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Breakthrough Discovery Offers New Insight Into The Regulation Of Stem Cells And Cancer Cells

By on August 16th, 2011

Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have gained new insight into the delicate relationship between two proteins that, when out of balance, can prevent the normal development of stem cells in the heart and may also be important in some types of cancer.

“The news, being announced in a paper published online in Nature Cell Biology, adds to the understanding of the role of stem cells in embryonic heart development, and how that process could be manipulated to create new heart muscle in the future. This paper also provides another example of how the same signals controlling stem cells in the embryo are those that can cause human cancers, providing new insight into treating this devastating disease.”

“These findings reveal an unexpected cross-talk between two important proteins that together regulate the growth of many types of stem cells, including cardiac stem cells”,” said Deepak Srivastava, MD, senior author and director of Gladstone’s cardiovascular research. “More than 35,000 babies are born each year with congenital heart defects, and there are nearly 5 million adults who suffer from heart failure in the United States. We hope that our research can lead to new hope for all those impacted by these diseases.” …source …more cancer information

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Bladder Cancer Patients Not Receiving Recommended Care, Study Says

By on August 7th, 2011

Watch UCLA researcher Dr. Karim Chamie talk about a Jonsson Cancer Center study that showed nearly all doctors treating bladder cancer patients are not following the recommended care guidelines, which are designed to prevent recurrence of the cancer.

Watch the video. …source … more on Bladder Cancer

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Popular Mammography Tool Not Effective For Finding Invasive Breast Cancer

By on August 4th, 2011

Computer-aided detection (CAD) technology is ineffective in finding breast tumors, and appears to increase a woman’s risk of being called back needlessly for additional testing following mammography, a large UC Davis study has found.
The analysis of 1.6 million mammograms in seven states has delivered the most definitive findings to date on whether the popular mammography tool is effective in helping find breast cancer.
“In real-world practice, CAD increases the chances of being unnecessarily called back for further testing because of false-positive results without clear benefits to women,” said Joshua Fenton, assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Family and Community Medicine. “Breast cancers were detected at a similar stage and size regardless of whether or not radiologists used CAD.”
The study examined screening mammograms performed on more than 680,000 women at 90 mammography facilities in seven U.S. states from 1998 to 2006. The false-positive rate typically increased from 8.1 percent before CAD to 8.6 percent after CAD was installed at the facilities in the study. In addition, the detection rate of breast cancer and the stage and size of breast cancer tumors were similar regardless of CAD. The study, entitled “Effectiveness of Computer-Aided Detection in Community Mammography Practice,” was published online today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and used data from the Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium.
Computer-aided detection software, approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1998, analyzes the mammogram image and marks suspicious areas for radiologists to review. Its use has skyrocketed in recent years since Medicare began covering it in 2001. CAD is now applied to the large majority of screening mammograms in the U.S. with annual direct Medicare costs exceeding $30 million, according to a 2010 study in the Journal of the American College of Radiology. …source …more on breast cancer