Two Hundred Years of Cancer Research — NEJM
Two Hundred Years of Cancer Research — NEJM
Excellent article from NEJM; the full article available at above link.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Study Divides Breast Cancer Into Four Distinct Types - NYTimes.com
More Breast Cancer Treatments Hinted in Study - NYTimes.com: "In findings that are fundamentally reshaping the scientific understanding of breast cancer, researchers have identified four genetically distinct types of the cancer. And within those types, they found hallmark genetic changes that are driving many cancers.
These discoveries, published online on Sunday in the journal Nature, are expected to lead to new treatments with drugs already approved for cancers in other parts of the body and new ideas for more precise treatments aimed at genetic aberrations that now have no known treatment.
The study is the first comprehensive genetic analysis of breast cancer, which kills more than 35,000 women a year in the United States. The new paper, and several smaller recent studies, are electrifying the field.
“This is the road map for how we might cure breast cancer in the future,” said Dr. Matthew Ellis of Washington University, a researcher for the study."
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Who Fights Cancer In A Lockout? | Overtime
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| English: Mario Lemieux at the HSBC Arena in Buffalo. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Who Fights Cancer In A Lockout? | Overtime:
Excerpt:
"Ingenuity brought Gleevec to life, but money was a key player. It didn’t buy a cure, it bought the many expenses associated with getting there.
Organization or industry-led fundraising initiatives against cancer or any disease generally come from personal exposure. The most obvious example for hockey fans is the Mario Lemieux Foundation. Mario created the Foundation in 1993, the same year he was diagnosed with early-stage Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the same year he was cured of Hodgkin’s by radiotherapy, and the same year he won the Art Ross Trophy by scoring 39-65-104 points in 40 games before his diagnosis and 30-26-56 points in the 20 games following treatment.
The contributions made to the fight against cancer by the Mario Lemieux Foundation over the past 20 years are by any measure extraordinary, but arguably the most extraordinary is yet to come. The Mario Lemieux Center for Blood Cancers at the Hillman Cancer Center is scheduled to open this winter. It will change the otherwise complicated and frustrating journey of blood cancer patients as profoundly as Mario changed hockey."
Full article link: http://thehockeywriters.com/overtime/the-pink-menace/
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Pain Management - Oncology News Article | Onabotulinumtoxina for treatment of focal cancer pain after surgery and/or radiation |4134185
Pain Management - Oncology News Article | Onabotulinumtoxina for treatment of focal cancer pain after surgery and/or radiation |4134185
Excerpt:
Pain Medicine, 07/17/2012 Clinical Article
Mittal S et al. – Local treatment with onabotulinumtoxinA can significantly reduce pain and improve quality of life in cancer patients suffering from pain in the area of surgery and radiation and was well tolerated in cancer patients.
Methods
Authors studied the effect of onabotulinumtoxinA in seven cancer patients who suffered from severe focal pain (visual analog scale >5) at the site of local surgery or radiotherapy or both.
OnabotulinumtoxinA (20–100 units) was injected into the focal pain areas (skin or muscle or both).
Five of seven patients were followed beyond 1 year (1.5–5 years) with repeat treatment.
Results
All seven patients reported a significant improvement in pain (mean drop in visual analog scale score of 5.1).
They described their response on the patient global assessment as satisfactory (two patients) or very satisfactory (five patients).
Six of seven patients found the pain relief associated with significant improvement in quality of life.
One patient developed weakness of jaw muscles after bilateral masseter injection that was not observed during second injection (reduced dose).
Improvements with treatment persisted with repeat injections during long–term follow–up (five patients). "
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
BBC News - US teen invents advanced cancer test using Google
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| TEDatNewYork_0726_IMG_2149_1920 (Photo credit: TED Conference) |
Excerpt:
"Fifteen-year-old high school student Jack Andraka likes to kayak and watch the US television show Glee.
And when time permits, he also likes to do advanced research in one of the most respected cancer laboratories in the world.
Jack Andraka has created a pancreatic cancer test that is 168 times faster and considerably cheaper than the gold standard in the field. He has applied for a patent for his test and is now carrying out further research at Johns Hopkins University in the US city of Baltimore.
And he did it by using Google.
The Maryland native, who won $75,000 at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in May for his creation, cites search engines and free online science papers as the tools that allowed him to create the test."
'via Blog this'
Friday, August 17, 2012
Hockey, Cancer, and the Chaos of Desperation
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| Leo Tolstoy 1848 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Excerpt:
"Cancer. Cancer is the Word.
In 1886 Leo Tolstoy's novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich was published. To make a short story even shorter, Ivan is a carefree guy until he gets sick. Nobody can or will say what illness he has, but it's clear he's dying. Of the many interpretations of the book's meaning, I find Susan Sontag's to be most compelling: that he has the one disease that has traditionally been such a scourge on humankind that saying the word itself in some cultures is taboo: Ivan has cancer.
Because of the inability or unwillingness of anyone to confront the disease, Ivan dies.
That was a fictional story from 1886.
Here's a real one from 11 August 2012: it is not uncommon for women in the Vietnamese community to die from untreated cancers because of the many taboo associations with the disease. [Loury, Erin. "In Vietnamese community, treating taboos on cancer." Los Angeles Times. ]"
Read full article here.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Pain Medicine News - Is It Time To Change the Way We Report Pain?
Pain Medicine News - Is It Time To Change the Way We Report Pain?
Excerpt:
"A study by the Initiative on Methods, Measurement, and Pain Assessment in Clinical Trials (IMMPACT) found that, in addition to the importance of assessing pain relief and improvement in physical and emotional functioning, a comprehensive outcome measure must also consider changes in “fatigue, sleep, home and family care, social and recreational activities, interpersonal relationships, and sexual activities.”13 In 2005, IMMPACT recommended several core outcome measures to be used in clinical trials14; however, few of these measures were designed specifically to evaluate the efficacy of pain management treatments, or were normed on a pain population (e.g., Beck Depression Inventory, Profile of Mood States, etc.). Casarett et al15 found that in addition to the reduction of pain, patients commonly cited improvement in sleep and increased ability to function as meaningful clinical end points. Moreover, Robinson et al16 found patients considered decreased fatigue, distress and interference as indicators of treatment success.
In response to these concerns, the global pain scale (GPS) was created. The GPS was designed to capture the multidimensionality of pain but also to provide a single score that could be used to track changes (e.g., as the result of a clinical intervention).17 Rooted in the biopsychosocial model, the GPS assesses physical pain, affective effects of pain, specific clinical outcomes, and the degree to which the pain interferes with ADLs.
We believe the GPS can be used as a standardized measure of treatment efficacy. It uniquely tracks clinical outcomes after a pain-relieving treatment has been initiated. The GPS can be administered to the patient in the waiting room and scored by the support staff, thus resulting in a robust assessment of pain in one numerical score that the physician can employ to formulate treatment plans. For research, the GPS can be used to measure pain scores and to follow pain treatment efficacy. The GPS is available free for physicians’ use in their practices or research studies, at http://www.paindoctor.com/global-pain-scale .
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