Health News Update

Cancer Health News

 

In the most recent health news:  Cancer drug tests in the U.K. were recently stopped early because of the impressive success of tests for a new prostate cancer drug.  This drug trial was stopped because the drug was so successful at targeting cancer tumours that it was deemed unfair not to offer all the 922 people involved in the drug testing the use of this new cancer drug.  This is exciting health news for suffers of prostate cancer (and potentially other cancers) which an estimated 913,000 men worldwide are diagnosed with each year.  This cancer drug is called an alpha radiation drug which targets the tumors, relieves pain, and patients are found to be living longer.  Scientists are excited with this health news.  This health news first appeared on the BBC news site.

Alpha radiation treats prostate cancers

A trial of a new cancer drug, which accurately targets tumours, has been so successful it has been stopped early.

Doctors at London’s Royal Marsden Hospital gave prostate cancer patients a powerful alpha radiation drug and found that they lived longer, and experienced less pain and side effects.

The medics then stopped the trial of 922 people, saying it was unethical not to offer all of them the treatment.
Lead researcher Dr Chris Parker said it was “a significant step forward”.
Cancer Research UK said it was a very important and promising discovery.
Radiation has been used to treat tumours for more than a century. It damages the genetic code inside cancerous cells.
Alpha particles are the big, bulky, bruisers of the radiation world. It is a barrage of helium nuclei, which are far bigger than beta radiation, a stream of electrons, or gamma waves.  Dr Parker said: “It’s more damaging. It takes one, two, three hits to kill a cancer cell compared with thousands of hits for beta particles.”
Alpha particles also do less damage to surrounding tissue.

He added: “They have such a tiny range, a few millionths of a metre. So we can be sure that the damage is being done where it should be.”
In 90% of patients with advanced prostate cancer, the tumour will have spread to the bone. At this stage there are no treatments which affect survival.
The study looked at patients with these secondary cancers, as the source of radiation – radium-223 chloride – acts like calcium and sticks to bone.
Half were given the radium-223 chloride drug alongside traditional chemotherapy, while the other patients received chemotherapy and a dummy pill.

The death rate was 30% lower in the group taking radium-223. Those patients survived for 14 months on average compared to 11 months in the dummy group.

The trial was abandoned as “it would have been unethical not to offer the active treatment to those taking placebo”, said Dr Parker.  “I think it will be a significant step forward for cancer patients”.

Researchers also said the treatment was safe. Curiously there were fewer side-effects in the group taking the treatment than those taking the dummy medicine.

The findings are being presented at the European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress but they have not yet been peer-reviewed by other academics.
Prof Gillies McKenna, Cancer Research UK’s radiotherapy expert and director of the Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology and Biology, said: “This appears to be an important study using a highly targeted form of radiation to treat prostate cancer that has spread to the bones.

“This research looks very promising and could be an important addition to approaches available to treat secondary tumours – and should be investigated further.”

Male breast cancer linked to Finasteride

The latest health news for men is reporting that Finasteride a brand name medication known as Propecia for treating baldness in men has been shown to cause breast cancer. Other health news reports that the drug named Proscar which is used to treat enlarged prostate is also reported as causing breast cancer in men. Although it is not known definitely is finasteride actually causes male breast cancer, patients are being warned to report any symptoms such as nipple discharge, soreness or lumps to their doctors immediately. The following health news comes from Health Canada.

Health Canada says labels are being changed on finasteride drugs to add safety information on rare reports of breast cancer in men.

Finasteride is a prescription drug sold under the brand name Propecia, used for the treatment of male pattern hair loss, and the brand name Proscar, for treating a non-cancerous enlarged prostate.

A Health Canada statement issued Thursday says male breast cancer has been reported in a small number of patients around the world using both the one-milligram and five-milligram formulations of the drug.

It says most reports have been associated with the five-milligram dosage.

However, the agency says based on available evidence, it’s not known for sure that finasteride can cause breast cancer — only that the possibility can’t be ruled out.

It says patients taking finasteride should report any changes in their breasts to their doctor.
Changes might include breast enlargement, lumps, tenderness, pain or nipple discharge.

Breast cancer research identifies ZNF703 gene

In this breast cancer update, researchers have found a major breast cancer causing gene called the ZNF703.  ZNF703 is one of the first genes discovered to play a key role in aggressive breast cancers.  This “oncogene” is the first to be found in the last five years.

It causes an aggressive form of breast cancer and is an overactive gene in one of 12 breast cancers.

Scientists believe that this ZNF703 gene should be identified as a target for new drug treatment therapies.

Her2 is another oncogene which was discovered by scientists during breast cancer research earlier on.  After the identification of Her2, the breast cancer drug Herceptic was created to eliminate Her2 gene breast cancers.

An oncogene in healthy cells causes cell division.  However, if it becomes unbalanced and overactive, it will create havoc with the cell division process.

Scientists studied gene activity both breast cancer cells grown in a lab and 1,172 breast tumor samples. By a process of elimination of  genes in the tumor samples, only the ZNF703 gene was left within the breast cancer cells which remained overactive. In breast cancer patients, ZNF703 was the only overactive gene that was driving the breast cancer.

Researchers at the British Columbia Cancer Agency in Vancouver, Canada and the Cambridge Research Institute in Britain did the research.  This research was published in the EMBO website at embomolmed.org.
It is hoped that this discovery of the oncogene ZNF703 will lead to better breast cancer treatments in the future to treat cancers that are resistant to standard hormone therapies.

Dr Rachel Greig, of Breakthrough Breast Cancer said the research was “a vital step in understanding the genes that drive the growth of some types of breast cancer”.