A new study using mastectomy tissue shows that precancerous changes can occur in normal-appearing areas of the breast as distant as two inches from a tumor’s edge. The findings, while preliminary, might have important implications for identifying breast-cancer patients at high risk of a second tumor in the same breast.
Using a new and dramatically effective treatment approach, scientists at the Scripps Research Institute have for the first time achieved complete inhibition of new blood vessel growth in animal models of a highly vascular brain tumor and of neovascular eye diseases with little or no effect on normal tissue vasculature.
By all expectations, it shouldn’t have worked as well as it did. A combination of bone marrow transplantation and gene therapy greatly lengthened the lives of laboratory mice doomed by a rapidly progressing, fatal neurodegenerative disorder also found in people.
Preliminary research indicates that several specific genetic alterations are associated with the development of smoking-related head and neck skin cancers, according to a report in the Jan. 10 issue of JAMA.
A simple blood test for the protein NT-proBNP accurately predicts the risk of heart attack, heart failure, stroke and death in patients with known cardiovascular disease, according to a study led by a researcher at the San Francisco VA Medical Center.
Thai researchers have discovered that patients who fail treatment with a commonly used, inexpensive, first-line antiretroviral therapy (ART) are also usually resistant to other, similar drugs, leaving progressively fewer options for replacement therapies. Since catching treatment failure early is key to preventing further resistance, this research, published in the February 1 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases also argues for greater access in the developing world to tests that detect when the amount of virus in a patient’s blood is increasing.
A preliminary study suggests there may be hope in the offing for some sufferers of chronic fatigue syndrome with a new therapy being tested by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
An inexpensive tracing agent used in combination with ultrasound can pinpoint how effectively drugs targeting pancreatic cancer work, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have demonstrated for the first time.
University of Pittsburgh investigators have successfully prevented the onset of type 1 diabetes in mice prone to developing the disease using an antibody against a receptor on the surface of immune T-cells. According to the investigators, these findings, which are being published in the January issue of the journal Diabetes, have significant implications for the prevention of type 1 diabetes.
A quarter of men with testicular cancer banked their sperm before treatment, but only six percent of those used the sperm to father a child. Men who banked their sperm averaged 26 — 10 years younger than those who didn’t — and were more than twice as likely to be single. As most men treated for testicular cancer are young, and survival rates exceed 90 percent, post-treatment fertility is an important issue, say researchers.