Archive for the ‘cancer’ Category
Cancer: The facts
Posted on: April 25, 2008
- In: Bladder cancer | Bowel Cancer | breast cancer | cancer | Cervical | chemotherapy | facts | Leukaemias | Lung Cancer | lymphomas | Ovarian cancer | radiotherapy | Uterine Cancers
- Leave a Comment
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 more than 270,000 new cases of the disease in 2001 – and the rate is increasing by about 1% a year.
Some cancer, such as breast, are becoming more common, while new cases of lung cancer 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.
BBC News Online has produced, in conjunction with Cancer Research UK, a guide to some of the most common forms of cancer and the treatments used to tackle them.
To learn more about different types of cancer, and to read the experiences of patients, click on the links below,
- In: cancer | cells | design | machine | medicine | nano | nanomachines | nanotechnology | research | UCLA
- Leave a Comment
Well, as long as I’m posting about nanotechnology, check this out (Via PhysOrg):
Researchers from the Nano Machine Center at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA have developed a novel type of nanomachine that can capture and store anticancer drugs inside tiny pores and release them into cancer cells in response to light. Known as a “nanoimpeller,” the device is the first light-powered nanomachine that operates inside a living cell, a development that has strong implications for cancer treatment.
The study was conducted jointly by Jeffrey Zink, UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and Fuyu Tamanoi, UCLA professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics. A little further along in the press release:
The pores of the particles can be loaded with cargo molecules, such as dyes or anticancer drugs. In response to light exposure, a wagging motion occurs, causing the cargo molecules to escape from the pores and attack the cell. Confocal microscopic images showed that the impeller operation can be regulated precisely by the intensity of the light, the excitation time and the specific wavelength.
The cells they killed were only in vitro, of course, and there’s the usual caveat:
Tamanoi and Zink say the research represents an exciting first step in developing nanomachines for cancer therapy and that further steps are required to demonstrate actual inhibition of tumor growth.
The accomplishment is detailed in the nanotechnology journal Small. You can find the citation here, but you’ll have to pay to read the article.
And look out for the fine print. One would think that in a nanotechnology journal, it might be very fine indeed.
(Image: Wikimedia Commons.)
- In: breast | cancer | Hormone | recurrence | risk | study | therapy
- Leave a Comment
Hormone replacement therapy, which is known to increase the risk of breast cancer, also appears to make it more likely a tumor will return in women who have had the disease, researchers said on Tuesday.
Women who had earlier had breast cancer were 14 percent more likely to get it again if they used hormone replacement therapy, or HRT, researchers said in the U.S. Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
“The results … indicate a substantial risk for a new breast cancer event among breast cancer survivors using hormone-replacement therapy,” wrote researcher Lars Holmberg and colleagues at Kings College London.
They followed for four years or longer 442 mostly Scandinavian women who had had breast cancer, half of whom had received HRT.
The women were part of a trial stopped in 2003 after concerns about the increased risk of breast cancer recurring for women on hormone therapy.
Volunteers who had received HRT got breast cancer again more than twice as often as women in the other group, amounting to an overall increased risk of 14 percent, the researchers said.
“Our results further suggest that hormone therapy not only induces and promotes breast cancer but may also stimulate the growth of tumor microdeposits in breast cancer survivors,” they wrote.
HRT was popular among menopausal women until 2002, when a major study found that it could raise the risk not only of breast and ovarian cancer, but also strokes and other serious conditions. Continued…
- In: breast | cancer | Hormone | recurrence | risk | study | therapy
- Leave a Comment
Hormone replacement therapy, which is known to increase the risk of breast cancer, also appears to make it more likely a tumor will return in women who have had the disease, researchers said on Tuesday.
Women who had earlier had breast cancer were 14 percent more likely to get it again if they used hormone replacement therapy, or HRT, researchers said in the U.S. Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
“The results … indicate a substantial risk for a new breast cancer event among breast cancer survivors using hormone-replacement therapy,” wrote researcher Lars Holmberg and colleagues at Kings College London.
They followed for four years or longer 442 mostly Scandinavian women who had had breast cancer, half of whom had received HRT.
The women were part of a trial stopped in 2003 after concerns about the increased risk of breast cancer recurring for women on hormone therapy.
Volunteers who had received HRT got breast cancer again more than twice as often as women in the other group, amounting to an overall increased risk of 14 percent, the researchers said.
“Our results further suggest that hormone therapy not only induces and promotes breast cancer but may also stimulate the growth of tumor microdeposits in breast cancer survivors,” they wrote.
HRT was popular among menopausal women until 2002, when a major study found that it could raise the risk not only of breast and ovarian cancer, but also strokes and other serious conditions. Continued…
Valleywag - valleywag.wordpress.com 
Recent Comments