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Prolonged use of certain progestogen hormone drugs is associated with an increased risk of developing a type of brain tumor known as an intracranial meningioma, finds a study. Progestogens are similar to the natural hormone progesterone. Meningiomas are mostly non-cancerous tumors in the layers of tissue (meninges) that cover the brain and spinal cord. Researchers set out to evaluate the real life risk of intracranial meningioma requiring surgery in women associated with use of several progestogens with different routes of administration. They used data from the French national health data system (SNDS) for 18,061 women (average age 58) who underwent...

Yesterday the Expose published an article which highlighted just a few of the various diseases that were found to be potentially caused by parasites, including cancers. A recent review of nine published research papers by Doctor William Makis further supports the views in the article, but Dr Makis is more qualified to say “it is a reasonable hypothesis that COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Turbo Cancer patients could benefit significantly from anti-parasitic drugs.” One anti parasitic drug in particular, Fenbendazole, however, has not been sanctioned for human use by the FDA, but despite lacking “official” approval, it is cheap, safe and more...

Three clinical trials demonstrated positive results from the targeted therapy erdafitinib for patients with multiple tumor types harboring FGFR alterations. Erdafitinib blocks activity of FGFR signaling proteins. The tumor-agnostic Phase II RAGNAR trial confirmed the efficacy of erdafitinib in heavily pre-treated patients with advanced FGFR-altered solid tumors across 16 distinct cancer types. The overall response rate (ORR) was 29.5%, including six complete responses and 58 partial responses. The ORR was comparable across FGFR1-3 mutations and fusions. The treatment achieved a disease control rate of 73.7% and a clinical benefit rate of 45.6%, including an ORR of 56% in patients with...

The FDA-approved lung cancer drug osimertinib (sold under the brand name Tagrisso) slashes the risk of death by 51% for certain patients whose cancer is caught early, according to new trial data. “This should be the new standard of care for these patients,” Nathan Pennell, co-director of the Cleveland Clinic Lung Cancer Program, who wasn’t involved in the drug’s development, said in a statement for the American Society of Clinical Oncology. The drug: Lung cancer is the second-most common cancer in the world, with 2.2 million new diagnoses every year. The vast majority fall into a category called “non-small cell...

A pill has been shown to halve the risk of death from a certain type of lung cancer when taken daily after surgery to remove the tumor, according to clinical trial results. The treatment developed by the pharmaceutical group AstraZeneca is called osimertinib and is marketed under the name Tagrisso. It targets a particular type of lung cancer in patients suffering from so-called non-small cell cancer, the most common type, and showing a particular type of mutation. These mutations, on what is called the epidermal growth factor receptor, or EGFR, affect 10 percent to 25 percent of lung cancer patients...

In a new study of trastuzumab deruxtecan, a HER2-targeted antibody drug conjugate, researchers observed encouraging responses and long-lasting clinical benefit in several tumor types. These data from an interim analysis of the Phase II DESTINY-PanTumor02 study. The treatment achieved an objective response rate (ORR) of 61.3% with a median duration of response (DOR) of 22.1 months in patients with the highest levels of HER2 expression. Across all patients, the ORR was 37.1% with a median DOR of 11.8 months. An ORR of more than 30% was observed in all cancer types except biliary tract (22%) and pancreatic cancers (4%). Antibody...

Swedish actor Dolph Lundgren revealed Wednesday that he has been secretly fighting cancer for eight years. “They found a tumor … in my kidney, and they took it out here in LA in 2015,” Lundgren, 65, explained on “In Depth With Graham Bensinger.” “But then they did a biopsy — and it was cancerous.” SNIP “The Expendables” actor grew emotional recalling his journey. He said after the initial tumor discovery he underwent scans every six months, then every year, which he said were “fine.”

Researchers have provided important molecular understanding of how injury may contribute to the development of a relatively rare but often aggressive form of brain tumor called a glioma. The UCL team have now identified a possible mechanism to explain this link, implicating genetic mutations acting in concert with brain tissue inflammation to change the behavior of cells. Professor Parrinello said, "Normally astrocytes are highly branched, but we found that without p53 and only after an injury the astrocytes had retracted their branches and become more rounded. They weren't quite stem cell-like, but something had changed. So we let the mice...

Family and friends of Dustin Allard said the 21-year-old was ambitious and wanted "to make a difference in the lives of others."A 21-year-old Thomas College student who died suddenly last week was an ambitious “go-getter” who was training to become and Oakland County police officer, his friends and family said. The parents of Dustin Allard of Monmouth said in an email that Allard died Jan. 18 from a brain tumor “nobody knew he had.” “He was never sick ...

Outgoing Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) said Thursday on CNN’s “Situation Room” that it is former President Donald Trump’s fault Republican Mehmet Oz lost the Pennsylvania Senate seat to Democrat John Fetterman. Toomey said, “I think Dr. oz ran a very good campaign. I actually think he was a very good candidate in a lot of ways. So the question that I think arises is why did a good candidate running a good race in what should be a very good environment not prevail in a state like Pennsylvania, which is very, very competitive, always close, or almost always close? And...

Brain tumor glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a disease for which 30% of adults diagnosed survive one year after diagnosis, and only 3% of patients live longer than five years. GBM surgery is assisted by the use of fluorescent photosensitiser (PS) drugs. One such PS is Protoporphyrin IX (PpIX), a metadrug of exogenously administered 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA). PpIX can precisely guide GBM resection as its prodrug 5-ALA very specifically accumulates in GBM lesions due to structural and functional differences in the vicinity of the GBM tumors. Scientists have found that apart from being a photosensitive drug, 5-ALA is also a potent...

Treating liver cancer tumors to shrink them in order to allow the patient to qualify for a liver transplant leads to excellent 10-year post-transplant outcomes, according to research. The results validate current national policies around transplant eligibility. Selection of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most common form of liver cancer, for transplant has been guided for more than two decades by standards known as the Milan criteria. The Milan criteria state that transplantation should be performed in those with a single tumor of five centimeters or less in diameter or three tumors that are each three centimeters or less...

Prostate-specific antigen (PSA) is a serine protease and one of the most abundant proteins secreted by the human prostate epithelium. PSA is used as a well-established marker of prostate cancer. The involvement of PSA in several early events leading to the development of malignant prostate tumors has made it a target for prevention and intervention. It is thought that PSA cleaves insulin-like growth factor binding protein-3 (IGFBP-3), providing increased local levels of IGF-1, leading to tumor growth. Separately, there are data that suggest an enzymatic regulatory role for dietary boron, which is a serine protease inhibitor. In this study we...

Researchers have found that oral administration of rapamycin to an Alzheimer's disease mouse model causes an increase in beta (β)-amyloid protein plaques. β-amyloid buildup is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. Rapamycin is approved to treat transplant and cancer patients. Publicly available data suggest that the drug might also improve learning and memory in aged mice. However, the researchers observed that after rapamycin treatment, a protein called Trem2 (triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2) is dramatically diminished. Trem2 is present in microglia, which are immune cells in the brain and spinal cord. "Trem2 is a receptor located on the surface...

Combining a retrospective analysis of clinical records with in-depth laboratory studies, researchers have discovered that vitamin E can enhance immunotherapy responses by stimulating the activity of dendritic cells in the tumor. The researchers demonstrated that vitamin E directly binds and blocks the activity of the SHP1 checkpoint protein in dendritic cells, which increases antigen presentation and primes T cells for an anti-tumor immune response. Dietary supplements are thought to boost immunity, but little is known about the effects of supplements on immunotherapy activity. Patients with melanoma who took vitamin E while on anti-PD-1/PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitors had significantly improved survival compared...

These findings may have implications for brain disease, disorders. Scientists at the Krembil Brain Institute, part of University Health Network (UHN), in collaboration with colleagues at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), have used precious and rare access to live human cortical tissue to identify functionally important features that make human neurons unique. This experimental work is among the first of its kind on live human neurons and one of the largest studies of the diversity of human cortical pyramidal cells to date. “The goal of this study was to understand what makes human brain cells ‘human,’ and...

U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey on Saturday decried the effort by some members of his party to oppose the certification of the presidential election results. A coalition of 11 Republican senators, led by Ted Cruz of Texas, announced it will challenge the outcome of the presidential election by voting to reject electors from some states when Congress meets next week to certify the Electoral College results that confirmed President-elect Joe Biden won.

Fox News commentator Britt McHenry announced via Twitter on Thursday that she has been diagnosed with a brain tumor and is undergoing treatment. “I’m with an amazing medical team and surgery is imminent. Thank you for continued support and understanding at this time,” she wrote.

Gov. Phil Murphy disclosed Saturday he has a tumor on his kidney that is 90 percent likely to be cancerous and will soon undergo surgery. Murphy, 62, told NJ Advance Media that doctors caught it at an early stage and have “complete confidence” they’ll be able to fully remove the tumor. He said he does not expect he’ll have to undergo chemotherapy or radiation treatment. “The expectation is that overwhelmingly, assuming nothing happens on the operating table or you don’t get an infection or something, you’re back on your feet and back in the game without any impairment going forward,”...

My wife just got a text from her brother that he is scheduled for a leukemia test next week... Their family has had a rough time since both their mom and dad passed away a few years ago...seems like continual bad news. Both her and her brother could use some extra prayers! Also My friend Dave is a heavy alcoholic and going in for an MRI tomorrow after having a routine exam for eye glasses a month ago because his vision was blurring. They found a bleeding retina then, recommended he go see a doctor thinking he had high blood...