In the wake of Princeton University's meningitis outbreak, healthy individuals on campus who are at risk for infection will be offered voluntary immunization with Bexsero (Novartis), a vaccine that has not been approved for use in the United States. Since March 22, 2013, health officials have confirmed eight cases of Neisseria meningitides serogroup B (MenB) meningitis among students and visitors at Princeton University. Bexsero is the only vaccine in production that protects against MenB.
Monday, December 23, 2013
Task Force recommends BRCA mutation screening for high-risk women
According to a new guideline being published in Annals of Internal Medicine, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommends that primary care providers screen asymptomatic women with a family history of breast, ovarian, tubal, or peritoneal cancers to determine if that family history may be associated with an increased risk for potentially harmful mutations in breast cancer susceptibility genes BRCA1 or BRCA2. Women who screen positive should have genetic counseling and, if indicated after counseling, BRCA testing.
The American College of Physicians explains how Medicaid expansion will help the poor
The American College of Physicians (ACP) explains how Medicaid expansion will benefit poor citizens and their physicians in an article being published early online in Annals of Internal Medicine. The authors write that under the provisions of the Affordable Care Act-mandated Medicaid expansion, patients who have historically been denied Medicaid coverage will now have access to a healthcare plan equivalent to a benchmark plan chosen by the state. The Medicaid plan will be required to cover 10 essential benefit categories, including regular health screenings.
A tomato-rich diet may reduce breast cancer risk, study shows
It has long been known that postmenopausal women are at a higher risk of developing breast cancer. But now, new research suggests that adopting a diet rich in tomatoes may reduce this risk. This is according to a study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
According to the National Cancer Institute, women in the US have a 12.4% risk of developing breast cancer at some point in their lives. This risk increases with age, with women over the age of 50 having a 1 in 42 chance of developing the disease.
According to the study researchers, led by Adana Llanos of Rutgers University, postmenopausal women increase their risk of breast cancer further as their body mass index (BMI) climbs. But this latest study suggests that this risk may be reduced simply by adopting a different diet.
To reach their findings, the investigators analyzed 70 postmenopausal women for a period of 20 weeks.
For the first 10 weeks, the women were required to follow a tomato-rich diet. This involved consuming a minimum of 25 mg of lycopene each day. Lycopene is an antioxidant found in tomatoes and other fruits and vegetables.
For the remaining 10 weeks, the women followed a soy-rich diet. This required them to consume at least 40 g of soy protein daily.
All women were asked to refrain from eating any soy or tomato products 2 weeks prior to each diet.
Tomato-rich diet increases adiponectin levels
Drug combo defeats tumor defenses in pancreatic cancer
A UK team has discovered how to undermine a protective wall that pancreatic cancer tumors maintain around themselves, thus enabling the body's own immune cells - which they boosted with an antibody - to enter and attack cancer cells.
In initial tests carried out at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, based at the University of Cambridge, the combined treatment almost completely eliminated cancer cells in 1 week.
Study leader Prof. Doug Fearon, who heads the Tumour Immunology Laboratory at the Institute, says:
"By enabling the body to use its own defences to attack cancer, this approach has the potential to greatly improve treatment of solid tumors."
He and his colleagues report their findings in the latest print issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, PNAS.
First reported immunotherapy success in pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer is a disease where symptoms rarely show in the early stages, so it is usually only diagnosed once it has spread to other parts of the body, and prognosis is poor.
According to the National Cancer Institute, for the year 2013, 45,220 Americans will have discovered they have pancreatic cancer, and 38,460 will have died of the disease. In the UK, where survival rates are equally poor, it is the fifth most common cause of cancer-related deaths. Worldwide, it is the eighth.
This new study from Prof. Fearon and colleagues is the first to report success with "immunotherapy" in pancreatic cancer.
Immunotherapy is a promising new field of cancer treatment that focuses on stimulating the patient's own immune system to attack the cancer.
It has shown particular promise in cancers with solid tumors, but patients with pancreatic cancer have not responded to this approach. This could be because, as in some other solid tumors, pancreatic cancer protects itself with a barrier.
Drug breaks down protective barrier surrounding tumors
The immune system has some inbuilt capacity to deal with cancer cells. Part of this is the T cell, which can recognize and attack cancer cells. But in the case of pancreatic cancer, the cancer cells have developed a way to shield themselves from T cells.
Working with a mouse model of human pancreatic cancer, Prof. Fearon and colleagues discovered that this shield or barrier takes the form of a chemokine protein, CXCL12, that coats the cancer cells and keeps the T cells away.
The protein is made by a specialized kind of connective tissue cell, called a carcinoma-associated fibroblast, or CAF.
Prof. Fearon explains:
"We observed that T cells were absent from the part of the tumor containing the cancer cells that were coated with chemokine, and the principal source of the chemokine was the CAFs."
He and his colleagues also found that removing CAFs from the pancreatic cancer appeared to allow the immune system to control the growth of the tumor.
They went on to find a way to remove the protective effect of the shield by using a drug that stops the T cells from interacting with the protein CXCL12.
The drug is AMD3100, also known as Plerixafor, which blocks the T cells' receptor for the cancer-shielding protein CXCL12.
And when they used Plerixafor with anti-PD-L1, an immunotherapeutic antibody that boosts T cell activity, the number of cancer cells and the size of the tumor shrank significantly.
After 1 week of combination treatment, the shrunken tumor contained only premalignant cells and inflammatory cells.
Support and funds for the study came from Cancer Research UK, GlaxoSmithKline, the Medical Research Council, Addenbrooke's Charitable Trust, the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, and the Anthony Cerami and Anne Dunne Foundation for World Health.
In another study published recently in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, a team from the US showed how a combination of immunotherapy and gene therapy could lead to an effective treatment for breast cancer that has spread to the brain.
Written by Catharine Paddock PhD
Flu and cold top the 2013 chart of medical search terms
The top 10 trending health issues of 2013 have been released by Google, and top of the list of searches are flu and cold, with labor coming in at third place.
The results are found in the year-end zeitgeist, the search giant's annual "spirit of the times" analysis.
The appearance of the term labor as a highly popular search in the health issues list comes as "royal baby" made it to seventh place in the total Google search activity across 2013, a chart topped by "Nelson Mandela."
It was July 22nd when the world's media heard the news that Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, had delivered a healthy Prince George.
Life-saving formula a step closer to human trials
A global innovation that has the potential to prevent women in developing countries from the fatal loss of blood after childbirth will move a step closer to human trials, following a $500,000 gift from Australia's Planet Wheeler Foundation.Monash University's Dr Michelle McIntosh has been - and remains - on a crusade to raise millions of dollars to fund an innovation that could save an extraordinary number of lives.Over the past decade more than one million women in developing countries have died of excessive bleeding during pregnancy.
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