Oncology

Oncology / Cancer Doctors and Stories

Fruit Chemical Shrinks Tumors

A compound found naturally in fruits like mangoes, grapes and strawberries has been discovered to dramatically fight malignancies.

Research recently done at Hong Kong University shows that the chemical lupeol sharply decreases tumor size and suppresses metastasis, the blood-borne spread of cancer from one part of the body to another. Lupeol has these effects, the study showed, while having no unhealthy impact on surrounding tissue or other organs in the body - something that's often not the case with conventional chemotherapy.

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Acupuncture Outperforms Drugs on Hot Flashes

Acupuncture does as well and is longer-lasting than drug therapy in handling the hot flashes and sweating that afflicts 80 percent of women who are treated for breast cancer, according to recent research.

In addition, the study showed, treatment with acupuncture engenders none of the nasty side effects associated with conventional drugs. In fact, it produces some very attractive benefits, including a greater sense of well-being, increased energy, and, occasionally, a higher sex drive.

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Saving Bone Cancer Patients' Limbs

Bone cancer is rare, but up till recently if it was diagnosed in a limb, it almost certainly meant an amputation.

But that has changed with the advent of internal prosthetics that can replace the diseased bone. Surgeons can now reconstruct a bone with prosthetics if a malignancy is not wrapped around blood vessels.

Dr. James Wittig of New York City's Mt. Sinai Medical Center says that, these days, 95 percent of patients with bone sarcomas, which comprise less than 1 percent of all cancers, can have their limbs saved. But some bone cancer sufferers may still be having amputations due to ignorance of the technology.

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Hypnosis Helps Control Hot Flashes

Hot flashes can make life hell for women going through menopause. And they'e especially torturous for those who are being treated for, or who have just finished treatment for, breast cancer.

So the federal government funded a five-week study at Baylor University in which 51 survivors of breast cancer were divided into two groups - one of 26 women who were given about an hour of hypnosis five times a week, and another of 25 women who served as a control group. All of the women had no further sign of cancer and were experiencing up to 14 daily hot flashes - in which a woman's heart rate skyrockets, she goes into a sweat, and then is racked by the chills.

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Can Ginseng Fight Cancer?

In a new research effort, a University of Chicago team will investigate to what extent ginseng can kill cancer cells and will identify the herb's active biochemicals that may be responsible.

In another project, the researchers will undertake to learn how ginseng extracts may alter tumor cells' gene expression. And in a third study, they will focus on how ginseng affects the intracellular signals that determine cell growth and death.

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Blocking a Protein Halts Tumor Growth

Ovarian tumors seem to thrive in the presence of high levels of a protein known as TG2, short for tissue type transglutaminase. And the more advanced they are, the more TG2 there is. But blocking production of the protein in mice reverses the tumors' growth.

In fact, researchers at the University of Texas' M.D. Anderson Cancer Center found that ovarian tumors, even in their advanced stages, could be shrunk by an average of 86 percent if a biochemical known as siRNA (a tiny strand of ribonucleic acid incorporated in small fat particles injected intravenously) was used together with the chemotherapy drug docetaxel.

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Radiation Increases Breast Cancer Risk in Some

A study on breast cancer patients has found that those below age 45 who get radiation treatments are far more likely to contract cancer in the other, or contralateral, breast. The risk was discovered to be especially higher in women with breast cancer in their family history.

The researchers studied some 7,000 women who had been less than 71 years of age when they were diagnosed. All were one-year survivors of breast cancer, and were treated from 1970-86 in the Netherlands.

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Two Markers Found for Prostate-Cancer Deadliness

Investigators have found that men who are or have been overweight or who have high insulin levels are more likely to die from prostate cancer.

The discovery of these two predictors is important, because doctors now have two crucial clues as to which patients will develop the most life-threatening tumors and therefore which to treat most aggressively.

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An Alternative, Ethical Source for Stem Cells

A new source of stem cells could be as good as embryonic stem cells for researching and developing treatments for a range of serious diseases, and without the ethical implications of embryonic stem cells. Scientists from Germany and the UK have discovered this new source: routine biopsies of men's testicles.

Stem cells from embryos have the potential to become any cell in the body, since a whole person grows from a single fertilized egg. But ethical issues arise because extracting stem cells requires the destruction of embryos.

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New Boon for Pancreatic Cancer Patients

A new drug therapy that annihilates the blood vessels that grow to feed malignant tumors is showing considerable promise in increasing the longevity of patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer.

Recent research, led by Matthias Löhr of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, shows that a drug called EndoTAG-1 (chemical name: cationic lipid complexed paclitaxel), when infused with gemcitabine, can substantially extend life. In his study involving 200 subjects with pancreatic adenocarcinoma, Löhr treated half of them, the control group, with gemcitabine alone.

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