Posts Tagged ‘Alliance’

Terramed Alliance News Healthy Diet Can?t Hurt, May Help Breast Cancer Patients

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women in the United States, with approximately 180,000 cases diagnosed each year. Researchers continue to evaluate environmental factors, such as diet, that influence the development of breast cancer. Numerous studies have provided a wealth of often-contradictory information about the detrimental and protective factors of different foods. High fruit and vegetable consumption has been associated with a reduced risk for developing at least 10 different cancers. Studies evaluating the influence of diet on breast cancer prognosis have produced inconsistent results.

Researchers from California and Utah assessed a cohort of 1,901 women from the Life After Cancer Epidemiology (LACE) Study who were diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer between 1997 and 2000. Upon entering the study, the women completed a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). The researchers used the data from the FFQs to identify two dietary patterns among the women: a prudent diet included high intakes of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and poultry, whereas a Western diet included high intakes of red and processed meats and refined grains. The researchers then evaluated the rates of recurrence, overall death, death from breast cancer, and death from causes other than breast cancer. As of May 2008, there were 268 breast cancer recurrences and 226 deaths, 128 of which were attributed to breast cancer.

After analyzing the data, the researchers found that women who followed the prudent diet had a statistically significant decreased risk of overall death and death from non–breast cancer causes, whereas those who followed the Western diet had an increased risk of overall death and death from non–breast cancer causes. Neither dietary pattern was associated with a risk of breast cancer recurrence or death from breast cancer. Because the prudent diet was associated with a decreased risk of overall death, the researchers concluded that “women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer may benefit from dietary patterns that include healthier foods such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and poultry and less consumption of red meat and refined foods.” Journal of Clinical Oncology

Terramed Alliance is a non-profit charity organization dedicated to research, education and advocacy of breast cancer. One of the vision of Terramed Alliance is to provide this community and Internet users with a charity based research and education entity. Advocacy of breast cancer through education is vital to the reduction of this disease.  For any requests and enquiries, please contact at us: cancer@terramedalliance.us www.terramedalliance.us

Canadian Alliance Seeks More Cancer Research Funding, New Projects within ICGC

Canadian Alliance Seeks More Cancer Research Funding, New Projects within ICGC
NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Canada should step up project funding for cancer genomic studies, while the nation’s research institutions should launch a new prostate cancer sequencing project within the International Cancer Genome Consortium, and promote the value of its data to Canadian researchers, a 22-member alliance recommended today.

Read more on GenomeWeb News

Eating Eggs When Pregnant Affects Breast Cancer In Offspring Terramed Alliance News

This finding by a team of biologists at Boston University is the first to link choline consumption during pregnancy to breast cancer. It also is the first to identify possible choline-related genetic changes that affect breast cancer survival rates.

“We’ve known for a long time that some agents taken by pregnant women, such as diethylstibesterol, have adverse consequences for their daughters,” said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal. “But there’s an upside. The emerging science of epigenetics has yielded a breakthrough. For the first time, we’ve learned that we might be able to prevent breast cancer as early as a mother’s pregnancy.”

The researchers made the discovery in rats by studying females whose mothers were fed varying amounts of choline during pregnancy. Different groups of pregnant rats received diets containing standard amounts of choline, no choline at all, or extra choline. Then the researchers treated the female offspring with a chemical that causes cancer of the mammary gland (breast cancer). Although animals in all groups developed mammary cancer, the daughters of mothers that had received extra choline during pregnancy had slow growing tumors while daughters of mothers that had no choline during pregnancy had fast growing tumors.

“Our study provides additional support for the notion that choline is an important nutrient that has to be considered when dietary guidelines are developed,” said Krzysztof Blusztajn, Ph.D., Professor of Pathology at Boston University and the study’s senior researcher. “We hope it will be possible to develop nutritional guidelines for pregnant women that ensure the good health of their offspring well into old age.”

The researchers also found multiple genetic and molecular changes in the rats’ tumors that correlated with survival outcomes. For example, the slow growing tumors in rats had a genetic pattern similar to those seen in breast cancers of women who are considered to have a good prognosis. The fast growing tumors in mice had a pattern of genetic changes similar to those seen in women with a more aggressive disease. The researchers also found evidence that these genetic changes may result from the way that choline affects modifications of the DNA within the mammary gland of fetuses as they develop in the womb.

The National Cancer Institute estimates that there will be more than 184,000 new cases of breast cancer in 2008 and more than 40,000 deaths. Treatments for women suffering from breat cancer range from hormone therapy to surgery. Adapted from materials provided by Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS. ScienceDaily

Terramed Alliance is a non-profit charity organization dedicated to research, education and advocacy of breast cancer. One of the vision of Terramed Alliance is to provide this community and Internet users with a charity based research and education entity. Advocacy of breast cancer through education is vital to the reduction of this disease.  For any requests and enquiries, please contact at us: cancer@terramedalliance.us www.terramedalliance.us

Alliance annual breast cancer screening

Saturday October 3rd

Terramed Alliance News Treating Breast Cancer With Adapted Space-Industry Technology

Terramed Alliance News Researchers at Rush University Medical Center and Argonne National Laboratory are collaborating on a study to determine if an imaging technique used by NASA to inspect the space shuttle can be used to predict tissue damage often experienced by breast cancer patients undergoing radiation therapy. The study is examining the utility of three-dimensional thermal tomography in radiation oncology.

Preliminary results from the study are being displayed during the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Annual Meeting in Chicago, being held from November 1 – 5, 2009.

Approximately 80 percent of breast cancer patients undergoing radiation treatment develop acute skin reactions that range in severity. The more severe reactions cause discomfort and distress to the patient, and sometimes result in treatment interruptions. The severity is quite variable among patients and difficult to predict.

“Because reactions usually occur from 10 to 14 days after the beginning of therapy, if we could predict skin reactions sooner we may be able to offer preventative treatment to maximize effectiveness and minimize interruption of radiation treatment,” said Dr. Katherine Griem, professor of radiation oncology at Rush.

Terramed Alliance News : Researchers at Rush and Argonne are studying if three-dimensional thermal tomography (3DTT) can detect the earliest changes that may trigger a skin reaction. 3DTT is a relatively new thermal imaging process that is currently being used as a noninvasive away to detect defects in composite materials. The basic idea of thermal imaging is to apply heat or cold to a material and observing the resulting temperature change with an infrared camera to learn about its composition.

Unlike most thermal imaging studies which have quantitative limitations, 3DTT measures the thermal effusivity of skin tissue. Thermal effusivity is a measure of a material’s ability to exchange heat with its surroundings.

In this study, a flash of light is used to heat up the skin. An infrared camera captures a series of images over time that display the temperature of the skin, represented by colors. An algorithm developed by Argonne is used to calculate the temperature change and determine the thermal effusivity of different areas of the skin.

“How quickly the skin cools is related to the structure underneath. Damaged skin cells have different effusivity values compared to that of healthy skin, said James Chu, PhD, chairperson of the section of medical physics at Rush. “By identifying the earliest changes in damaged tissue, we may be able to predict acute skin toxicities.”

Terramed Alliance News: Preliminary data from the study show that marked decreases in thermal effusivity of irradiated skin occur well in advance of the development of high grade skin reactions.

“Our initial data with radiation induced skin changes are quite encouraging,” said Dr. Alan Coon, chief resident of radiation oncology at Rush and primary author on the study. “In addition to finding decreases in effusivity of the treated areas many days before the development of skin reactions, we have also seen that the magnitude of these decreases varies with the grade of the reactions. This exciting result bodes well for the clinical utility of this technique in predicting the severity of a skin reaction before it occurs.”

In addition, researchers note that 3DTT techniques can be used to measure these tissue property changes noninvasively with no interruption of therapy and the technique allowed for rapid feedback.

“3DTT may also be used to detect other skin diseases such as skin cancer and measure skin damage caused by electricity or lightening. Such applications require the determinations of tissue conditions below the skin that is normally not visible but can be measured by 3DTT,” said J.G. Sun, a mechanical engineer at Argonne.

Researchers plan to perform additional studies to confirm the preliminary results and hope to soon begin studying 3DTT in breast cancer patients.

The investigators on the project include Dr. Katherine Griem, James Chu, PhD; Dr. Alan Coon; Damian Bernard, PhD; Riu Yao and Alistair Templeton, all from Rush University Medical Center and J.G. Sun from Argonne National Laboratory. Source: Kim Waterman Rush University Medical Center

Terramed Alliance is a non-profit charity organization dedicated to research, education and advocacy of breast cancer. One of the vision of Terramed Alliance is to provide this community and Internet users with a charity based research and education entity. Advocacy of breast cancer through education is vital to the reduction of this disease.  For any requests and enquiries, please contact at us: cancer@terramedalliance.us www.terramedalliance.us