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Today is Thursday, November 20, 2008 |
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When this edition of Words To Live By was originally published, the links below opened active web pages. |
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News Headlines
Preop Biomarkers
Predict Prostate Cancer Relapse Focusing on the Skin and Wrapping it in A Bow A new market has emerged in the field of cancer patient care - skin care. Well it's not really a new market - it's been around for a some time. Radiation therapy usually caused sunburn like skin rashes and chemotherapy can cause sensitive skin patches and dry skin. The new targeted therapies like Erbitux and Tarceva cause acne-like rashes, in fact the more intense the better because that means the drug is working well in the patient's body. But now clever marketers have identified the desire of patients to have products that smell and look nice that specifically address their chemo and radiation related skin discomforts. The New York Times on Thursday reports on the emerging market and the hefty price tag attached to some of these products. You can read the article here. (Requires a free subscription but you can use the cancerpage login.. user id cancerpage. pw is visitor.)Visit some of the product sites: Alra Jeans Cream Lindi Skin Chemo Brain While not everyone is affected by chemo brain to
the same extent or for the same amount of time, researchers at the University of
California reported in 2006 that chemotherapy can cause changes in the brain's
metabolism and blood flow that can last as long as 10 years. Each patient will
experience chemo brain in his or her own unique way; some, thankfully, will not
experience it at all. Bernadine Cimprich, Ph.D., R.N, teaches nursing at the
University Of Michigan School Of Nursing, is a researcher at the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center. Shes been studying chemo brain in patients for years.
She says patients can take steps to help themselves --- Slow down, don't
multi-task, keep distractions down, make lists, take time to observe
nature, exercise and take time for yourself. You can see a presentation of
her work on restoring cognitive function after breast cancer treatment
here.
Ethical
Dilemma Whether gene therapy can cure any of our ills,
including cancer, is yet to be proved. The proof will come from clinical
trials. Ethicists are raising red flags over early-stage gene therapy
research being conducted in low-and middle-income countries. Such
countries, where much of the population is medically deprived, offer
researchers large numbers of valuable test subjects because they haven't been
subjected to a lot of medical treatment. Medical interventions conducted
in treatment-naive populations can be observed on a blank canvas, a tempting
prospect say British and Canadian researchers in an article in this week's issue
of the journal Lancet. Read more about it
here.
In The Lab The body produces it's own terminator cells
that seek out and kill viruses and cancer cells. These natural killer (NK) cells
are turned on by a single protein. Researchers at the Washington
University School of Medicine in Saint Louis report on the properties of one of
those proteins - HS1 - in this week's issue of the journal Nature
Immunology. Mitochondrial Atlas. It looks like Greek to me. But
someone who works in this field might actually get a real "gee wiz" moment when
given the opportunity from Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Broad
Institute to download the database set for the human and mouse Mitochondrial
Atlas. The mitochondria are tiny engines in our cells that are passed down
from our mothers. They perform many crucial jobs. The atlas lists more
than 1,000 proteins that healthy mitochondria use to keep cells running
smoothly. You can read more about and get a link to the
MitoCarta here. Focusing In
There are 5 Proton Beam Therapy Centers in the US and 4 others under
construction. A 5th was approved earlier this week in Royal Oak, Michigan. Proton
beam radiation allows for a more targeted and higher dose of therapy and
conventional external beam radiation.
But the equipment is huge. According to a an article in the
Detroit Free
Press, the facility will be the size of a football field to house
a 222-ton nuclear cyclotron that makes the proton
particles used in the treatment. Proton beam radiation therapy is used to treat head, brain, neck, lung and prostate cancers
and is being studied in the treatment of breast cancer. |
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Words To Live By, is intended for educational purposes only.
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