A man has told how he and his wife battled breast cancer at the same time, and adding to the unusual turn of events, he was the one to undergo a mastectomy.

Ron Bush, from Fort Mill, South Carolina, explained to WBTV that he was focused on looking after his wife, Phyllis, who was diagnosed with Paget’s disease – a rare form of cancer in the skin around the nipple area – last fall.

But in the midst of her treatment, he developed a lump on the right side of his chest and a biopsy confirmed he had an ‘aggressive’ and ‘invasive’ form of breast cancer that had spread to his lymph nodes.

The post Husband and Wife Battled Breast Cancer-HE Had Mastectomy appeared first on Let Life Happen.

The drug binds to a protein called PD-L1 that sits on the surface of cancer cells and makes them invisible to the immune system, almost like a cloaking device.

“That [the protein] allows the tumor cell to grow unchecked and cause harm to the patient,” said study author Dr. Roy Herbst, chief of medical oncology at Yale University.

But with the protein blocked, the immune system can see and destroy cancer cells.

Of 140 patients in the pilot safety study, 29 (or 21 percent) initially saw significant tumor shrinkage after at least three months on the medication. Researchers say 26 patients have continued to respond over time, including some who have been on the drug for more than a year. One patient saw tumors disappear completely.

The drug also seems to work on a wide range of cancers, including some of the toughest to treat, including non-small cell lung cancer, melanoma skin cancer, colorectal cancer, kidney cancer and stomach cancer.

“This has all the characteristics of a really amazing drug,” said Herbst, who has been testing new cancer medications for two decades. “I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen response rates like this.”

The study was funded by Genentech/Roche, the company that is developing the drug. The results were presented at a Wednesday news conference organized by the American Society of Clinical Oncology in advance of its annual meeting, which starts May 31 in Chicago.

Study results presented at medical meetings are considered preliminary because they have not been subjected to the rigorous scrutiny required for publication in a medical journal.

At least four other companies — Merck, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, MedImmune and Amplimmune — also are racing to develop drugs that target PD-L1 or the molecule that binds to it (PD-1).

“I don’t think in the history of cancer therapy have you had five or more companies virtually simultaneously developing antibodies targeted at the same pathway,” said Dr. Drew Pardoll, co-director of cancer immunology at the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, in Baltimore.

Pardoll is testing a drug that targets PD-1 for Bristol-Myers Squibb. He was not involved in the current study.

The drugs are part of a wave of new treatments that work by spurring the immune system to take on tumors. These drugs are building on the successes of medications like Provenge, the first cancer immunotherapy, which was approved in 2010 to treat prostate tumors, and Yervoy, which was approved in 2011 to treat metastatic melanoma.

Yervoy works early in the immune reaction to wake up T-cells that are essentially napping on the job, Pardoll said. The PD-1 and PD-L1 drugs work later, at the cellular level.

“This is a whole new kind of treatment, and the early data has looked so impressive,” Pardoll said. “I think this just reflects the excitement among biotechnology companies and big pharma in this field.”

To understand why researchers are excited, it helps to understand how poorly most cancer drugs perform in early trials. A study published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research in August 2005 found that middle-of-the-road response rates for cancer drugs in early trials was just 3 percent, with the best response rate topping out at 18 percent.

Response rates are so dismal in part because doctors usually don’t try unproven drugs in cancer patients until they have run out of other options. All the patients in this study had seen their cancer progress despite several prior treatments. Most had seen their cancer spread beyond its original site.

Pardoll said he also has been impressed with the length of time that patients continue to see benefits from the medications in the new study.

“Among the patients that did respond to anti-PD-1, who had been followed for more than a year, roughly two-thirds were still in a response a year out,” he said. “That’s something you don’t see with chemotherapy; you don’t see it with current targeted therapies.

“We think this is because the immune system is being re-educated,” Pardoll said. “If that’s the case, will we be able to discontinue the antibody and have the patient’s immune system take over and keep the cancer at bay?”

Although the drugs have great promise, the researchers said they also were keeping an eye on the adverse events they can cause, some of which have been very serious.

PD stands for programmed death, and together the two molecules work to switch off the body’s immune response. Blocking one or the other keeps the immune system active, which is good for fighting cancer, but there are also early signs that manipulating this response may have a downside.

Some patients had side effects that researchers believe are caused by autoimmunity — the body mistakenly attacking its own organs and tissues. Those side effects include lung and liver inflammation, rashes and hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), perhaps because of a problem with the thyroid gland.

In a study published in a June 2012 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, three patients who were taking an anti-PD-1 drug died from pneumonitis, or inflammation of the lungs.

The researchers said they’re working to understand why the drugs seem to be particularly toxic to the lungs and to mitigate their adverse effects.

“We need to be cautious about the toxicities,” Herbst said. “It’s great that we’re making progress, and now we need to go to randomized trials.”

More information

To find clinical trials that are testing immunotherapy drugs, head to the Cancer Immunotherapy Trials Network.

The post New Drug May Help Immune System Fight Cancer appeared first on Let Life Happen.

People who had non-melanoma skin cancer were nearly 80 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than people who did not. The association was not found with other types of dementia

To understand the possible association between skin cancer and Alzheimer’s, it is important to know that people have a combination of cells that are multiplying and others that are dying, explained study author Dr. Richard Lipton, a professor of neurology, epidemiology and population health at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. The research was published online May 15 in the journal Neurology.

“When cell division gets out of control, we call that cancer. And when specific populations of brain cells die, we call that Alzheimer’s,” Lipton said. “So, there is a balance between cell division [growth] and cell death. If you have an individual with an increased risk of cell division over cell death, that may be linked to a decreased risk of Alzheimer’s.”

The finding was intriguing to one expert.

“It’s fascinating that we can get clues about what’s going on in the brain by looking at the periphery [skin],” said Terrence Town, a professor in the physiology and biophysics department at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.

Non-melanoma skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States; there were more than 2 million new cases in 2012, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

What could be causing the possible association between skin cancer and a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s?

“Either developing skin cancer is a marker for some biological process that protects against Alzheimer’s or environmental factors may play a role,” Lipton said. Genetics could be a factor, as could lots of outdoor physical activity and exercise, although Lipton cautioned people to avoid too much sun exposure and wear sunscreen

Others think the link may be directly related to how the lowered immune response of skin cells in skin cancer corresponds to a similar immune response in the brain.

“This research is another piece of evidence that tells us that peripheral inflammation [in the skin] is very important in Alzheimer’s disease,” Town said. He thinks that people who develop non-melanoma skin cancers don’t have an immune response in their skin, and thus develop skin cancers, because an immune response may be critical to fighting skin cancer. But that benefits them when it comes to developing Alzheimer’s disease.

“This reduced inflammatory response that was permissive to the skin cancer was perhaps beneficial in the brain,” said Town.

Town thinks the study suggests a fascinating and important concept: skin cancer may be a biomarker for resistance to Alzheimer’s disease. That means, for example, that it may be possible that drugs that dampen the inflammatory response, such as a TNF-alpha inhibitor, could potentially be used to help prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

TNF-alpha inhibitors block TNF-alpha, a protein that is present in larger quantities in people who have certain inflammatory conditions, such as rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and psoriasis. TNF-alpha inhibitors include adalimumab (Humira), etanercept (Enbrel) and infliximab (Remicade).

The latest research involved 1,102 people in New York City, whose average age was 79 when they enrolled in the study. None of the participants had dementia at the beginning of the study. Every year, a team tested them for memory, concentration, language, planning abilities and other factors. During the average four-year follow-up, they were asked annually whether they had developed non-melanoma skin cancer.

At the start of the study, 109 people reported that they had been diagnosed with skin cancer in the past. During the study, 32 people developed skin cancer and 126 people developed dementia, 100 of those with Alzheimer’s. Of the 141 people with skin cancer, only two developed Alzheimer’s disease, compared to 98 of the 961 people without skin cancer.

Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia, defined by declines in memory and other thinking abilities.

“For a long time, we didn’t even know inflammation was important, a key factor in the evolution of Alzheimer’s disease,” said Town. “Now [this paper suggests that] we can start to think more broadly; maybe it’s inflammation in the blood or the skin that might be important factors.”

Although the study found an association between certain non-melanoma skin cancers and lower risk of Alzheimer’s, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

The post Some Types of Skin Cancer Linked to Lower Chances of Alzheimer’s appeared first on Let Life Happen.

TUESDAY May 14, 2013 — A new combination drug therapy for osteoporosis appears to increase bone density more effectively thanany treatment now on the market, according to the results of a small clinical trial.

Researchers found that postmenopausal women experienced significant amounts of bone growth by taking a bone-building drug called teriparatide with denosumab, a targeted therapy drug used to stop bone loss.

“A combination of these two medications increased bone density more than either does on its own, and it is more effective than any currently approved therapy,” said study author Dr. Benjamin Leder, who is with the endocrine unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

The 12-month study, published online May 15 in The Lancet, was funded in part by the drugs’ makers, Eli Lilly and Amgen. It involved 94 postmenopausal women being treated for osteoporosis, a bone-thinning disorder common in old age that makes bones more likely to break.

Researchers divided the group into thirds, with one third receiving a combination therapy of teriparatide (Forteo) and denosumab (Prolia), and the rest taking one medication or the other.

Those treated with both drugs enjoyed significantly better results than those receiving just one. For example, bone density measured at the lumbar spine increased 6.2 percent with teriparatide alone and 5.5 percent with denosumab alone, but combination treatment resulted in a 9.1 percent increase. Bone density at the hip increased 4.9 percent with the combination treatment versus 2.5 percent with denosumab and 0.7 percent with teriparatide.

Bones are in constant flux, with one set of cells forming new bone while other cells break down bone through a process called resorption. After women go through menopause, resorption begins to outpace the formation of new bone, leading to bone thinning and an increased risk of fractures.

Several types of drugs are approved to tackle the problem. Medications such as teriparatide stimulate new bone growth, and drugs such as denosumab reduce bone resorption, but none do both at the same time.

The combination used in this study works because the two drugs act in concert to overcome each other’s shortcomings, Leder said.

“Whereas teriparatide increases bone formation, it also increases bone resorption,” Leder said. “Denosumab completely blocks the ability of teriparatide to increase bone resorption, but does not block its ability to increase bone formation.”

Dr. Felicia Cosman, senior clinical director for the National Osteoporosis Foundation, said the findings look very promising.

“I think it is time to reconsider the whole issue of combination therapy, based on this study and others, particularly for people with extremely high fracture risk,” Cosman said.

However, she noted that it remains to be seen whether the effectiveness of the combination therapy will hold up beyond the first year, a concern shared by Dr. Richard Bockman, chief of endocrinology at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.

“This is an interim report, and the data are what they are. I think you have to see the two-year data,” Bockman said. “You don’t see the full benefit with regards to bone benefit at the hip in the first 12 months. You do see the change at the spine.”

And another expert pointed out another possible caveat.

There’s some question about whether the new bone grown with this therapy will be better able to resist fractures, said Dr. Joseph Lane, chief of metabolic bone disease service at Hospital for Special Surgery and a professor of orthopedic surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.

“It seems to work,” Lane said. “This is an important step in the right direction. It proves you can make more bone.”

But Lane wonders about the quality of that bone. Only data on fracture healing can address that question, he noted.

The study authors acknowledged that additional research is needed before the combination treatment should be used in clinical practice.

Leder noted that both drugs are expensive, which makes the therapy potentially most cost-effective for patients in dire need.

“Because we don’t know what the effect is on fractures, it’s a hard calculation to make,” he said. “If it prevents x number of fractures, then it could be cost- effective.”

More information

The National Osteoporosis Foundation has more about prevention and treatment.

The post Combo Drug Therapy May Work Best to Strengthen Bones: Study appeared first on Let Life Happen.

“Surgeons have recognized the limitations in using closed suction drains in mastectomy procedures for some time,” says Prof. Blohmer of the Sankt Gertrauden-Krankenhaus, Berlin. “German plastic surgeons have already demonstrated the use of TissuGlu to eliminate drains in other reconstructive methods. Using this surgical adhesive in no-drain mastectomy procedures will increase patient comfort and ease the healing process.”

According to the Susan G. Komen Foundation there will be more than 232,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer in the U.S. this year. Most people with invasive breast cancer undergo a mastectomy to remove their breast. Surgical drains are used in this procedure to help the healing process. The surgical drains must be attended to properly and can become blocked by fluid at the surgical site. Left untreated, this accumulation may cause infection and/or delayed healing.

“TissuGlu has the potential to transform the healing process following a mastectomy procedure,” said Patrick Daly, president and CEO of Cohera Medical. “We are excited to use this technology in no-drain mastectomies, providing breast cancer patients with a more natural healing process that has a reduced risk for complications.”

Cohera Medical received CE Marking approval for TissuGlu and began selling product to hospitals and surgeons in Germany in September 2011. An earlier no-drain study of 30 patients was successfully completed in Germany in July 2012. In the U.S., Cohera recently completed enrollment of a clinical trial for TissuGlu. TissuGlu has been used successfully in over 600 various surgical procedures by leading surgeons.

About Cohera Medical
Cohera Medical, Inc. is a leading innovator and developer of absorbable surgical adhesives and sealants. The Company’s first product, TissuGlu Surgical Adhesive, is an internal surgical adhesive for large flap surgeries, such as abdominoplasty (tummy tuck), that eliminates or reduces fluid accumulation and the need for post surgical drains. TissuGlu’s chemical composition is resorbable, non-toxic, forms a strong bond between tissue layers and allows for natural healing, which ultimately may enable faster recovery. TissuGlu has received CE Marking approval to be sold in the European Union (EU). Cohera Medical is also developing a unique and proprietary bowel sealant, and a strong adhesive for mesh fixation. Outside of the EU, TissuGlu and the other Cohera products are currently indicated for investigational use only and have not yet been approved for medical use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S. or in any other market. For more information, visit www.coheramed.com.

The post TissuGlu® Surgical Adhesive Has the Potential to Eliminate Drains, Improving Patient Recovery appeared first on Let Life Happen.

MONDAY May 13, 2013 — A link exists between exposure to Agent Orange and deadly forms of prostate cancer in U.S. veterans, according to a new study.

Agent Orange was a chemical spray that was heavily used during the Vietnam War era. It was often contaminated with dioxin, a potentially cancer-causing chemical. Previous research suggests that exposure to Agent Orange increases the risk of prostate cancer, but it wasn’t known if it specifically increases the risk of more dangerous forms of the disease.

In this study, researchers looked at more than 2,700 U.S. veterans who underwent a prostate biopsy. Prostate cancer was diagnosed in 33 percent of the veterans, including 17 percent with high-grade disease, according to the study, which was published online May 13 in the journal Cancer.

Exposure to Agent Orange was linked with a 52 percent increase in overall prostate cancer risk, a 75 percent increased risk of high-grade prostate cancer and a more than doubled risk of the deadliest forms of the disease.

The findings suggest that determining veterans’ exposure to Agent Orange can help identify those who may be at increased risk for prostate cancer, leading to earlier detection and treatment, said Dr. Mark Garzotto, of the Portland Veterans Administration Medical Center and Oregon Health & Science University, and colleagues.

“It also should raise awareness about potential harms of chemical contaminants in biologic agents used in warfare and the risks associated with waste handling and other chemical processes that generate dioxin or dioxin-related compounds,” Garzotto said in a journal news release.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about prostate cancer.

The post Agent Orange Tied to Lethal Prostate Cancer appeared first on Let Life Happen.

There were people who had mothers that treated them poorly.  Some were physically and mentally abusive.  Some treated their children as slaves and made them do all of the things that other mothers did while they went out and partied.  There were those who put “their man” ahead of the children and had no time to pay attention to those children.  There were those who used their children as weapons in their personal battles with the children’s father.  Some expected that their children should take care of them just as soon as the children were old enough to get a job.  And there were those whose moms knew that their children were being abused by other family members and just turned a blind eye to it and denied that it even happened if their children told them about it.

For another group of children, they did not have a real relationship with their mothers.  Some of these mothers abandoned their families.  Some didn’t want to be a mother so they put their children up for adoption. For others, they were placed in foster homes for any number of reasons because their mothers were not capable of taking care of them.  Then there were those who created such bad situations in the home that there was no way that a child could respect them when they were repeatedly exposed to their mothers lying, cheating and/or stealing.

These situations have created all types of new families for children.  Some children may be raised by their grandmother or aunt or other family member.  It is becoming more usual for children to be raised by two same sex partners which may not even include a “mother”.  Some children have now found a new mom in the homes of friends or neighbors when they can no longer live in their own homes.

I think that the time may have come when we no longer celebrate this money-driven excuse for a holiday.  It seems like the florists and restaurants and the retail stores and confectioners are the only real winners.  For those who really love and respect their mothers, a Mother’s Day is never needed as those mothers know how their children feel about them every day.  For the rest, this day is a reminder of all things that they don’t want to remember or face.  No one ever wants to be guilted into celebrating or honoring a mother who was anything but what a mother is expected to be but it happens all of the time on Mother’s Day.  Perhaps it is time to eliminate this “holiday”.

The post Is Mother’s Day Sad for You? appeared first on Let Life Happen.

The post The Minnie Pearl Cancer Foundation Announces New Name, PearlPoint Cancer Support, for Adults with Cancer appeared first on Let Life Happen.

PORTLAND, Ore.

The study, published in the May 9 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, isolated the molecular mutation that causes chronic neutrophilic leukemia (CNL) and atypical chronic myeloid leukemia (aCML) in some patients. That mutation, occurring in a gene called colony stimulating factor 3 receptor (CSF3R), initiates a chain reaction involving other gene families known as SRC, JAK, and TNK2, which subsequently drives these diseases.

This discovery is promising for patients as it will aid in diagnosing these cancers, which are currently difficult for physicians to distinguish from other leukemias.  More importantly, the study results suggest that these patients could be helped by existing FDA-approved drugs designed to inhibit the chain reactions impacting JAK and SRC/TNK2, though clinical trials are needed.

“Our ability to rapidly pinpoint a new cancer-driving mutation demonstrates the power of integrating improved genome sequencing technology. It will accelerate our ability to tailor treatments to individuals and each research victory gives us more insight into the nature of this complex disease,” said Jeffrey W. Tyner, Ph.D., an assistant professor with the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute and Cell & Developmental Biology Department, whose lab led the research. “What distinguished this research was our method for matching voluminous amounts of gene sequencing data with drug sensitivity data to quickly deduce which mutations were relevant in causing disease. This allows us to make a difference for patients who don’t currently have good therapeutic options.”

Tyner and the other researchers who conducted this study used a combination of tests not yet commonly deployed together for research on primary specimens collected from cancer patients. They performed gene sequencing on specimens from 27 patients, creating a profile of the possible genetic causes of these diseases. This enabled them to highlight the important mutations that were common among CNL and aCML patients. As they gathered information on potentially relevant mutations, they simultaneously tested how fresh samples of patients’ cancer cells responded to different drugs. This enabled the scientists to link drug efficacy to CSF3R gene mutations.

The two-pronged study approach provided researchers with the ability to quickly home in on and verify a root cause of these rare forms of leukemia. Of the 27 patients in the study, 16, or about 59 percent, had the CSF3R mutation.

“This approach allows us to rapidly discover mutations that are fundamental to cancer growth and identify drugs that might be used to combat them,” said Julia Maxson, Ph.D., of the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute, who was first author on the study. “Our findings are not only promising for the treatment of patients with CNL and aCML but also validate our approach to identify new drug targets in cancer.”

In fact, during the study period, a CNL patient was treated with the FDA-approved drug ruxolitinib, which inhibits the cancer cell growth initiated by the CSF3R mutation. This treatment resulted in a dramatic improvement in the patient’s condition.

CNL and aCML impact several hundred patients in the United States each year. Patients afflicted with these conditions typically live only two to three years. These forms of cancer have also been difficult to diagnose because there wasn’t enough known about their genetic drivers. Knowing that they are defined by mutations in CSF3R provides physicians with a means to confirm a diagnosis. Tests for this mutation are already available; the OHSU Knight Diagnostic Laboratories‘ GeneTrails panel for leukemias has the capability to check for this mutation.

In an editorial that accompanies the study in the New England Journal of Medicine, Jerald Radich, M.D., of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, wrote that the approach is “an example of what genetically informed treatment may look like in the near future.” Radich continued: “This is how we will beat cancer, one gene, one disease at a time.”

The post Discovery pinpoints cause of two types of leukemia, providing insights into new treatment approach appeared first on Let Life Happen.

From our friends at Camp Kesem.org.

I am reaching out to Mom, Dad and cancer bloggers for their support in promoting Camp Kesem’s “Give a Laugh” campaign this coming Mother’s and Father’s Day—see below and attached for details about the campaign. Would you consider helping us by sharing the Camp Kesem story and promoting our “Give a Laugh” campaign in your blogs and/or Tweets?

Camp Kesem is a college student-led network of free week-long sleep away camps and year-round social circles for kids aged 6-16 who have or have lost a parent to cancer. Kids affected by a parent’s cancer may be withdrawn, angry, anxious or sad—life as they know it has changed. Camp Kesem offers them a chance to reclaim their childhood and rediscover their laugh, with a week of fun and community, along with reunions and other events throughout the year.

The link to Mother’s and Father’s Day is obvious: What better gift to give Mom or Dad than the laughter and happiness of a child? So for this Mother’s and Father’s Day, Camp Kesem is sponsoring a viral “Give a Laugh” competition— collecting, posting and having people vote on their favorite “Give a  laugh” video. The competition starts on Mother’s Day and concludes with the winner being  announced via Facebook and our website on Father’s Day. The winning “Give a laugh” video(s) will be featured in e-cards offered by Camp Kesem for next Mother’s and Father’s Day.

The post Camp Kesem – For Kids Who Have Lost a Parent to Cancer appeared first on Let Life Happen.