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Impotence drugs help treat brain tumors
" Impotence drugs may help carry cancer-fighting drugs through the brain to treat malignant tumors, U.S. researchers reported on Monday.
Tests in rats showed two erectile dysfunction drugs -- Schering-Plough's Levitra and Pfizer's Viagra -- helped carry a chemotherapy drug past the blood-brain barrier, the team at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles said.
Rats with brain tumors lived 42 days when injected with the cancer drug adriamycin. But when they also got Levitra, known generically as vardenafil, the rats survived an average of 53 days. Levitra appeared to be more effective, the researchers reported in the journal Brain Research.
Levitra and Viagra, known generically as sildenafil, are in a class of drugs known as PDE5 inhibitors. They were originally tested as heart drugs because they increase blood flow in small vessels.
"We chose adriamycin for this study because it is one of the most effective drugs against brain tumor cell lines in the laboratory but it has very little effect in animals and humans because it is unable to cross the blood-brain tumor barrier," neurosurgeon Dr. Keith Black, who led the study, said in a statement.
"The combination of vardenafil and adriamycin resulted in longer survival and smaller tumor size," Black said." " Impotence drugs may help carry cancer-fighting drugs through the brain to treat malignant tumors, U.S. researchers reported on ... more -
Leaked memo warns of real cancer risk from mobile phones?
The director of a leading US cancer research institute has sent a memo to thousands of staff warning of possible higher risks from mobile phone use.
Ronald Herberman, of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, said users should not wait for definitive studies on the risk and should take action now.
He said children should use mobiles in emergencies only and adults should try to keep the phone away from the head.
No major academic study has confirmed a link to higher brain-tumour risks. But Dr Herberman said his warning was based on early findings from unpublished data.
"We shouldn't wait for a definitive study to come out, but err on the side of being safe rather than sorry later," he says.
"I am convinced that there are sufficient data to warrant issuing an advisory to share some precautionary advice on cell phone use," the memo says.
A major six-year research study in the UK said last year that there were no short-term adverse effects to brain and cell function from mobile phone use.
However, the UK Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme said there was a "hint" of a higher cancer risk in the long term and that its research would look into the effects over a 10-year period.
Programme chairman Professor Lawrie Challis said: "We can't rule out the possibility at this stage that cancer could appear in a few years' time."
Is this something to be worried about? Would you stop using your mobile phone based on evidence like this? Do you do anything to try to minimise your risk, just in case long-term studies reveal that mobile phones ARE linked to cancer? Or are you just not that bothered? The director of a leading US cancer research institute has sent a memo to thousands of staff warning of possible higher risks from mob... more -
Chasing down brain tumor wildfires - The Boston Globe
CHICAGO - When the world's top specialists in removing and treating brain tumors talk about surgery, they never utter the word cure.
That's because a brain tumor is much like a wildfire, always seeking new territory to conquer. An operation can douse the hottest part of the inferno, but doctors know that dangerous embers remain behind.
As a result, patients such as Senator Edward M. Kennedy, whose malignant tumor was excised Monday by physicians at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina, must endure radiation and chemotherapy in an attempt to neutralize stray cancer cells.
"These tumors are very aggressive," said Dr. Mark Gilbert, a neuro-oncologist at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. "They cannot be treated by surgery alone."
A statement released yesterday by Kennedy's office said that the senior senator from Massachusetts had experienced no complications from his operation and "has been walking the hallways, spending time with family, and actively keeping up with the news of the day." The statement predicted he would leave Duke in about a week.
At the same time Kennedy was undergoing surgery Monday, brain tumor specialists here were revealing their latest research at an international scientific meeting of cancer doctors, showing modest progress in treating brain cancer and advances in understanding its underlying biology. Specialists debate how much surgery can extend patients' lives, but studies presented this week and previously have shown that a three-year-old form of chemotherapy, when combined with surgery and radiation, adds at least several months to the lives of patients.
Once the surgeon's work is finished, follow-up treatment proceeds on two fronts: in the region where the tumor once sat and in more distant corners of the brain.
Radiation, carefully calibrated and narrowly targeted, aims at the tumor bed and, usually, a 2-centimeter ring around it.
"So radiation provides some control of the tumor at and around where the original tumor was, but still there are individual tumor cells that might have migrated much further out" in the brain, said Dr. Deepa Subramaniam, director of the Brain Tumor Center at Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington. "And it is those cells that are targeted by chemotherapy."
A few weeks after surgery is completed, patients begin receiving radiation and chemotherapy simultaneously. Typically, the course of radiation lasts six weeks, with five treatments each week.
Patients also start a daily dose of chemotherapy called temozolomide, which comes in a pill. Once radiation is finished, patients continue taking the pills for at least the next six months. The doses become less frequent, with pills taken on only five consecutive days in each month.
Unlike some other forms of chemotherapy, temozolomide usually does not cause patients' hair to fall out or severe bouts of nausea. Continued... http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/06/04/ch... CHICAGO - When the world's top specialists in removing and treating brain tumors talk about surgery, they never utter the word cu... more -
Kennedy brain surgery 'a success'
"US Senator Edward Kennedy has undergone 'successful' surgery for a cancerous brain tumour, his doctor says."
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A story of a little boy's fight against brain cancer
This blog tells the courageous battle of Mason Leach, a five year old boy who lost his fight with brain cancer 7months ago. It details from diagnosis,his treatment, his struggles to survive,his incredible drive to be a normal little boy and his death. It also tells of his brother's and family's attempts to keep his spirit alive at home, in his school and community. Please take a look....
If there is ever a reason to have stem cell research, Mason losing his life to a disease that can be cured by stem cell research and its technology is it. Although there are those that believe stem cell research uses or kills a life, I argue we are losing lives daily from cancer and other diseases without this research. As the mother of this little boy, it infuriates me that there is the technology and tools out there to push cancer reserach forward, especially in brain tumors, that is being held up by politics. Meanwhile, kids are dying every day from brain tumors. STOP the madness and use the science GOD GAVE US to help heal these people. This blog tells the courageous battle of Mason Leach, a five year old boy who lost his fight with brain cancer 7months ago. It details... more -
Senator Ted Kennedy Having Surgery for Tumor
Kennedy Having Surgery for Tumor
By PAM BELLUCK - NY Times
BOSTON, June 2 — Sen. Edward M. Kennedy was to have surgery for his malignant brain tumor on Monday morning at Duke University Medical Center, his office said.
Mr. Kennedy, 76, who was diagnosed two weeks ago with a malignant glioma in the upper left portion of his brain, was to undergo an operation that was to begin at around 9 a.m. and last roughly six hours. He was to be operated on by Dr. Allan Friedman, chief of the division of neurosurgery in the surgical department at Duke in Durham, N.C.
Mr. Kennedy’s office issued a statement at around 6:30 a.m. on Monday saying that he expects to remain in the hospital at Duke for about a week and then return to Massachusetts, where he will undergo chemotherapy and radiation at Massachusetts General Hospital, where his tumor was diagnosed after he suffered a seizure at his home on Cape Cod.
Mr. Kennedy said in the statement that he and his wife Vicki, “along with my outstanding team of doctors at Massachusetts General Hospital, have consulted with experts from around the country and have decided that the best course of action for my brain tumor is targeted surgery followed by chemotherapy and radiation.”
He said that, “after completing treatment, I look forward to returning to the United States Senate and to doing everything I can to help elect Barack Obama as our next president.”
It was not clear from the statement how long his course of chemotherapy and radiation treatment would take. Kennedy Having Surgery for Tumor By PAM BELLUCK - NY Times ... more -
The week in media
NKOTB, Indiana Jones, and 90210 return. Lots of brain models. And terror videos upset a Senator.
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Senator Edward Kennedy has malignant brain tumour
"Doctors treating Edward Kennedy said Tuesday that the U.S. senator has a malignant brain tumour, a grim diagnosis that was greeted with get-well wishes from his colleagues." "Doctors treating Edward Kennedy said Tuesday that the U.S. senator has a malignant brain tumour, a grim diagnosis that was greet... more
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Senator Kennedy to battle brain tumour
Kennedy has a glioma and will require chemotherapy and radiation therapy, neurologist Dr. Lee Schwamm of Massachusetts General Hospital, and Dr. Larry Ronan, a primary physician there, said in a statement. Kennedy has a glioma and will require chemotherapy and radiation therapy, neurologist Dr. Lee Schwamm of Massachusetts General Hospita... more
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Rare brain disease enhanced artist's talents.
Anne Adams was a former UBC scientist who abandoned the microscope in 1986 for an artist's palate and produced more than 1,000 paintings, including the seminal Unravelling Bolero. Anne Adams was a former UBC scientist who abandoned the microscope in 1986 for an artist's palate and produced more than 1,000 pa... more
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Brain Tumor
