Breast cancer therapies linked to heart failure

According to American Heart Association, women should consider the risks and benefits of any therapies that may hurt hearts during breast cancer treatment, patients should have a conversation with their doctor about the side effects of the treatment. Some treatments for different types of cancer may pose heart risks, but they are growing more common for breast cancer patients.

Side effects can include abnormal rhythms, valve problems or heart failure, where the heart slowly weakens and can't pump effectively. Symptoms may not appear until long after treatment ends.
Herceptin and similar drugs for a specific type of breast cancer can cause heart failure. Sometimes it's temporary and goes away if treatment is stopped, but it can be permanent.

Radiation can affect arteries and spur narrowing or blockages. Other drugs can lead to abnormal heart rhythms or artery spasms, which can cause chest pain and possibly lead to a heart attack. Some research suggests that powerful new drugs that harness the immune system to fight cancer may in rare cases cause heart damage, especially when used together.

Certain chemotherapies such as doxorubicin, sold as Adriamycin and in generic form, might be less risky if given more slowly, rather than all at once. Some research suggests that a drug called dexrazoxane may minimize damage if given to women with advanced breast cancer who are getting high doses of doxorubicin.

Cancer patients should make sure doctors are monitoring their heart before, during and after breast cancer treatment. Common risk factors of breast cancer are: obesity, smoking, sedentary lifestyle and eating of junk food.
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Links between high cholesterol diet and colon cancer

New UCLA research could help explain the link between a high-cholesterol diet and an elevated risk for colon cancer. In a study of mice, scientists from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA discovered that boosting the animals' cholesterol levels spurred intestinal stem cells to divide more quickly, enabling tumors to form 100 times faster. The study identifies a molecular pathway that could serve as a new drug target for colon cancer treatment.

Cholesterol influences the growth of stem cells in the intestines, which in turn accelerates the rate of tumor formation. The connection between dietary cholesterol and colon cancer is well established. The scientists increased cholesterol in the intestinal stem cells in some of the mice by introducing more of the substance into their diets.

In others, the researchers altered a gene that regulates phospholipids, the primary type of fat in cell membranes, which spurred the cells into producing more cholesterol on their own. The stem cells ' ability to multiply increased in both groups.

As the animals' cholesterol levels rose, their cells divided more rapidly, causing the tissue lining their guts to expand and their intestines to lengthen. These changes significantly sped up the rate of tumor formation in their colons.
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Ogivri for cancer treatment

Food and Drug Administration approved Ogivri (trastuzumab-dkst) as a biosimilar to Herceptin (trastuzumab) for the treatment of patients with breast or metastatic stomach cancer (gastric or gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma) whose tumors overexpress the HER2 gene (HER2+).
Ogivri is the first biosimilar approved for the treatment of breast cancer or stomach cancer and the second biosimilar approved treatment of cancer.

Common expected side effects of Ogivri for the treatment of HER2+ breast cancer include headache, diarrhea, nausea, chills, fever, infection, congestive heart failure, difficulty sleeping (insomnia), cough and rash. Common expected side effects of Ogivri for the treatment of HER2+ metastatic stomach cancer include low levels of certain white blood cells (neutropenia), diarrhea, fatigue, low levels of red blood cells (anemia), inflammation of the mouth (stomatitis), weight loss, upper respiratory tract infections, fever, low levels of blood platelets (thrombocytopenia), swelling of the mucous membranes (mucosal inflammation), common cold (nasopharyngitis) and unusual taste sensation (dysgeusia).

Serious expected side effects of Ogivri include worsening of chemotherapy-induced neutropenia. Patients should stop taking Ogivri if cardiomyopathy, life-threatening allergic reactions (anaphylaxis), swelling below the skin (angioedema), inflammation of the lungs (interstitial pneumonitis) or fluid in the lungs (acute respiratory distress syndrome) occur. Patients should be advised of the potential risk to a developing fetus and to use effective contraception.
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Exercise prevents breast cancer

Intense physical activity that cause breathlessness creates a chemical release in the body. This releases compounds called catecholamines and epinephrine suppress the growth of tumour cells.

 Exercise training and epinephrine did not completely prevent tumor formation, but induced reduction.
Exercise training can not replace anti-cancer therapy, but could be an effective supportive strategy and improves cancer treatment.

Researchers used experimental mice implanted with human breast cancer tumors as well as tumor cells in test tubes to investigate how serum samples from healthy women and breast cancer patients before and after exercise affect the development of the breast tumor cells, and the mechanism involved.

They discovered that serum samples taken after exercise reduced the ability of tumor cells to grow in test tubes or in mice. Less than half of mice with tumors steeped in post-exercise serum developed tumors, compared with 90 percent of mice with tumors not exposed to post-exercise serum.

The researchers traced the anti-tumor activity to a rise in epinephrine and norepinephrine that occurs with moderately intense exercise. Studies have shown that regular fitness can reduce risk of breast cancer and reoccurrence in those who already have it.
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Mvasi drug for cancer treatment

Mvasi is the first biosimilar approved for the treatment of multiple types of cancer. The is approved for the treatment of adult patients with colorectal, lung, brain, kidney and cervical cancers.

Common side effects of Mvasi include nose bleeds, headache, high blood pressure, inflammation of the nasal cavity, high levels of protein in the urine, taste alteration, dry skin, rectal bleeding, excessive tear production back pain and skin irritation.

Serious side effects of Mvasi include holes in or abnormal connection between two organs, blood clot formation, hypertension, problems in brain function or structure, high levels of protein in the urine and ovarian failure.
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Drug may prevent infertility after cancer treatment

Women who are treated for cancer with radiation or chemotherapy may be rendered sterile. Some female breast cancer survivors experience premature ovarian failure, in which they lose normal function of their ovaries.

Women are born with a lifetime reserve of oocytes, or immature eggs, but those oocytes are among the most sensitive cells in the body and may be wiped out by cancer treatments.

Checkpoint protein CHK2 becomes activate when oocytes are damaged by radiation. CHK2 functions in a pathway that eliminates oocytes with DNA damage, a natural function to protect against giving birth to offspring bearing new mutations.

When the researchers irradiated mice lacking the CHK2 gene, the oocytes survived, eventually repaired the DNA damage, and the mice gave birth to healthy pups.

The new study explored whether the checkpoint 2 pathway could be chemically inhibited. There were pre-existing CHK2 inhibitor drugs that were developed, ironically enough, for cancer treatment, but they turned out not to be very useful for treating cancer.

Giving mice the inhibitor drug, a small molecule, it essentially mimicked the knockout of the checkpoint gene.
Inhibiting the checkpoint pathway, the oocytes were not killed by radiation and remained fertile, enabling birth of normal pups.
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Kymriah for treating acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) suspension for intravenous infusion, it is a prescription cancer treatment used in patients up to 25 years old who have acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) that is either relapsing or refractory.

 Kymriah is made from your white blood cells, your healthcare provider has to take some of your blood called leukapheresis. Your blood cells are frozen and sent to the manufacturing site to make Kymriah.

 Your healthcare provider may give you chemotherapy for a few days to prepare your body. When your body is ready, your healthcare provider will give you Kymriah. The drug can increase the risk of life-threatening infections that may lead to death.

Having Kymriah in your blood may cause a false-positive HIV test result by some commercial tests. Kymriah may cause side effects that are life-threatening like: difficulty breathing, fever, shaking chills, confusion, severe nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, severe muscle or joint pain, very low blood pressure and dizziness.
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Surviving cancer can cause post traumatic stress disorder

Post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD is an anxiety disorder, experiencing a frightening or life-threatening situation may cause PTSD. It is associated with traumatic events such as war, physical attacks, natural disasters and accidents.

PTSD can affect people with a history of cancer, those undergoing the treatment, pain from the cancer and potential for the cancer to reoccur. Common symptoms of PTSD are:
nightmares, bad memories, hopelessness and shame.

Cancer patients are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder PTSD after the trauma of treatment. Cancer treatment can cause mental illness, the shock of the diagnosis and the fear of a recurrence can cause mental illness.

Mental fog often experienced by breast cancer patients after chemotherapy might be due to post-traumatic stress than the drugs and the process of treatment. It may cause nightmares, flashbacks, numbness, self-destructive behaviour, feelings of guilt and hopelessness.

The shock and trauma of being diagnosed with a life-threatening disease and receiving treatment that can be both physically and mentally gruelling are the major cause of PTSD.
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Better cancer treatment

Cancer patients can now have better and safer treatment by the use of less toxic drug for cancer treatment.
 Synthetic lethal interactions could inhibit the growth of tumors in mesenchymal cells, cells that develop into connective tissue such as those found in bones, soft tissues, and the central nervous system.

Presently, chemotherapy is the only available treatment for persistent cancers known as alternative lengthening telomere ALT cancers.
In healthy stem cell reproduction, the enzyme telomerase prevents the shortening of linear DNA ends called telomeres with each replication.

 The enzyme can also be re-activated to promote genetic stability and immortality in many cancer cells. While many cancers that multiple through telomerase re-activation may be treated with therapies other than chemotherapy, ALT cancer cells lack telomerase and few treatment options have been developed to inhibit their proliferation.

 ALT cancer cells account for fifteen percent of cancer cases, these incidences include some of the most deadly cancers like glioblastoma.

Researchers investigated three human genes associated with cancer development: FANCM mutations of which are associated with blood cancers), BRCA1 (mutations of which are commonly found in patients with breast and ovarian cancers), and BLM (mutations of which cause a variety of cancers).

FANCM, known to repair DNA damage where two DNA strands have been incorrectly linked, was removed from cells also deficient of BRCA1 or BLM. As a result, the team found that simultaneous inactivation of BLM and FANCM or of BRCA1 and FANCM resulted in dramatic increases of unrepaired DNA damages, preventing the cancerous cells from further reproducing.

 Their discoveries suggest that if drugs are developed to simultaneously inhibit BLM and FANCM, or BRCA1 and FANCM, they should kill the ALT cancers without posing the same toxic effects as the conventional chemotherapy drugs.
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Cancer treatment can leads to HIV cure

Cancerous cells and HIV virus multiply in a similar way, both express the same molecules.Certain cancer therapies, like checkpoint inhibitors, could successfully treat HIV.

HIV and cancer patients need strong immune systems to fight diseases; strong immune system can reduce spread of tumours in cancer patients and subdued deadly virus in HIV patients.

Cancer treatment could clear HIV virus, by activating HIV that lies dormant in the patients' cells, because the present HIV drug is unable to detect and kill hidden virus.

Checkpoint inhibitors support the immune system in its fight against cancer, this kind of drug may also activate HIV that lies dormant in cells, and strengthen the immune system to kill the virus.
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