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Cancer Overview      
Cancer: Overview, Causes, Risk Factors, Treatment
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[ Date added: 2007-11-11 ]


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Cancer: Overview, Causes, Risk Factors, Treatment
Cancer: Overview, Causes, Risk Factors, Treatment

Ovarian cancer screening popular despite guidelines
Despite expert guidelines and scientific evidence to the contrary, a third of U.S. primary care physicians believe ovarian cancer screening is effective and many would offer it to patients, according to a new survey. Although the results don’t necessarily translate into real practice, that means more than a million women might be offered the tests, which come with a hefty price tag and possible hazards, researchers say. ?Currently the evidence suggests that the harms of ovarian cancer screening exceed the benefits,? said Dr. Laura-Mae Baldwin of the University of Washington in Seattle.
PET Techniques Provide More Accurate Diagnosis, Prognosis in Challenging Brea...
In two new studies featured in the February issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, researchers are revealing how molecular imaging can be used to solve mysteries about difficult cases of breast cancer. One article focuses on an imaging agent that targets estrogen receptors in estrogen receptor?positive breast cancer patients with formerly inconclusive assessments, and the second highlights a different imaging agent?s ability to help predict the prognosis for patients undergoing chemotherapy for a very aggressive type of breast cancer. Conventional imaging and biopsy are not always enough to diagnose and characterize suspected metastatic breast cancers, especially for patients who cannot receive repeated biopsies due to the location of the cancer or other existing illnesses. It is estimated that 75 percent of breast tumors show estrogen receptor activity at the point of diagnosis, and that estrogen receptor expression is an indicator of not only active cancer lesions, but patients? potential response to therapy, as well. Researchers found that whole-body positron emission tomography (PET) with 16a-18F-fluoro-17b-estradiol (18F-FES), a molecular imaging technique, provides an entirely non-invasive means of capturing estrogen receptor expression in estrogen receptor?positive metastatic breast cancer. It has the potential to help physicians make more accurate judgments about extent of disease, specifically whether anti-hormonal therapies would be beneficial for patients who had inconclusive assessments using more conventional methods. 
Three ?Targeted? Cancer Drugs Raise Risk of Fatal Side Effects
-Treatment with three relatively new ?targeted? cancer drugs has been linked to a slightly elevated chance of fatal side effects, according to a new analysis led by scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. They added that the risk remains low, but should be taken into account by physicians and patients. The incidence of fatal complications was 1.5 percent in patients who received any of the three drugs, which block the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) tyrosine kinase receptors in cancer cells, according to the study published February 6 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. This is compared to a 0.7 percent incidence in patients given standard treatments or placebos. The study looked at three drugs: sorafenib (Nexavar), sunitinib (Sutent), and pazopanib (Votrient). Sorafenib is approved to treat kidney and liver cancer, sunitinib to treat kidney cancer and gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST), and pazopanib to treat kidney cancer.
Our Promise to Black Women
When 27-year-old Shaneera made the decision to breastfeed her newly born daughter in August 2007, little did she know that decision to breastfeed would change her life.  Wanting to give her daughter the gift of a good life start, Shaneera was anxious when she felt a lump while nursing. After months of being brushed off by her primary health care provider, multiple referrals to breast surgeons and misdiagnosis, she was finally diagnosed with stage three breast cancer.  In less than three years, on June 23, 2010, Shaneera died of breast cancer. Her husband and now 3-year-old daughter cannot understand what happened. And neither can we at the Black Women?s Health Imperative understand why Black women have not benefited from the progress being made in research and new technologies. Our mission in launching a new educational campaign is to raise questions, seek understanding, and call attention to what is happening to young Black women. This is what we know. We know that although Black women have a lower breast cancer incidence rate than other women, Black women are dying at a significantly higher rate than any other group of women. This fact is more complex than many may think. And most alarmingly, we don?t know why.
Breast cancer kills more black women
Black women are 50 percent more likely than any other racial or ethnic group to die from advanced breast cancer, even if they receive radiation therapy. ?We knew from our earlier study that blacks with advanced breast cancer were less likely to be treated with radiation, so we expected to see that their survival would be poorer because of that,? says Steve R. Martinez, assistant professor of surgical oncology at University of California, Davis. ?We were surprised to find that blacks fare worse regardless of whether they receive radiation therapy and actually appear to be less responsive to one of our most important treatments.?
World Cancer Day Points to Prevention
Health care organizations from around the globe will come together on Saturday, Feb. 4 to promote cancer prevention as part of this year’s World Cancer Day. Approximately one third of cancer deaths worldwide are tied to lifestyle and diet, making them largely preventable. ?Some of the things that we can do for prevention we?ve known about for a long time, but they?re hard to do, like tobacco cessation,? says Judy Garber, MD, MPH, director of the Center for Cancer Genetics and Prevention at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. ?Stopping smoking would have a huge impact on cancer worldwide. And chewing tobacco, which is a lesser problem in the US, is a big problem in places like India, and for World Cancer Day, you have to think broadly about this.? World Cancer Day was started by the International Union Against Cancer, which includes the United Nations and World Health Organization. The goal of the day is to raise cancer awareness around the world and help devise strategies to fight the disease. By highlighting prevention, organizers say people can pinpoint lifestyle choices that put them at greater risk for cancer, such as smoking, excessive alcohol intake and sun exposure.
Cancer Researcher Offer New Hope for Brain Tumor
Jim Black is fighting the meanest, most aggressive, most common kind of brain tumor in the United States: recurrent glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). In the United States, each year, approximately 10,000 patients are affected by GBM. Now, a novel investigational device ? available only at clinical trial sites ? is offering new hope to these patients. The non-invasive procedure ? called Tumor Treating Fields (TTF) ? is delivered using a portable device ? called the NovoTTF-100A System made by Novocure. The TTF procedure uses alternating electrical fields to disrupt the rapid cell division exhibited by cancer cells. ?Patients with recurrent GBM present a significant treatment challenge,? said Santosh Kesari, MD, PhD, director of Neuro-Oncology at UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. ?The initial clinical research for the approval trial demonstrated that, compared to patients who were treated with chemotherapy, patients treated with NovoTTF achieved comparable survival times, had fewer side effects, and reported improved quality of life.?
Balancing oxaliplatin dose with neurological side effects in metastatic colon...
The drug oxaliplatin is a major reason the prognosis for metastatic colon cancer has gone from an expected survival of several months to a couple years. Unfortunately, the drug can also carry with it debilitating neurological side effects, which generally start as the sensation of pins and needles in fingers and toes and can leave patients unable to walk or dress independently. However, ?Many patients don?t receive the necessary dose to try to keep their cancer in check, because their symptoms become too debilitating and their quality of life is reduced,? says Andrew Weickhardt, MD, clinical fellow at the University of Colorado Cancer Center. Weickhardt, along with Keith Wells, MD, and Wells Messersmith, MD, CU Cancer Center investigator and developmental therapeutics program co-leader, recently published a review in the Journal of Oncology that describes how to maximize the positives of this tricky balance between oxaliplatin?s effects and side effects. ?Before, when patients died in a few months, these symptoms were overlooked. Now they’re living two to three years and the symptoms deserve closer attention,? Weickhardt says.
New research confirms need for lung cancer testing
Different kinds of lung cancer behave in different ways, suggesting they are fundamentally different diseases. According to a University of Colorado Cancer Center study published in Cancer, the official journal of the American Cancer Society, different subgroups of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) show distinct patterns of spread in the body. The study looked at 209 patients diagnosed with stage IV non-small cell lung cancer separated into four different molecular subgroups using testing performed by the University of Colorado Molecular Correlates Laboratory (CMOCO): those with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations, v-Ki-ras2 Kirsten rat sarcoma viral oncogene homolog (KRAS) mutations, anaplastic lymphoma receptor tyrosine kinase (ALK) gene rearrangements or a group without any of these abnormalities. ALK positive lung cancer was strongly associated with cancers that spread to the linings around the heart and lungs (pericardial and pleural disease). Patients with ALK positive NSCLC were also predisposed to develop liver metastases as were those with an EGFR mutation when the different subgroups were compared.
Surgical breast biopsy not overused, study suggests
Contrary to earlier findings, surgical breast biopsies may not be as overused as previously thought, according to a study in the February issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology. Surgical breast biopsies are more invasive than needle biopsies, requiring an incision and the use of general anesthesia. Results from a previous study in 2011 in a surgical journal suggested that surgery is used for 30 percent of breast biopsies, an excessive number. However, in response, the authors of this JACR article thought that the reported results may overstate the percentage of biopsies performed as surgical biopsies. As a result, they sought to more accurately assess the use of needle biopsy compared with surgical biopsy. The nationwide Medicare Part B databases for 2004 to 2009 were used during the study. Trends in use of codes for five different types of breast biopsies, including needle biopsy with imaging, needle biopsy without imaging and surgical biopsy were determined. 
Breast Cancer Surgery Rules Are Called Unclear
Nearly half of women who had lumpectomies for breast cancer had second operations they may not have needed because surgeons have been unable to agree on guidelines for the most common operation for breast cancer, a new study finds. It also hints that some women who might benefit from further surgery may be missing out on it. Rates of repeat surgery can vary widely by doctor, from zero percent to 70 percent, according to the study. The additional operations are done when pathology reports on tumor specimens suggest that the first operation may have left behind some cancer cells. But surgeons differ when it comes to interpreting those reports. 
Women not following through with recommended breast screening MRI
A study of 64,659 women, recently published in the journal Academic Radiology, found that while 1,246 of these women were at high enough breast cancer risk to recommend additional screening with MRI, only 173 of these women returned to the clinic within a year for the additional screening. “It?s hard to tell where, exactly, is the disconnect,? says Deborah Glueck, PhD, investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and associate professor of biostatistics and informatics at the Colorado School of Public Health, the paper?s senior author. But no matter the disconnect, the result is clear: women who should be getting breast screening MRI are not. Along with her PhD student, John Brinton, Glueck got interested in the data of MRI breast screening soon after the 2007 recommendation by the American Cancer Society that women at elevated lifetime risk for developing breast cancer be screened with MRI in addition to yearly mammograms. In fact, despite most major health insurances offering coverage, few clinics put the recommendation into practice.
Type of Anesthesia May Affect Recurrence Risk after Liver Cancer Procedure
For patients undergoing a minimally invasive treatment for liver cancer, the risk of recurrent cancer appears lower with general anesthesia compared to regional (epidural) anesthesia, reports a study in the February issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS). That?s in contrast to studies of other types of cancer, which have found lower recurrence rates when cancer surgery is performed using regional anesthesia. ?The benefit of regional anesthesia on cancer recurrence, to the extent that it exists, may depend on the specific tumor type,? according to the new study, led by Dr Renchun Lai of Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center, Guangzhou, China. General Anesthesia May Lower Recurrence Rate for HCC? The researchers evaluated the effects of type of anesthesia on recurrence risk in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common type of liver cancer. The patients underwent a nonsurgical procedure called percutaneous radiofrequency ablation (RFA), in which a small probe is placed into the liver to destroy cancers using radiofrequency waves.
Gene Linked to Pancreatic Cancer Growth
A mutant protein found in nearly all pancreatic cancers plays a role not only in the cancer?s development but in its continued growth, according to a new study from University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers. The finding suggests a possible target for developing new ways to treat this deadly disease. Researchers have known that mutations in the Kras gene are what cause pancreatic cancer to develop. These mutations are frequently seen in common precancerous lesions, suggesting it has an early role in pancreatic cancer. The new study, published in the February Journal of Clinical Investigation, finds that in mice, mutant Kras also keeps the tumor growing and helps precancerous tumors grow into invasive cancer. When the researchers turned off Kras, the tumors disappeared and showed no signs of recurring.
Cancer Patients Pain Can Be Helped By Psychosocial Interventions
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center, who teamed with colleagues at five universities around the United States, analyzed past studies of cancer-related pain reduction and found that psychosocial interventions can have a beneficial effect on cancer patients? pain severity. They also found that certain psychosocial interventions provide better pain management and are effective in reducing the degree to which pain related to cancer and its treatment interferes with patients? lives.  Their analysis was published in a recent online issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. ?Pain is one of the most common, burdensome and feared symptoms experienced by patients with cancer,? said Paul B. Jacobsen, Ph.D., associate center director for Moffitt?s Division of Population Science. ?Our study looked at randomized, controlled studies of psychosocial interventions for pain published between 1966 and 2010 in which pain was measured as an outcome in adults with cancer, or in adults undergoing procedures to diagnose cancer.?

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