There is no consensus on the optimal treatment for patients with liver tumors. This contributes to a variety of situations that have a pessimistic view on the treatment of liver cancer. Intensive treatment strategies can cure or significantly prolong the lives of many patients with liver cancer.
The liver is a common site of metastases from a variety of devices such as lung, breast, colon and rectum. When liver metastases occur in the time of initial diagnosis of the primary tumor, and it has been described as synchronous. If discovered after the initial diagnosis, and it was described as metachronous. The liver is often involved as you receive blood from the abdominal organs through the portal vein. Separation of malignant cells of cancer in its early stages, [click to continue…]
All women are worried about their ability to prevent breast cancer. Many women die each year because of breast cancer. There has been millions of dollars spent on research trying to find new ways to treat and cure this cancer. Naturally, the best way of staying safe is to try to take every step possible to prevent breast cancer.
Around 1993, there were studies published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute that indicate there could be a link between omega 3 fatty acids and the prevention of breast cancer. The results aren’t conclusive as of yet, but many more studies have come out also indicating this connection. Omega 3 fatty acids can be found in fish oils and flax seed oil. They contain anti-inflammatory compounds and contribute to your hearts overall health. The anti-inflammatory compounds are what could possibly be help prevent breast cancer. [click to continue…]
DO YOU KNOW THE FACTS?
October is breast cancer awareness month. How can you get involved? First and foremost, start by incorporating regular self breast examinations into your routine. Twenty-five percent of all breast cancers are found by women doing their own breast examination. It is best to begin these examinations while you are healthy. That way you will be able to recognize any changes to your body.
Next, learn the facts. Once you learn the facts, spread the word to everyone in your community and beyond. Healthy living should be a part of everyone’s life.
10 common breast cancer myths:
1) Men are not in danger of contracting breast cancer.
False: It is far less common in men, however, an estimated 2,000 new cases are diagnosed in men each year.
2) Breast cancer occurs only in women over 40. [click to continue…]
Scientists have grown a piece of heart muscle – and then watched it beat – by using stem cells from a mouse embryo, a big step toward one day repairing damage from heart attacks.
Think of Dr. Kenneth Chien as a heart mechanic. “We’re making a heart part and (eventually) we’re going to put the part in,” is how he describes the work by his team of Harvard and Massachusetts General Hospital researchers.
Lots of work remains before trying that dramatic an experiment in people. But regenerating damaged heart muscle is a holy grail in cardiac care.
Doctors today have lots of treatments to prevent a heart attack. But once one strikes, there’s no way to restore the heart muscle it kills. Gradually the weakened heart quits pumping properly, leading to deadly heart failure.
Hence the focus on embryonic stem cells, master cells that can give rise to any tissue in the body. Until now, scientists haven’t known how to coax those cells into producing pure cardiac muscle.
Instead, researchers have tried injecting heart attack survivors with mixes of different kinds of stem cells, next-generation types like those found in bone marrow. The idea: Perhaps once those cells were inside a damaged heart, ones capable of growing cardiac muscle would receive a “get to work” signal and take root. There’s been little success so far. The new research, published in Friday’s edition of the journal Science, promises a more targeted approach.
“It’s not the home run,” cautioned Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which is spending millions on research nationwide into cardiac regeneration. “But it’s a major advance that’s helping to move the field forward in a very significant way.”
Embryonic stem cells give rise to more specialized organ-producing stem cells. The team from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and Mass General recently discovered a master heart stem cell present in both human and mouse embryos.
But could they control it enough to make just the kind of heart cell they wanted to grow? They’d have to winnow out the daughter cell whose only job is to grow the muscle fibers of the ventricle, or pumping chamber.
Chien genetically engineered mice so that certain cells in the embryos’ developing hearts would light either fluorescent red or green. As he watched the embryos grow,
where the colors overlapped signaled developing heart muscle. Sure enough, when the team plucked out those cells, they were pure ventricle generators.
Next Harvard engineers pitched in with a special scaffolding. The team “seeded” the scaffolding with these ventricle stem cells, and a thin strip of mouse heart muscle grew right in the laboratory.
Not only that, it spontaneously beat, the team reported in Science and at a National Institutes of Health meeting this week on the state of cardiac regeneration.
“This looks like the kind of work a normal heart tissue strip would do,” said Chien, director of Mass General’s Cardiovascular Research Center. “We went from embryonic stem cells to an organ.”
What next? This was not a fully developed piece of heart muscle but a thin strip. To be usable, it would have to be thicker, more three-dimensional, for more beating strength. It also needs a nourishing blood supply. So a next big challenge is pinpointing which daughter to those master heart stem cells will grow blood vessels.
The NIH’s Nabel said the experiment also offers a possible new opportunity for cell therapy – that perhaps injecting the precise muscle-generating cell directly into a damaged heart would have a better chance of sticking and working.
The Harvard team wants both methods tried. “We’re not saying this is going to happen tomorrow,” said Chien, who also is working on repeating the work with human cells. “I believe within five years,” it might be ready to try with people.
