Arming T Cells with IL-24 Improves the Ability to Destroy Cancerous Cells
Altering T cells of the adaptive immune system to enable recognition of cancerous cells is a mainstream area of research these days. The approach of adding chimeric antigen receptors to T cells, tailored to a cancer, is well established for blood cancers, but still challenging for solid tumors, characterized a wide variety of cancerous cells and signatures. Researchers here show that genetic modification of T cells to produce IL-24 allows these immune cells to effectively destroy cancerous cells that lack recognizable surface features, so long as they are close to cancerous cells that can be recognized. Further, the proces...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 10, 2021 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
3D Printed Shields Protect Guts During Radiotherapy
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and MIT have developed 3D printed shields to protect the gastrointestinal tract from the side effects of radiotherapy. Using CT scans, the devices can be custom printed to suit each patient’s anatomy. The materials they’re made of contain high atomic number elements that help to shield tissues from gamma and X-rays.
Radiotherapy can be highly effective at targeting tumors and helping to shrink them. However, it can also have significant consequences for nearby healthy tissues. The side effects can be particularly pronounced in the delicate tissues of the mouth and g...
Source: Medgadget - April 27, 2021 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: GI Materials Radiation Oncology Radiology Source Type: blogs
An emerging treatment option for men with recurring prostate cancer after radiation therapy
Prostate cancer is often a multifocal disease, meaning that several tumors can be present in different parts of gland at the same time. Not all of these tumors are equally problematic, however. And it’s increasingly thought that the tumor with the most aggressive features — called the index lesion — dictates how a man’s cancer is likely to behave overall. That concept has given rise to a new treatment option. Called partial gland ablation (PGA), and also focal therapy, it entails treating only the index lesion and its surrounding tissues, instead of removing the prostate surgically or treating the whole gla...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - April 2, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Health Living With Prostate Cancer Prostate Knowledge Treatments HPK Source Type: blogs
Improving PET scans are good news for doctors and patients alike
A recent blog post discussed a newly approved imaging agent with an unwieldy name: gallium-68 PMA-11. Delivered in small amounts by injection, this minimally radioactive tracer sticks to prostate cancer cells, which subsequently glow and reveal themselves on a positron emission tomography (PET) scan. Offered to men with rising PSA levels after initial prostate cancer treatment (a condition called biochemical recurrence), this sort of imaging can allow doctors to find and treat new tumors that they might otherwise miss. With currently available imaging technology, such tumors could potentially escape detection until they we...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - February 3, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Health Prostate Knowledge HPK Source Type: blogs
The Art of Explaining: Starting With the Big Idea
By HANS DUVEFELT
We live in a time of thirty second sound bytes, 280 character tweets and general information overload. Our society seems to have ADHD. There is fierce competition for people’s attention.
As doctors, we have so many messages we want to get across to our patients. How many seconds do we have before we lose their attention in our severely time curtailed and content regulated office visits?
I have found that it generally works better to make a stark, radical statement as an attention grabber and then qualifying it than to carefully describe a context from beginning to end.
Once a person shows...
Source: The Health Care Blog - January 29, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Medical Practice Physicians Primary Care Hans Duvefelt health communication Source Type: blogs
Prostate cancer treatment: strategies for managing side effects
After skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in men in the U.S., with one in eight men at risk of being diagnosed with this cancer during his lifetime. If you or a man you care about is undergoing prostate cancer treatment, you may be living with treatment-related side effects. These can […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - January 29, 2021 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/miles-j-varn" rel="tag" > Miles J. Varn, MD < /a > < /span > Tags: Conditions Oncology/Hematology Urology Source Type: blogs
Are early detection and treatment always best?
Throughout my medical career, I’ve heard statements like these:
Early detection offers the best chance of cure.
If you wait for symptoms, you’ve waited too long.
Knowledge is power, and the sooner you have the information, the better.
Over time, I’ve realized they are often untrue. Many health conditions go away on their own. In such cases, early testing may amount to wasted effort, time, and medical cost. Some testing is invasive and has a significant risk of complications. And minor abnormalities may lead to more testing. There’s also the anxiety of waiting for results, or learning you have an abnormality of unce...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - January 28, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Back Pain Heart Health Managing your health care Prevention Screening Tests and procedures Source Type: blogs
Hormonal therapies for advanced prostate cancer linked to a higher risk of falls and fractures
Falls rank among the top causes of death and injuries among the elderly, and the risk increases significantly in older people being treated for cancer. Now, investigators are reporting that a newer class of drugs for advanced prostate cancer is associated with a significant increase in fall risk.
Called androgen receptor inhibitors, or ARIs, these drugs target testosterone, a hormone that accelerates the growth of prostate tumors. Unlike traditional hormonal treatments that interfere with the body’s ability to make testosterone (known as androgen deprivation therapy, or ADT), ARIs work by preventing testosterone from...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - January 7, 2021 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Health Living With Prostate Cancer Prostate Knowledge Treatments HPK Source Type: blogs
Who should give bad news?
I’m starting this post with a disclaimer, and while it’s been a hell of a lot of days since I posted, disclaimers are only an occasional thing. Generally. So my return starts with a disclaimer.
Please enjoy this setup Tweet, and enjoy the foreshadowing:
https://twitter.com/gruntdoc/status/1342323360580202497
then
https://twitter.com/gruntdoc/status/1342325476929503233
Let’s start with the premise, and then I’ll fill in the details. Who is the best person to break bad news? Short version, it’s an ER doctor! Why??? Well, let’s get into that.
When in med school one of the thousands of papers we were assigned (I th...
Source: GruntDoc - December 26, 2020 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: GruntDoc Tags: Medical Source Type: blogs
Who should give bad news?
I’m starting this post with a disclaimer, and while it’s been a hell of a lot of days since I posted, disclaimers are only an occasional thing. Generally. So my return starts with a disclaimer.
Please enjoy this setup Tweet, and enjoy the foreshadowing:
then
Let’s start with the premise, and then I’ll fill in the details. Who is the best person to break bad news? Short version, it’s an ER doctor! Why??? Well, let’s get into that.
When in med school one of the thousands of papers we were assigned (I think it was my preventive medicine class but I cannot swear), one was about how to break bad news, and i...
Source: GruntDoc - December 26, 2020 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: GruntDoc Tags: Medical Source Type: blogs
New high-resolution imaging scans approved for use in prostate cancer
Imagine trying to find a single match from a book of matches in a large room. Not an easy task, right? But if the lights were dimmed and the match was lit, then its location would be immediately apparent.
This is the basic idea behind PSMA imaging, a newly approved method for detecting prostate cancer that is spreading, or metastasizing. The method relies on a minimally radioactive tracer called gallium-68 PSMA-11. Delivered in tiny amounts by injection, the tracer travels throughout the body and gloms onto a protein called PSMA that is found at high levels on prostate cancer cell surfaces. The labeled cells will then ligh...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - December 17, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Diagnosis Health Prostate Knowledge HPK Source Type: blogs
Radiotherapy to Prevent Recurrence Post Brain Tumor Excision: Interview with Matthew Likens, President and CEO of GT Medical
GT Medical Technologies, a company based in Arizona, has developed the FDA-approved GammaTile system, which can provide localized radiation therapy for brain tumor excision sites. Its goal is to reduce tumor recurrence and enhance patient survival. The treatment consists of radiation seeds encased in a collagen substrate. These are easy to place at the excision site with a minimum of effort at the end of a surgical procedure.
Unfortunately, brain tumor recurrence is relatively common, and so treatments that can help to reduce this phenomenon, while sparing healthy tissues and reducing side effects, are very welcome. The...
Source: Medgadget - December 15, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Conn Hastings Tags: Exclusive Materials Medicine Neurosurgery Oncology Radiation Oncology Radiology Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, December 14th 2020
In conclusion, aging alters the cerebral vasculature to impair mitochondrial function and mitophagy and increase IL-6 levels. These alterations may impair BBB integrity and potentially reduce cerebrovascular health with aging.
Senescent Cells Fail to Maintain Proteostasis
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2020/12/senescent-cells-fail-to-maintain-proteostasis/
Given the newfound consensus in the research community regarding the importance of senescent cells to degenerative aging, it isn't surprising to see a great deal more fundamental research into the biochemistry of cellular senescence now taking pl...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 13, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Bayer G4A Agents of Change: Watch the Panels, Meet the Co ’s that Got Deals
By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH
Bayer G4A, the global life science company’s digital health innovation arm, held their splashy “Agents of Change” event last month to not only introduce their latest cohort of health tech partners, but to also demonstrate the pharma co’s commitment to digital transformation. The entire C-suite of Bayer’s Pharma division became a panel itself — marking the first time the full leadership team of a major pharmaceutical company appeared together to talk strategically about tech’s role in shaping the pharma business model of the future.
The rest of the program’s age...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 10, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Health Tech Health Technology Jessica DaMassa Start-Ups WTF Health Source Type: blogs
Incontinence Management Change Up Could Make Dad ’s Buddy Trip Possible
Dear Carol: My father is 72 and is in the moderate stages of dementia. Before his dementia diagnosis, he was an active hunter and fisherman. He also has incontinence issues due to prostate cancer, surgery, and treatment. This requires an external urinary attachment system to maintain an active daily life. My mother, as his primary caregiver, works diligently to keep the system and attachments clean and in working order. However, he is at the stage in his dementia journey where he is not able to maintain this attachment on his own. Yet he is defiant when we try to explain that he cannot go on trips with friends becaus...
Source: Minding Our Elders - December 10, 2020 Category: Geriatrics Authors: Carol Bradley Bursack Source Type: blogs
