Aspirin may help colon cancer patients live longer

Adding aspirin to the regular treatment of people whose tumour cells give off a specific antigen, or defence mechanism, may help them to live longer.

Recent research has raised the possibility that low-dose aspirin could add extra years to the lives of colon cancer patients. Now, a new study suggests that only certain patients may gain a survival benefit by taking aspirin after diagnosis.

The study of about 1,000 patients found that people whose tumour cells give off a specific antigen, or defence mechanism, gained most from adding aspirin to their regular treatment.

The findings, published online in JAMA Internal Medicine, aren't conclusive, and patients who develop colon cancer while already taking aspirin may not get any benefit. Also, aspirin, while inexpensive, comes with its own risks.

More research required
Experts asked if colon cancer patients should begin taking aspirin as a result of these findings were divided.

"Absolutely not," said study lead author Dr Marlies Reimers, a doctoral student at Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands. She believes more research is necessary.

But the author of a commentary accompanying the study, Dr Alfred Neugut, said he now plans to recommend aspirin therapy for specific patients.

The study adds to growing evidence that aspirin is helpful for certain colon cancer patients, said Neugut, an oncologist and epidemiologist at Columbia University Medical Centre in New York City.

In his commentary, Neugut writes he himself would add aspirin to his chemotherapy treatment regimen if he had a stage III colon cancer tumour, and he's ready to recommend that patients do, too. Stage III means the cancer has spread to nearby lymph nodes, but has not yet spread to other parts of the body.

Bleeding in the digestive system
Together, this research and other recent studies "paint a very sound picture that warrants a change in standard of care – that aspirin can and should be recommended for use for stage III patients," he said in an interview.

But what about aspirin's well-known risks, especially the possibility of bleeding in the digestive system?

"Stage III patients have a 40 percent to 70 percent chance of dying. I don't think the possibility that 1 percent to 2 percent will have some significant bleeding should deter aspirin's use, given a potential 20 percent to 30 percent improvement in survival," Neugut said.

Aspirin is a "much easier and safer drug than chemotherapy, which we use without reservation," he added.

Neugut said, however, that he doesn't recommend aspirin as a way to prevent colon cancer.

Survival rates notably higher
The study examined tissue samples of 999 patients in the Netherlands who had surgery for colon cancer, mostly stage III or lower. Researchers then compared death rates for patients who were prescribed low-dose aspirin after diagnosis to those without the prescription, which is required in the Netherlands.

The death rate was 38 percent among those who took low (80-milligram) doses of aspirin after diagnosis compared to 49 percent among the non-aspirin users, the study found.

Survival rates were notably higher among aspirin-taking patients whose tumour cells gave off what's called HLA class I antigen – a type of substance that alerts the immune system to defend the body. About two-thirds of 963 patients whose tumours were analyzed fell into this category.

Aspirin had no apparent effect on the other patients who took it, the researchers said.

It's unclear why aspirin might help some colon cancer patients but not others. Reimers said researchers believe aspirin may affect a process involving tumour cells and the components of blood known as platelets.

Effective for other cancers
What's next? Neugut said researchers have launched studies to get a better understanding of aspirin's perceived effect on colon cancer. But the results won't be available for at least 10 years, he noted.

"There is a good chance that aspirin may also prove effective for other cancers in the future," Neugut said, "but there is much less data for any cancer other than colon."

Patients are not routinely tested for HLA class I antigens, but Reimers said it wouldn't be expensive to do so.

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High cholesterol may fuel breast cancer

According to researchers a byproduct of cholesterol functions like the hormone oestrogen to fuel the growth and spread of the most common types of breast cancers.

A byproduct of cholesterol functions like the hormone oestrogen to fuel the growth and spread of the most common types of breast cancers, researchers at the Duke Cancer Institute report.

The researchers also found that anti-cholesterol drugs such as statins appear to diminish the effect of this oestrogen-like molecule.

Published in the edition of the journal Science, the findings are early, using mouse models and tumour cells. But the research for the first time explains the link between high cholesterol and breast cancer, especially in post-menopausal women, and suggests that dietary changes or therapies to reduce cholesterol may also offer a simple, accessible way to reduce breast cancer risk.

"A lot of studies have shown a connection between obesity and breast cancer, and specifically that elevated cholesterol is associated with breast cancer risk, but no mechanism has been identified," said senior author Donald McDonnell, PhD, chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology at Duke. "What we have now found is a molecule not cholesterol itself, but an abundant metabolite of cholesterol called 27HC that mimics the hormone oestrogen and can independently drive the growth of breast cancer."

Oestrogen activity assessment

The hormone oestrogen feeds an estimated 75% of all breast cancers. In a key earlier finding from McDonnell's lab, researchers determined that 27-hydroxycholesterol or 27HC behaved similarly to oestrogen in animals.

For their current work, the researchers set out to determine whether this oestrogen activity was sufficient on its own to promote breast cancer growth and metastasis, and whether controlling it would have a converse effect.

Using mouse models that are highly predictive of what occurs in humans, McDonnell and colleagues demonstrated the direct involvement of 27HC in breast tumour growth, as well as the aggressiveness of the cancer to spread to other organs. They also noted that the activity of this cholesterol metabolite was inhibited when the animals were treated with antiestrogens or when supplementation of 27HC was stopped.

The studies were substantiated using human breast cancer tissue. An additional finding in the human tissue showed a direct correlation between the aggressiveness of the tumour and an abundance of the enzyme that makes the 27HC molecule. They also noted that 27HC could be made in other places in the body and transported to the tumour.

Aromatase inhibitors

"The worse the tumours, the more they have of the enzyme," said lead author Erik Nelson, PhD, a post-doctoral associate at Duke. Nelson said gene expression studies revealed a potential association between 27HC exposure and the development of resistance to the antiestrogen tamoxifen. Their data also highlights how increased 27HC may reduce the effectiveness of aromatase inhibitors, which are among the most commonly used breast cancer therapeutics.

"This is a very significant finding," McDonnell said. "Human breast tumours, because they express this enzyme to make 27HC, are making an oestrogen-like molecule that can promote the growth of the tumour. In essence, the tumours have developed a mechanism to use a different source of fuel."

McDonnell said the findings suggest there may be a simple way to reduce the risk of breast cancer by keeping cholesterol in check, either with statins or a healthy diet. Additionally, for women who have breast cancer and high cholesterol, taking statins may delay or prevent resistance to endocrine therapies such as tamoxifen or aromatase inhibitors.

The next steps for research include clinical studies to verify those potential outcomes, as well as studies to determine if 27HC plays a role in other cancers, McDonnell said.

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Single radiation dose for breast cancer

Some ladies with early breast cancer would possibly benefit from a "one-and-done" treatment, during which they receive one dose of targeted radiation throughout the surgery that removes their neoplasm.
A try of latest studies found that this procedure works concerning additionally as current protocols that need six weeks of daily radiation following surgery.

The new procedure uses miniature devices that deliver radiation on to the positioning of the neoplasm, whereas the positioning remains exposed by surgery following ablation.

"It's right before of the surgeon's and also the radiation oncologist's eyes, thus we will place the beam exactly wherever it's required," aforesaid study author Dr Michael Baum, old professor of surgery and a principal analysis associate at the University school London graduate school. "We will type the cavity to the form of the beam. It's elegant and dead easy."

The procedure conjointly seems safer, in terms of radiation exposure. Fewer ladies who received targeted medical care died throughout Baum's study, an event they chalked up to the patients' a lot of restricted exposure to radiation.

Comparable to commonplace treatment

In Baum's trial, ladies received one dose of radiation for twenty to forty five minutes following surgery. concerning 15 August 1945 of the patients had neoplasm complications that needed them to come for the quality weeks of radiation. However, radiation treatment was completed for the remainder of the ladies, and with cancer repeat rates corresponding to commonplace treatment.

"You will say eightieth or a lot of of those ladies can complete their medical care at the time of surgery," Baum aforesaid.

This medical care may prove a bonus for ladies who sleep in remote areas while not easy accessibility to a radiation centre, Baum said.

He aforesaid these ladies typically ought to bear a full extirpation although they're eligible for breast-saving cancer surgery, just because they cannot create it to the follow-up radiation sessions that may forestall their cancer from continual.

"I suppose this may be a boon for yankee ladies, even if you're a affluent country," Baum aforesaid. "Even for the wealthiest country within the world, there are many ladies living in rural areas who haven't got the choice of travel 2 or 3 hours daily back and forth to a radiation therapy centre. this may hamper on the quantity of mastectomies."

Only sure ladies could profit 

However, solely sure ladies with early-stage carcinoma are ready to profit, noted Dr Stephanie Bernik, chief of surgical medicine at Lenox Hill Hospital, in big apple town.

Women best suited to the procedure are over age forty five, can have little, single tumours, and also the cancer won't have unfold to their bodily fluid nodes, she said.

"In sure carefully elite ladies you can do that, however it doesn't apply to any or all ladies across the board," Bernik aforesaid. "We ought to use caution to not apply this to each cancer patient who comes through the door."

Baum's study was printed on-line within the Lancet. Over a amount of twelve years, his team tracked  one 721 ladies who received radiation medical care throughout their carcinoma surgery and compared their outcomes to those of one 730 ladies who underwent commonplace therapy.

Overall deaths reduced

The researchers found that radiation throughout surgery worked even as well as typical treatment in reducing a woman's five-year risk of carcinoma repeat.

Further, they found that overall deaths were reduced within the cluster that received radiation throughout surgery, only 3.9% compared with five.3% for people who received typical treatment. However, the speed of deaths caused by carcinoma itself was similar in each teams.

"There was an excess of deaths for different causes in ladies receiving whole-breast radiation therapy," Baum aforesaid. "We suppose these area unit the cytotoxic facet effects of radiation therapy to the guts inflicting heart attacks, and radiation inflicting different cancers."

'Boost' of radiation

The second trial, printed within the Lancet medicine, concerned 651 ladies who received radiation following surgery at the eu Institute of medicine in urban center, Italy. This trial used a rather totally different device to deliver radiation on to the neoplasm website.

The women who received the targeted medical care had higher levels of carcinoma repeat – four.4%, versus 0.4% within the comparison cluster that underwent typical medical care.

Despite this, overall five-year survival rates failed to disagree considerably between the 2 teams.

Baum aforesaid researchers next can scrutinize whether or not providing a "boost" of radiation medical care throughout surgery can give advantages to those ladies who can still got to bear weeks of typical therapy. "We suppose the results are considerably higher," he said.

US specialist Bernik predicts that radiation throughout surgery can become a lot of common, however that there area unit several kinks left to figure out.

"This is that the starting of a replacement trend," Bernik aforesaid. "We have lots of labor to try to to to urge to a degree wherever this may be formed."

Applications in Cancer Treatment

A cure for cancer exists through the use of yoga, a San Antonio, Texas, cancer specialist said during a seminar in Oklahoma City in the 1980s.

But physicians refused to acknowledge the cure, said Col. Hansa Raval, M.D., a pathologist with the United States Army. Dr. Raval said her work in cytotechnology _ a diagnostic branch of medicine designed to pinpoint early stages of cancer _ was fruitless until she began researching the use of non-conventional methods of treatment.

The specialist said she witnessed the use of Raja yoga and meditation cure crippling arthritis, headaches and even cancer.

And even though Raval offers proof, which she said was collected during two years of study at the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University in India, she has been dismissed by other members of the medical profession as a kook.

Yoga's success as a treatment method is due to another hypothesis Raval proposes that 98 percent of all cancer is psychosomatic.

This is not chanting or mantra reciting, the physician said. It's not based on scriptures. It's not a cult. It's not biofeedback. It's deeper than that. This is a full-proof method of meditation, a detailed understanding of what the soul is.

Raval maintains that medical schools belittle the study of non-conventional methods of cancer treatment in favor of conventional methods such as radiation, chemotherapy, and treatment through machines.'

Medical schools teach students that the human being is only a body. But the mind has the power to cure the body. By definition, psychosomatic means a combination of mind, or soul and body.

The soul creates the disease, but the body suffers. If the psyche creates the disease, the only way to cure it is through the psyche. It's a very simple formula: treating the seed of the problem.

Further, studies in parapsychology all point to the treatment of illness through treatment of the soul.

The World Spiritual University, which has branches in 30 countries, teaches peace and perfection for health and happiness through the use of Raja yoga. The university gained status as a non-governmental member of the United Nations and has offices at the U.N. building in New York.

Raja yoga teaches students to search their soul world for answers on where they came from and why the cancer entered their body. They learn what role religion, stress, family and lifestyle played in the cancer.

Applications in Cancer Treatment

A cure for cancer exists through the use of yoga, a San Antonio, Texas, cancer specialist said during a seminar in Oklahoma City in the 1980s.

But physicians refused to acknowledge the cure, said Col. Hansa Raval, M.D., a pathologist with the United States Army. Dr. Raval said her work in cytotechnology _ a diagnostic branch of medicine designed to pinpoint early stages of cancer _ was fruitless until she began researching the use of non-conventional methods of treatment.

The specialist said she witnessed the use of Raja yoga and meditation cure crippling arthritis, headaches and even cancer.

And even though Raval offers proof, which she said was collected during two years of study at the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University in India, she has been dismissed by other members of the medical profession as a kook.

Yoga's success as a treatment method is due to another hypothesis Raval proposes that 98 percent of all cancer is psychosomatic.

This is not chanting or mantra reciting, the physician said. It's not based on scriptures. It's not a cult. It's not biofeedback. It's deeper than that. This is a full-proof method of meditation, a detailed understanding of what the soul is.

Raval maintains that medical schools belittle the study of non-conventional methods of cancer treatment in favor of conventional methods such as radiation, chemotherapy, and treatment through machines.'

Medical schools teach students that the human being is only a body. But the mind has the power to cure the body. By definition, psychosomatic means a combination of mind, or soul and body.

The soul creates the disease, but the body suffers. If the psyche creates the disease, the only way to cure it is through the psyche. It's a very simple formula: treating the seed of the problem.

Further, studies in parapsychology all point to the treatment of illness through treatment of the soul.

The World Spiritual University, which has branches in 30 countries, teaches peace and perfection for health and happiness through the use of Raja yoga. The university gained status as a non-governmental member of the United Nations and has offices at the U.N. building in New York.

Raja yoga teaches students to search their soul world for answers on where they came from and why the cancer entered their body. They learn what role religion, stress, family and lifestyle played in the cancer.

Garlic to Ward Off Lung Cancer

Raw garlic has long been recognized as a powerful natural medicine. It has immune-stimulating properties and is an effective antibiotic and antiviral agent that can be used to help address many kinds of infections. It also contains compounds that appear to fight cancer, and helps lower high blood pressure and high cholesterol. The latest on garlic’s health benefits come from a Chinese study showing that eating garlic two or more times per week can cut the risk of lung cancer by 44 percent. Among smokers, garlic consumption reduced the risk by 30 percent. The researchers conducted in-person interviews with 1,424 lung cancer patients and 4,543 healthy people who had completed a standard questionnaire about their eating habits and health, and analyzed this data to reveal the apparent association between garlic and cancer. The compound believed principally responsible for garlic's disease-fighting ability (and pungent smell) is allicin, which is formed from an inactive precursor compound only after garlic is mashed or chopped and exposed to air for at least a few minutes. The Chinese study was published in the July 2013, issue of Cancer Prevention Research.

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Garlic to Ward Off Lung Cancer

Raw garlic has long been recognized as a powerful natural medicine. It has immune-stimulating properties and is an effective antibiotic and antiviral agent that can be used to help address many kinds of infections. It also contains compounds that appear to fight cancer, and helps lower high blood pressure and high cholesterol. The latest on garlic’s health benefits come from a Chinese study showing that eating garlic two or more times per week can cut the risk of lung cancer by 44 percent. Among smokers, garlic consumption reduced the risk by 30 percent. The researchers conducted in-person interviews with 1,424 lung cancer patients and 4,543 healthy people who had completed a standard questionnaire about their eating habits and health, and analyzed this data to reveal the apparent association between garlic and cancer. The compound believed principally responsible for garlic's disease-fighting ability (and pungent smell) is allicin, which is formed from an inactive precursor compound only after garlic is mashed or chopped and exposed to air for at least a few minutes. The Chinese study was published in the July 2013, issue of Cancer Prevention Research.

Source:
Jin-Yi Zhou et al, “Raw Garlic Consumption as a Protective Factor for Lung Cancer, a Population-Based Case–Control Study in a Chinese Population,” Cancer Prevention Research, July 2013

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Blood Test for Pancreatic Cancer Shows Promise in Early Trial

But the screen is meant only for people already at high risk for the deadly illness, experts say

 

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal tumor types because it's too often diagnosed in a later, advanced stage. But a new study suggests that a simple blood test might help spot the disease earlier.

The study is described as small and preliminary, and investigators cautioned that the initial findings will need to be confirmed in larger trials.

"Pancreas cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States," said study coauthor Dr. Nita Ahuja, an associate professor of surgery in the department of oncology and urology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in Baltimore. "There have been minimal to no improvements in the survival from this disease in the last 40 years. There are over 40,000 people diagnosed every year and about that many deaths."

"One of the main reasons for the lethal nature of this cancer is that most cancers are diagnosed too late once they have spread to other organs," Ahuja said. "Around 8 percent have spread to distant organs such as the liver or lungs, while another 10 percent have locally spread to major blood vessels. However, in the patients where cancer can be detected early and has not spread, a long-term cure is possible with surgical removal of the cancer with the surrounding lymph."

Any means of spotting the cancer early would therefore be crucial, Ahuja added. "We have mammograms to screen for breast cancer and colonoscopies for colon cancer, but we have had nothing to help us screen for pancreatic cancer," she said.

Ahuja said the new study sought to find blood "markers" for pancreatic cancer "in patients who are at increased risk for developing this cancer, such as [those with a] family history or heavy smokers."

Ahuja's team had previously identified mutations in two genes, called BNC1 and ADAMST1, that typically occurred in the presence of pancreatic cancer. Since both mutations are found in 97 percent of early stage pancreatic cancer tissues, the researchers developed tests to search for signs of the mutations in blood samples collected from 42 people already diagnosed with early stage pancreatic cancer.

Reporting in the current online edition of the journal Clinical Cancer Research, Ahuja's team said both genetic markers were found in 81 percent of the tested blood samples, but not in samples taken from patients who either did not have pancreatic cancer or had a history of pancreatitis (an inflamed pancreas).

The researchers said the results are much more impressive than, for example, the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test used to screen for prostate cancer, which has roughly a 20 percent success rate.

Still, an 81 percent accuracy rate is "far from perfect," Ahuja said. The test also had a false-positive rate of 15 percent, meaning that 15 percent of people who get the test initially will be told they might have pancreatic cancer when that is not the case.

And Ahuja stressed that the test is not designed as a screen for the population as a whole -- only for those already deemed to be at high risk for the disease.

"The eventual goal is to develop a cost-effective test to test patients who are at high risk," she said. "The beauty of this test is that it can be repeated every year as you go for your annual physical."

Dr. Smitha Krishnamurthi is an associate professor of medicine in the division of hematology and oncology with University Hospitals Case Medical Center & Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, in Cleveland. She applauded the research, saying that "if pancreatic cancer could be detected at an early stage, more patients would be cured."

"This study presents an encouraging step in the right direction," Krishnamurthi said. "The authors have developed a blood test that detected the earliest stage of pancreatic cancer and correctly identified most of the healthy individuals tested. However, this was a very small study. The blood test must be studied in many more patients with early stage pancreatic cancer and healthy individuals to really know if it will be an accurate and reliable screening test for pancreatic cancer."

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