Free Republic

A small clinical trial suggests that a duo of drugs can extend survival for people battling advanced kidney cancer. Researchers developed the new regimen, a combination of pazopanib (Votrient) and bevacizumab (Avastin). Pazopanib is from a class of cancer drugs known as tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). These drugs work by blocking vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) signaling—a key mechanism that cancer cells need to grow. In prior trials that led to pazopanib's approval by the U.S. FDA, the drug led to an average survival (without cancer progression) of just over 11 months among people diagnosed with kidney tumors. The new...

Using hypertonic saline nasal drops can reduce the length of the common cold in children by two days, according to a study. They can also reduce the onward transmission of colds to family members. The research team recruited 407 children aged up to six years for a study where they were given either hypertonic saline ~2.6% (salt-water) nasal drops or usual care when they developed a cold. Overall, 301 children developed a cold; for 150 of these, their parents were given sea salt and taught to make and apply salt-water nose drops to the children's noses (three drops per nostril,...

Researchers have identified a promising new combination therapy for metastatic colorectal cancer that enhances the effectiveness of existing treatment while reducing harmful side effects. The study focused on regorafenib, a drug that modestly improves survival in mCRC patients but often leads to severe toxicities. By pairing regorafenib with a dual JAK/HDAC inhibitor at low doses, the researchers were able to significantly boost the drug's anticancer activity. For patients with metastatic disease, treatment options are limited and the prognosis is often poor. Regorafenib, a multiple-kinase inhibitor, is one of the few drugs available for these patients; but its use is hampered...

Two reduced dose radiopharmaceutical therapy approaches for advanced stage metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer have been shown to be just as effective as the standard dose, according to research. Treatment with deescalated 225Ac-PSMA-617 or a cocktail therapy of 177Lu/225Ac-PSMA-617 resulted in similar median overall survival and prostate specific antigen (PSA) response rates as the standard 225Ac-PSMA-617 dose and was better-tolerated. The standard dose for 225Ac-PSMA targeted radiopharmaceutical alpha-therapy is 100 kBq per kilogram of body weight or an approximation of eight MBq. "Preliminary data has shown that reduced doses result in lower rates of dry mouth while still maintaining promising anti-tumor...

older relative has kidney cancer and kidney will be removed…worried about it spreading pre-surgery. The only things I know are low carbs as cancer feeds on it and also ivermectin and other anti parasite drugs seem promising (best way to get them?) If anyone has whacked out crazy cures please share them. We like herbs and natural cures but we have open minds.

In a groundbreaking advancement in cancer research, scientists at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have engineered nanorobots made from “DNA origami” capable of specifically targeting and eliminating cancer cells in mice. This remarkable breakthrough, detailed in a study published today in Nature Nanotechnology, showcases the potential of nanotechnology to revolutionize cancer treatment and offers hope for future human applications. Interestingly, the announcement follows renowned futurist Raymond Kurzweil’s recent bold prediction that advancements in nanorobot technology will soon extend the human lifespan to 1,000 years. In his latest book, The Singularity is Nearer, released June 25, Kurzweil forecasts that by the...

By starving tumors of glucose, researchers may have found an innovative way of selectively killing cancer cells while sparing healthy ones.A team of researchers at Ben-Gurion University has unveiled a novel approach to treating brain cancer by targeting the survival mechanisms of tumor cells under glucose starvation. Their findings, published May 14 in Nature Communications, suggest that accelerating the metabolic processes of tumor cells during glucose starvation could cause them to quickly exhaust their energy supplies and die. Research head Prof. Barak Rotblat, along with co-lead researcher Gabriel Leprivier of the Institute of Neuropathology at University Hospital Düsseldorf, discovered that...

An international team of researchers studying a 4,000-year-old Egyptian skull that had signs of cancer say they have found evidence that ancient Egyptian medical practitioners knew about and potentially even tried to treat the deadly disease...While previous studies have revealed that Egyptians from these periods were able to identify, describe, and treat diseases and traumatic injuries, build prosthetics, and even place dental fillings, this study is the first to show that these surprisingly advanced ancient people may have tried to treat cancer around the same time they were building the pyramids...To conduct their analysis, the researchers were able to procure...

Conditions such as diabetes, heart attack, and vascular diseases commonly diagnosed in people with spinal cord injuries can be traced to abnormal post-injury neuronal activity that causes abdominal fat tissue compounds to leak and pool in the liver and other organs, a new animal study has found. Researchers found that a short course of the drug gabapentin prevented the damaging metabolic effects of spinal cord injury. Experiments revealed a cascade of abnormal activity within seven days after the injury in neurons and in visceral fat tissue. "As soon as we disrupt sensory processing as a result of spinal cord injury,...

Can Viagra prevent or reverse Alzheimer’s disease? Older men’s ship may be coming in. New research from the Cleveland Clinic suggests the erectile-dysfunction drug could ward off cognitive decline, illustrating how artificial intelligence can help scientists repurpose old medications for new diseases. The study, published this month in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, builds on earlier research by the Cleveland Clinic that identified sildenafil, the generic name for Viagra, as a promising Alzheimer’s treatment. Researchers first identified genes associated with the disease’s pathology, amyloid plaque and tau tangles in the brain. They then mapped out the molecular interplay among more...

People who are diagnosed with head and neck cancer often receive a standard type of chemotherapy as part of their treatment. If they are exposed to secondhand smoke during chemotherapy—even if they have never smoked themselves—the treatment may be far less effective at killing cancer cells. In her laboratory, Queimado and her team exposed head and neck cancer cells to secondhand smoke for 48 hours (a control group of cancer cells was not exposed to secondhand smoke). Simultaneously, the cells were treated with cisplatin, a chemotherapy drug commonly used to treat head and neck cancer. The findings were significant: Twice...

Diabetic patients who take anti-diabetic drugs—known as glitazones—long term had a lower risk of primary and secondary brain cancer compared with diabetic patients on other medications, new research has found. The study suggests these drugs could be repurposed to prevent brain metastasis in cancer patients who are at high risk of secondary cancers. PPAR- α agonists (fibrates) and PPAR γ agonists (glitazones) drugs are clinically important due to their widespread safe use to treat high cholesterol (hyperlipidemia) and diabetes. Previous studies have suggested that fibrates and glitazones may have a role in brain tumor prevention. Given the safety and cost...

Bladder cancer is one of the more common cancers worldwide. Intravesical bacillus Calmette-Guerin (tuberculosis vaccine) has been used as adjuvant therapy by urologists since 1976. Unfortunately, BCG fails approximately 40% of patients in two years. Since 2012, BCG has been in a worldwide shortage situation. One of the most promising new strategies for NMIBC is the combination of intravesical chemotherapy drugs used as sequential therapy, one drug after the other, with one-hour bladder dwell time for each drug. Initial results with gemcitabine (Gem) and mitomycin C (MMC) appeared promising but shortages in MMC led to the need to substitute docetaxel...

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a drug to help people with food allergies in the event they are accidentally exposed. It’s called Xolair, and it’s been used to treat asthma for two decades. Now, it has a new use. News4JAX spoke to a local mom Monday who said her 9-year-old daughter, Catherine, ended up in the hospital last year after having an allergic reaction to a pecan on Thanksgiving. “It gave me hives. And um I think made me stop breathing for a little,” Catherine said. Catherine said it wasn’t scary for her. But it was for her...

A research team brings together experts in an effort to discover exactly what is ailing the sickest long COVID patients and find treatments for them. The team reports that a disproportionate number of people affected—nearly 70%—are female and face debilitating symptoms that are identical to chronic fatigue syndrome, now referred to as myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome or ME/CFS. Blood samples show telltale amino acid deficiencies, suggesting readily available supplements have potential as therapy. "We do not actually believe that long COVID is a separate new disease," explains Jan Willem Cohen. Thirty patients had persistent severe long COVID symptoms 12 months...

A team of researchers have found a new therapeutic strategy for patients with a specific subtype of metastatic prostate cancer resistant to standard chemotherapy treatment with docetaxel. In this study, they propose a new treatment based on a combination of kinase inhibitors in patients who inevitably stop responding to docetaxel. The team found that resistance to this drug is associated with the hyperactivation of the cellular pathways PI3K/AKT and MEK/ERK and have explored the possibility of inhibiting these pathways as a new therapeutic strategy in patients who maintain the function of PTEN, a negative regulatory protein of the PI3K/AKT pathway....

Combining testosterone-blocking drugs in patients with prostate cancer relapse prevents the spread of cancer better than treatment with a single drug, a multi-institution, Phase 3 clinical trial led by researchers has found. The approach can extend the time between debilitating drug treatments without prolonging the time it takes to recover from each treatment. Prostate cancer is usually treated with one of several testosterone-lowering drugs for a set period of time. "This adds to a growing body of evidence in favor of more intensive testosterone-blocking therapy in patients with higher-risk prostate cancer," said Rahul Aggarwal, MD. The new study focused on...

Researchers have identified a receptor protein known as CHRM1 as a key player in prostate cancer cells' resistance to docetaxel, a commonly-used chemotherapy drug to treat advanced cancer that has spread beyond the prostate. The discovery opens the door to new treatment strategies that could overcome this resistance. The study showed that blocking CHRM1 in resistant prostate cancer cell lines and an animal model based on patient-derived resistant tissue restored docetaxel's ability to kill cells and stop tumor growth. The researchers did this by using dicyclomine, a drug that selectively inhibits CHRM1 activity. Dicyclomine is already on the market as...

Aformer U.S attorney general said the federal cases involving former President Donald Trump should be fast-tracked in the courts like key decisions involving President Richard Nixon were. Eric Holder, who was attorney general from 2009 to 2015, said the cases against Trump need to be heard before the November election. Legal maneuvers by Trump's lawyers have held up the federal election case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith in Washington, D.C. Smith also brought charges against Trump in the classified documents case in Florida. The U.S. Supreme Court will at some point decide if Trump is immune from prosecution for...

A few years ago, a patient was cured of multiple myeloma after being treated for hepatitis C. Multiple myeloma is one of the most common cancers of the blood. The desire to understand how this patient was cured has led to the discovery that hepatitis B and C viruses are one of the causes of multiple myeloma, and eliminating infection with antivirals is often the way to fight this type of cancer. Multiple myeloma (MM) is an excessive proliferation of blood cells that make antibodies (also called immunoglobulins), the proteins that defend the body from infections. In myeloma, a certain...