Posted on 07/13/2011 8:04:10 AM PDT by decimon
High doses of the hormone progesterone can kill neuroblastoma cells while leaving healthy cells unscathed, scientists at Emory University School of Medicine have found in laboratory research.
The results, published in the journal Molecular Medicine, suggest that progesterone could be used to fight neuroblastoma, the most common form of cancer affecting small children.
More research is necessary to determine the optimal dose, how long progesterone treatment should last and if it should be used alone or in combination with radiation or chemotherapy. Emory scientists are also exploring whether it can stop the growth of other brain cancer types such as glioblastoma and astrocytoma. Progesterone has also been reported to slow growth of several other types of cancers in the laboratory, but has not been used clinically against neuroblastoma.
The first author in the team of researchers is Fahim Atif, PhD, instructor in emergency medicine, with senior author Donald G. Stein, PhD, Asa G. Candler professor of emergency medicine and director of Emory's Department of Emergency Medicine Brain Research Laboratory. Daniel Brat, MD, PhD, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine in Emory School of Medicine was a collaborator on the research team.
The discovery grew out of studies of progesterone’s protective effects in brain injury. Based on Stein’s pioneering work, medical centers across the country are now testing progesterone in the setting of acute traumatic brain injury in a phase III clinical trial. While investigating how to enhance progesterone’s effectiveness, Atif and his colleagues observed that it could protect healthy neurons from stress but caused cells from a tumor cell line to die.
(Excerpt) Read more at shared.web.emory.edu ...
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“Neuroblastoma is the most common extracranial solid cancer in childhood and the most common cancer in infancy, with an annual incidence of about 650 new cases per year in the US.
“It is a neuroendocrine tumor, arising from any neural crest element of the sympathetic nervous system or SNS. It most frequently originates in one of the adrenal glands, but can also develop in nerve tissues in the neck, chest, abdomen, or pelvis.
“Low-risk neuroblastoma is most common in infants and good outcomes are common with observation only or surgery, whereas high-risk neuroblastoma is difficult to treat successfully even with the most intensive multi-modal therapies available.”
It has been years now but I'll never forget your smile. I'll never forget how you ran and played and were a normal little girl on the good days. And the pain of the bad days. I'll always remember how beautiful you were the last time I saw you, in your little white casket. The day we said goodbye to you in this life but not goodbye to you in our hearts and memories.
I hope this news is as good as it seems. No child should go through what you went through. Rest in Peace Abigail.....
Indeed.
Maybe other children will be spared.
Beautiful tribute to Abigail. Crying now, you truly moved me, maybe because my grandson lost a kidney to neuroblastoma when he was 2 years old. He is fine now but still being checked every year until he is a teen.
God bless.
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My son is a survivor of Neuroblastoma. Thank God.
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