice; this proved that mice are excellent models of metastatic cancer. Since mice are excellent models, they can be used to search for better treatments in cancer. The tumors that are transplanted maintain the genetic errors that cause the cancer and be help identify the drivers of the tumor growth.

The cells are taken from the patients and are grown in a mouse that has no immune system. The tumors that are growing in the mouse are similar to the cancer that is in the patient. The study differs from others by first sequencing the whole genomes of the patient’s and the mouse’s tumor to identify how closely the tumor resemble each other. This helps to identify new mutations that might appear to drive a strong drug resistance exhibited of the tumors. Most of the mutations are found in the estrogen receptor.

Over the years patients who have stopped responding to anti-hormonal agents have changes in the estrogen receptor. Estrogen receptor positive breast cancer is resistant to standard treatment and is driven by presence of estrogen. Researchers are hoping to have a clinical test that will tell patients if the estrogen receptor is mutated. This study is a good start for designing cures for metastatic breast cancer.

I know there are a lot of debates on using animals as test subjects, but is this study so bad? Would you agree with it, if it showed a possible cure for breast cancer?

Here is the article for information on this study: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-09-drug-resistant-breast-cancer-hint-treatments.html

Treatment Before You Go Under

Since it is Breast Cancer awareness month, I wanted to look up breast cancer research news. Most of what popped up was how to be aware if you had breast cancer, however this one article stood out to me “FDA Approves Using Perjeta Before Surgery to Treat High-Risk HER2-Positive Breast Cancer.” I work in a lab that does drug trial testing and I know it take a lot of studies to get the FDA to approve medications and treatments, so I had to look into this.

 

September 30, 2013 the FDA approved Perjeta with combination of Herceptin and Taxotere to be used to treat HER2-postitive, early-stage, inflammatory or locally advanced-stage breast cancer. This combination is given before surgery neoadjuvant (treatment given before a big treatment) treatments. This is the first and only neoadjuvant regimen that has been approved by the FDA to treat breast cancer. The effectiveness of the treatment given before surgery is based on how many active cancer cells. If there are no cancer cells present, then it is less likely that the cancer will come back.

 

Some of you might be wondering what HER2-postitive means, I had the same question. Her2-positive breast cancer is where there are too many copies of the HER2/neu gene. If there are too many copies of this gene, there is too much HER2 protein and therefore it causes breast cancer. The HER2-positive breast cancer is more aggressive than the  HER2-negative. Treatments such as  Herceptin and Perjeta block the cancer cell’s ability to receive growth signals.

 

With any drug there are always side effects, this drug combination has some severe side effects such as effecting heart function or developing heart failure. When receiving these medicines your heart function is evaluated. There are also common side effects i.e. hair loss, diarrhea, nausea and low white blood cell count.

 

If you were diagnosed with HER2-positive, early-stage, locally advanced or inflammatory breast cancer would you risk the side effects and take this drug? Does it help that the FDA has approve of this combination? Or does it worry you that sometimes the FDA retracts their approvals? There has been studies done with this drug but is that enough for you believe these treatments work?

 

Here is the link to the article if you would like to read more in depth of this drug:

http://www.breastcancer.org/research-news/20131004-2

 

Wine That Helps Kill Cancer

This topic, which one of my best friends thought I would enjoy, discusses using modified forms of red wine to help kill cancer cells. I enjoy a glass of wine here and there, but modifying to help kill cancer cells, I had to read into this one.

 

Sixty volunteers ingested a half gram of resveratrol (a modified form of red wine compound) a day, their bodies quickly created metabolized forms.The resveratrol sulfates were the most common metabolites found in the blood and intestinal tissue samples from these volunteers. It is thought that the proteins in the cell membranes help the resveratrol sulfates into the cells.  In an experiment with mice, researchers found that the sulfate metabolites in the cell will transform back into the resveratrol, which unleashes the chemical’s anticancer activity. The sulfate form was then tested in human cells. The reformed resveratrol killed cancerous cells but left other cells alone. This could be useful for treating cancer.

 

The use of resveratrol to fight cancer has only been suggested and has not gone into a big study. Would you think this would be a good study to look into for cancer research? Researchers never suggested what type of cancer cells it help kill, so would it be worth checking out? Or do you think this would be a lost cause using natural treatments or should we spend more time on synthetic treatments that may work faster?

 

Here is the article if you would like to look into this: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/altered-wine-chemical-helps-kill-cancer

Glowing Dye Technique

This may not come as a surprise, but this is yet another blog on cancer. This article peaked my interest, because my Dad had surgery to remove his kidney due to his stage 4 kidney cancer. If you have been keeping up with my blogs, you know that both of my parents are cancer survivors so, there is no sad blogs here.

In the UK, kidney or renal cancer is the 8^th most common cancer, so a new method has been hailed a surgery success. This method is using a glowing dye technique to highlight the healthy part of the kidney as well as the blood vessels. This allows surgeons to see the entire tumor and enable complete removal of the tumor through a keyhole surgery. This type of surgery saves as much healthy kidney tissues as possible. This procedure is only three hours and is cost effective.  The hospital plans on undertaking more operations using this dying technique.

My Dad had to have his kidney removed during his procedure, however if doctors in the US were able to utilize this technique, he may have not lost his kidney. Also, this procedure allows patients to have a less recovery time. My Dad was in the hospital for days and was on bed rest for most of his stay. Knowing my Dad, he would have loved this surgery, so he would be able to  quickly, return to his very active life.

Hopefully this technique will become more of a success in the UK and possibly come to the United States.  If this technique was to come over to the United States, the questions that come up are, would this be a surgery someone would consider? Would this risk be lower than a full kidney removal? Would you take the risk and try this surgery if it meant you could keep a kidney?   In this article, they did not mention any down falls of this surgery but, there are always risks involved.   

Here is the article if you would like to look into this study:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/09/15/kidney-cancer-new-method-glowing-dye-success_n_3931153.html