EZH2 as a Therapeutic Target in Glioblastoma: A Cellular and Molecular Study

Glioblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumor in adults and it is currently treated with a combination of surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy with temozolomide (TMZ). Many patients show resistance to TMZ, which is a challenge in the treatment of this type of brain cancer.

New strategies are being tested, like the inhibition of EZH2, a histone methyltransferase which is overexpressed in cancer cells, leading to angiogenesis and metastasis. In this work, the EZH2 inhibitor DZNeP was tested in A172 glioblastoma cells and in A172-TMZ-resistant glioblastoma cells.

Inhibition of cell proliferation, adhesion, colony formation, and migration was noted in control and TMZresistant glioblastoma cells after DZNeP treatment. At the level of EZH2 target gene expression, DZNeP decreased EZH2 expression, and increased the expression of its target genes (E-cadherin and TIMP3), which might probably contribute to inhibiting the development of a cancer metastatic phenotype. 

Quality of Life and Sexual Activity after Stereotactic Hypofractionated Radiotherapy of Prostate Cancer Patients

Quality of life (QoL) is an important factor for the cancer patients after treatment. The study aimed to investigate QoL and sexual activity in patients who had undergone stereotactic hypofractionated radiotherapy (HRT). Methods: The analysis included 82 prostate cancer patients: 40 patients treated by HRT (33.5 Gy in 5 fractions) and 42 patients treated by standard three-dimensional conformal radiation treatment 3DCRT (70-82 Gy in 35-41 fractions); and 50 healthy men without any type of cancer.

The subjects filled out the questionnaires: EORTC QLQC30 (version 3.0.) and the prostate cancer-specific EORTC QLQ-PR25. The median follow-up was 21 months for HRT patients and 28 months for 3DCRT patients. Results: The tolerance for stereotactic HRT was shown to be good. The QoL and the general health status of HRT patients were higher than of 3DCRT patients and even of healthy men. Most patients treated by HRT felt that they had lost their masculinity.

However, they were still interested in having sex; one third of them were sexually active, most reported satisfaction with their sex life. Conclusions: HRT for prostate cancer patients was an attractive treatment in relation to patients' QoL assessment in the short term analysis.

PDF LINK

Robotic Radical Prostatectomy and Nerve Grafting: Does it Actually Work?

Robotic radical prostatectomy is now the gold standard for patients with localised prostate cancer. In the setting of unfavourable prostate pathology, some men may require resection of one or both cavernous nerves at the time of prostatectomy. Potency rates in this subset of men are expectedly dismal.

With increasing numbers of younger men being diagnosed with prostate cancer and subsequently undergoing radical prostatectomy, there is an increasing focus on quality of life postoperatively, especially potency. Nerve-grafting surgery after resection of neuro-vascular bundles during radical prostatectomy is one of the promising resolutions for dilemma between cancer control and functional preservation.

There have been a number of articles recently on nerve grafting for robotic radical prostatectomy. We aim to review the evidence for whether this actually works and gives a good degree of erectile function.

PDF LINK

Chloroma- Myelosarcoma or Leukemic Nerve Tumor?

Following our review on leukemia and the nervous system we would like to draw your attention to a rare manifestation of leukemia termed historically chloroma (CH) or myelosarcoma, which can rarely affect the cranial nerves and the peripheral nerves.

These rare associations of leukemia and the peripheral nervous system, can occur in all stages of leukemia, as the first manifestation, as recurrence and post bone marrow transplant. Most frequently CH are seen in AML, less frequent CML, but also in OMF.

They can also appear isolated, and leave room for speculations why leukemia can covert from a liquid into a solid tumor, and why the presentation can be in peripheral nerves. Chloromas, myelosarcomas or leukemic tumors are rare and present at many sites of the body. Compared to lymphomas focal nerve lesion in leukemia are rare.

PDF LINK

p53 R72P Alone and in Combination with MDM2 SNP T309G is Associated with Colon Carcinoma Incidence and Survival

Protein p53 is encoded by tumor suppressor TP53, which regulates key cellular functions such as transcription, cell cycle arrest, DNA repair and apoptosis. Murine double minute 2 homolog (MDM2), a p53 transcribed protein, negatively regulates p53.

A single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) at codon 72 of TP53 (R72P, rs rs1042522) alters an amino acid, while an SNP T309G (rs2279744) polymorphism (SNPT309G) in the promoter region of MDM2 has been reported to modulate its transcription. p53 R72P and MDM2 SNPT309G have been reported to associate alone and or in combination with various carcinomas.

In this study, we aimed to determine if p53 R72P and MDM2 SNPT309G polymorphism alone or in combination are associated with colon carcinoma incidence, tumor progression and/or patient survival in Swedish population.

PDF LINK

Lymphangioma in Patients with Pulmonary Lymphangioleiomyomatosis: Results of Sirolimus Treatment

Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) is a rare disease caused by abnormal proliferation of smooth muscle-like cells mainly in lungs and axial lymph nodes, that belongs to the group of PEComa tumours.

Chylous pleural and abdominal effusions, lymhangioleiomiomas, angiomyolipomas are noticed in disease course. Sirolimus has been approved for LAM treatment, and also it has been reported to decrease the size of angiomyolipomas, lymphangiooedma, pleural and peritoneal chylous effusion.

The aim of the study was to assess the significance of sirolimus therapy in patients with LAM and lymphangioma in retroperitoneal space. Method: Fourteen women with confirmed diagnosis of LAM (13 with sporadic LAM, and one TSC/LAM) and presence of lymphangioma in abdominal cavity were retrospectively reviewed. Seven patients displayed chyloperitoneum and chylothorax. Mean time of sirolimus exposure was 19 ± 12.99 months.

PDF LINK

Breast-Conserving Therapy Versus Radical Mastectomy for Early Breast Cancer

The aim of this clinical study was to compare breast-conserving therapy (BCT) and radical mastectomy (RM) in the treatment of early breast cancer. Materials and methods: From March 1986 to the end of 1989, 117 women with a breast tumor of up to 2 cm in size were included in this study; 66 women had a quadrantectomy, while 51 had a radical mastectomy.

Full axillary dissection was performed in all patients, while adjuvant chemotherapy with cyclophosphamide, methotrexate and fluorouracil was conducted in node-positive patients. Radiation to the remaining breast parenchyma consisted of external-beam therapy, with or without regional irradiation, without boost to the tumor bed. Results: The follow-up of patients in the two treatment groups was limited to 240 months.

The mean period of observation (SD±) was 201.34 months (54.12 ± 226.5) for the patients with breast-conserving therapy (BCT) and 195.84 months (35.1 ± 226.5) for the patients with radical mastectomy.

PDF LINK

Huge Bilateral Mature Cystic Teratoma in Adolescence: A Case Report and Review of Literature

A 13 years old, single female, presented to our emergency room complaining of generalized abdominal pain for two weeks. It was colicky in nature, progressive in intensity over time, with no history of fever, nausea, vomiting, or changes in bowel habits. She did not notice any abdominal distension or changes in weight, but, complained of dysuria for two weeks. 

Her menarche was two years ago and regular menstruation for the past elven months. The vital signs were within normal. A palpable pelvic-abdominal mass reaching up to the umbilicus,non-tender, mobile with no skin changes was found on abdominal examination. Ultrasound of the abdomen and pelvis revealed a normal, retroverted uterus, three multiple, right sided ovarian cyst, largest measuring 6.3 × 7.3 cm and 5.6 × 6.3 cm, and Left hyper-echogenic ovarian cyst measuring 12.5 × 7.8 cm with some projections inside the cavity. 

The Challenge of pN3 Stage in Breast Cancer

Since 1959 the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) TNM system has been used to stage breast cancer. Since then, the TNM has helped clinicians in deciding the better treatment for each patient.

Periodically revisions have been made to this classification with the aim of keeping a relationship between the disease extent and the prognosis. However, when we talk about breast cancer, the TNM is not always enough.Several publications in the last years report that there are other predictive factors that influence the prognosis, measured by the overall survival or the DFS (disease-free survival), as much as the TNM stage does.

Some authors claim that important factors as primary tumor histologic grade and biologic tumor markers should be included in the AJCC system.

PDF LINK

Cervical cancer screening strategies

Starting from May 1, 2017 in Australia the National Cervical Screening Program will shift from cervical cytology every two years, to HPV DNA testing as the sole primary screening test every five years in women aged 25 to 74 years, together with the implementation of an active HPV vaccination program.

Conversely in Japan cervical screening using cytology every two years is still being recommended for population-based and opportunistic screening. While Canadian guidelines also recommend cervical screening with cytology every 3 years, in Europe cervical cytology is recommended for women under 30-35 years, and HPV testing as the sole primary screening test every 5-10 years for women above 30-35 years.

Actually, guidelines do not represent the real situation in each European country. In the Netherlands, screening is well organised and relies on primary HPV testing every 5 years until 40 years of age and every 10 years for women aged 40 and beyond: no screening is provided for women under 30, nor over 60 years of age.

PDF LINK

Management Of Unexpected Peritoneal Metastases With Primary Colorectal Cancer Using Second-Look Surgery With HIPEC

Peritoneal metastases (PM) documented in a patient with primary colon or rectal cancer places the patient at extreme risk for local recurrence or progressive PM diagnosed in follow-up.

In the past, peritoneal seeding diagnosed with the surgical exploration did not result in any major changes in the surgical approach to the disease process. Rather, conventional surgery was performed and then the patient was referred for palliative systemic chemotherapy. At this point in time potentially curative treatments for PM have evolved and become an important part of the standard of care of colorectal malignancy.

In order to optimize the management of peritoneal metastases, a new approach to the primary cancer presenting with PM is required. The goal of manuscript is to describe a clinical pathway so that patients with PM diagnosed at the time of primary colorectal cancer resection receive treatment with curative intent.

PDF LINK

Taking Action against Anti-Healthcare Violence in China

Medical doctors and nurses are the key endpoints of delivery for our service of medicine and therapy. However, similar to gun violence in the US, the virulent anti-healthcare violence (AHcV) has rampaged like a type of "virus" in China for a while and is a public healthcare problem worldwide as well.

Fortunately, although we lagged behind other countries during the last century, China would now like to catch up with their counterparts in innovation and leadership in many aspects. On August 20, 2016 President Xi, Jin-Ping initiated an action against AHcV in the State Council Congress of China Central Government in that the AHcV is contrary to the health of the people.

Like or even better than the US in some aspects, we stand with our relatives, friends, colleagues and patients, and we also learn from the resilience of our community, which has demonstrated the power of a fast-responding and well-organized humanitarian movement to transform our society, our laws and our culture.

PDF LINK

CHECK THIS SIMPLE AND EFFECTIVE TREATMENT FOR LYMPHANGIOLEIOMYOMATOSIS

Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) is a rare disease caused by proliferation of abnormal smooth muscle-like cells (LAM cells), which can result in cystic destruction of lungs, formation of renal angiomyolipomas, lymphadenopathy, cystic lymphangiomas, abdominal lymphangioleiomyomas, chylothorax, and chyloperitoneum.

It is a low-grade metastasizing neoplasm spreading through lymphatic routs and belongs to the group of the PEComas (perivascular epithelioid cell tumours). This disease affects mainly women in childbearing age and occurs in two forms: As a sporadic lymphangioleiomyomatosis (sLAM) or associated with tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC-LAM).

The incidence of sLAM is about 3.4/ million to 7.5/million women, and it was assessed that approximately 0.3 million to 0.4 million of women with tuberous sclerosis (TSC) have a LAM.

PDF LINK

Hyaline-Vascular Variant Castleman Disease

A 48 year old male without any previous medical history had abdominal discomfort. On ultrasonography (US) and contrast enhanced computed tomography (CT), intra-abdominal mass located in between liver and stomach was founded.

Tumour markers including AFP, CEA, CA 19-9, CA 125, and NSE were within normal range. To figure out regional relationship between mass and adjacent structures, endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were performed.

EUS revealed a mass separated from serosa of stomach, suspicious for gastrointestinal stromal tumour (GIST). MRI revealed a lobulated contour calcification containing solid mass, suspicious for carcinoid, hemangioma, or GIST.

PDF LINK

Chloroma- Myelosarcoma or Leukemic Nerve Tumor?

Following our review on leukemia and the nervous system we would like to draw your attention to a rare manifestation of leukemia termed historically chloroma (CH) or myelosarcoma, which can rarely affect the cranial nerves and the peripheral nerves.

These rare associations of leukemia and the peripheral nervous system, can occur in all stages of leukemia, as the first manifestation, as recurrence and post bone marrow transplant. Most frequently CH are seen in AML, less frequent CML, but also in OMF. They can also appear isolated, and leave room for speculations why leukemia can covert from a liquid into a solid tumor, and why the presentation can be in peripheral nerves.

Chloromas, myelosarcomas or leukemic tumors are rare and present at many sites of the body. Compared to lymphomas focal nerve lesion in leukemia are rare.

PDF LINK

Quality of Life and Sexual Activity after Stereotactic Hypofractionated Radiotherapy of Prostate Cancer Patients

Prostate cancer is the most prevalent solid tumor diagnosed in men in developed countries. The standard treatment for early stage prostate cancer is surgery (prostatectomy) or radiotherapy. To improve local control, the radiation dose should be escalated. Threedimensional conformal radiation treatment (3DCRT) increases local control rates while decreasing toxicity rates.

Recent data suggest that, to achieve high local control of prostate cancer with acceptable toxicity, hypofractionated radiotherapy (HRT) could be used. Short-duration HRT is an attractive option compared with a 7-to-8-week course of standard radiotherapy in terms of logistics the patient’s job, daily activities, and emotions; the availability of accelerators, and the cost of prolonged treatment.

Quality of life (QoL) has become one of the most significant issues in treatment decisions in prostate cancer. In the case of QoL measurement after radical prostatectomy, brachytherapy, or external beam radiotherapy, all types of prostate cancer treatment were shown to be associated with changes in the QoL domains related to urinary, bowel, and sexual functions.

PDF LINK

Carcinoma Associated Fibroblast: a Paradoxical Role in Pancreatic Cancer Microenvironment and a Promising Target for Therapy

Pancreatic cancer is a grave malignancy showing an upward trend in morbidity and mortality during the recent decades. For reasons of late diagnosis, chemo-resistance, low potential resect able rate and high post-operative recurrence rate, it has been the 6th most common cause of cancer death in China.

As one of the most aggressive malignancies and the most common type of pancreatic cancer, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) represents a significant therapeutic challenge. Conventional chemotherapeutic cytotoxic agents are proved to be with a poor survival benefit.

Though the current first-line therapy FOLFIRINOX increased the median survival time compared with gemcitabine, it has been still unsatisfactory. Another direction enlighten by the treatment experience in other tumours is targeting certain molecules that participate in specific signalling pathways mediating cancer cell proliferating, angiogenesis, chemo-resistance or metastasis.

PDF LINK

Preferential Localization of Iron in The Chromatin of Fe-Enriched Cells Is Linked to DNA Cleavage Sites and Control of Carcinogenesis

Iron uptake in mammalian cells has been extensively investigated and has revealed a post-transcriptional control mechanism regulating the transferrin receptor and ferritin synthesis. Cytosolic iron is strictly controlled, with most of the spare iron being stored as ferritin in a non-reactive form.

However, the distribution of cellular iron is still unresolved. In particular, little is known about iron localization in the nucleus. This is an important question, given the fact that the process of DNA oxidation by oxy-radicals is catalyzed by nuclear iron, which can produces DNA strand breaks even in the presence of physiological concentrations of hydrogen peroxide.

Nuclear iron has been found in several forms, either associated with ferritin as a heme complex that regulates gene expression, or in the nucleus in the form of iron-sulfur clusters associated with DNA repair enzymes and transcription factors.

PDF LINK

Eradicating Health Care Disparities in the Surgical Management of Prostate Cancer

Racial disparities in prostate cancer epidemiology and survival outcomes generally have been well documented, with assorted facts and figures indicating that African-American men are disadvantaged with regard to disease control and therapeutic gains associated with this disease relative to their Caucasian-American counterparts.

Prostate cancer is a daunting disease state for all Americans: it represents the most commonly diagnosed malignancy and the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. However, for African-American men, the public health implications of this disease are all the more sobering: the disease incidence is 1.62-fold greater for African-American men than for Caucasian-American men and the mortality rate-ratio is 2.45-fold greater, respectively.

In blunt absolute terms, 1 in 3 African-American men will be at risk for developing clinically significant prostate cancer and as much as 1 in 5 African-American men >50 years of age will die of this disease.

PDF LINK

Nestin: A Biomarker of Aggressive Uterine Cancers

Cancers of the uterine corpus are the most common gynecologic cancers in the United States with incidence and mortality increasing both in the United States of America and globally. Most uterine cancers have a favorable prognosis and are cured by surgery alone.

Identifying patients at risk of recurrence, particularly those misclassified as low risk by current clinicopathologic standards is of paramount importance. Physicians need better risk stratification tools to identify when and which adjuvant therapy will decrease recurrence. Validated biomarkers with prognostic, predictive, and/or theragnostic value will likely play a vital role in advancing assessments of risk and guiding clinical management decision making.

Nestin is a class VI intermediate filament protein that was first described as a neural stem marker and regulates the TGFβ (transforming growth factor beta) pathway. It plays a critical role in cancer cell migration, invasion, angiogenesis, and metastasis both in vitro and in vivo.

PDF LINK

Imatinib in the Treatment of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia in Children and Adolescents is Effective and well-tolerated.

Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) is a myeloproliferative neoplasm typically diagnosed in adult population and relatively rare in children with incidence of 0.6-1.2/ million per year. CML is a clonal disorder of hematopoietic progenitor cells resulting from the balanced translocation called Philadelphia chromosome (Ph) at molecular level resulting in formation of a fusion gene BCR-ABL .

The BCR-ABL protein encoded by the fusion gene has an activity of tyrosine kinase and promotes uncontrolled proliferation of pluripotent stem cells in Bone Marrow (BM). CML has a three-phase course: Chronic phase (CML-CP), accelerated phase (CML-AP) and blast crisis phase.

CML is most commonly diagnosed in the CML-CP and only in about 10% of cases in advanced phases: CML-AP or CML-BC.Before the implementation of imatinib, hydroxyurea +/- interferon alpha remained the first line treatment of CML, followed by HSCT after achievement of hematologic remission. The identification of Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors (TKI) with BCR-ABL blocking ability revolutionized the CML therapy due to pharmacological control of leukemic clone.

PDF LINK

Eradicating Health Care Disparities in the Surgical Management of Prostate Cancer

Racial disparities in prostate cancer epidemiology and survival outcomes generally have been well documented, with assorted facts and figures indicating that African-American men are disadvantaged with regard to disease control and therapeutic gains associated with this disease relative to their Caucasian-American counterparts.

Prostate cancer is a daunting disease state for all Americans it represents the most commonly diagnosed malignancy and the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. However, for African-American men, the public health implications of this disease are all the more sobering: the disease incidence is 1.62-fold greater for African-American men than for Caucasian-American men and the mortality rate-ratio is 2.45-fold greater, respectively.

In blunt absolute terms, 1 in 3 African-American men will be at risk for developing clinically significant prostate cancer and as much as 1 in 5 African-American men >50 years of age will die of this disease.

PDF LINK

Review of Leakage from a Linear Accelerator and Its Side Effects on Cancer Patients

Cancer is becoming one of the main burdens of human being all over the world. The number of cancer patients is increasing because of the growth and aging of the population, as well as an increasing prevalence of established risk factors such as smoking, overweight, physical inactivity, and changing reproductive patterns associated with urbanization and economic development.

GLOBOCAN estimated about 14.1 million new cancer cases and 8.2 million deaths occurred in 2012 worldwide. From the most recent reported statistics, cancer is becoming a major public health problem in the United States and many other parts of the world.

It is currently the second leading cause of death in the United States, and is expected to surpass heart diseases as the leading cause of death in the next few years. Radiation therapy is playing an important role for effective treatment of all kinds of tumors.

PDF LINK

The Utility and Applicability of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Scoring Systems for Predicting the Prognosis of Egyptian Patients on Imatinib

Chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is myeloproliferative clonal neoplasm with pluripotent hematopoietic stem cell origin. BCR-ABL fusion gene results from a balanced reciprocal translocation between BCR (Breakpoint cluster region) and ABL (Abelson) genes is the main finding in CML.

Transposition of ABL proto-oncogene from chromosome 9 to BCR on chromosome 22 is either at chromosome level [Philadelphia (Ph) chromosome t(9;22)(q34;q11)] or cryptic at gene level. BCR-ABL encodes an unregulated, cytoplasm-targeted tyrosine kinase, leading to uninhibited cell proliferation.

CML is a triphasic disease, chronic-phase (CP), accelerated-phase (AP), and blast-phase (BP). Most patients are asymptomatic and diagnosed in CP; most patients will progress to rapidly fatal BP within 3–5 years if untreated.

PDF LINK

Childhood Cancer Care in Developing Countries

Dealing with children who have cancer in developing countries is a great human experience not only for the patient and the family but also for persons who are caring them.The diagnosis of a child as a cancer case is really a great shock to all family members and it is a moment of a dramatic change in their life. First reaction is usually a combination of sadness and denial.

They will start a new style of life with a plenty of investigations, appointments and different treatments decisions and plans. Different negative emotional reactions are the classic feelings of the parents every time they meet the treating physician. As caring doctors our role is not only treatment, but to help parents to overcome these initial shock stage and these negative emotions to support them to focus on what they should do to help and support their child through this hard time.

One of the hardest parts of caring for such kids is knowing what to say and how much information to give, as children might be frightened and uncertain of many things, they might be frightened of being died, and here we must assure them. Comforting them is very essential in treatment, although for us it's always heartbreaking.

PDF LINK

Life in The Time of Opioids

Just as HIV forever changed the way we approached every aspect of patient care, the pervasive use of opioids for chronic non-cancer pain is now altering the way we care for the patient suffering from acute and chronic pain of malignant origin and has made the care of this important patient population much more challenging.

It seems that it was but a very few years ago that the alleviation of pain in cancer patients seemed within our reach. As clinicians began to understand the nature of cancer pain and how to treat it, the number of patients with uncontrolled cancer pain began to decrease. This was accomplished in large part by the widespread implementation of the World Health Organization Three Step Therapeutic Ladder.

While the Ladder has been subsequently modified to add a fourth step to include interventional pain management modalities and a fifth step to include reversible neuroaugmentation modalities, the mainstay of the Ladder’s efficacy in the management of cancer pain remains the rational use of opioid analgesics.

PDF LINK

Life and Sexual Activity

Prostate cancer is the most prevalent solid tumor diagnosed in men in developed countries. The standard treatment for early stage prostate cancer is surgery (prostatectomy) or radiotherapy. To improve local control, the radiation dose should be escalated.

Three dimensional conformal radiation treatment (3DCRT) increases local control rates while decreasing toxicity rates. Recent data suggest that, to achieve high local control of prostate cancer with acceptable toxicity, hypofractionated radiotherapy (HRT) could be used. Short-duration HRT  is an attractive option compared with a 7-to-8-week course of standard radiotherapy in terms of logistics; the patient’s job, daily activities, and emotions; the availability of accelerators, and the cost of prolonged treatment.

Quality of life (QoL) has become one of the most significant issues in treatment decisions in prostate cancer. In the case of QoL measurement after radical prostatectomy, brachytherapy, or external beam radiotherapy, all types of prostate cancer treatment were shown to be associated with changes in the QoL domains related to urinary, bowel, and sexual functions.

PDF LINK

Association of Promoter Polymorphisms in Xrcc2 Gene Involved in DNA Double Strand Break Repair and Increased Susceptibility to Thyroid Cancer Risk in Pakistani Population

Thyroid cancer is the most prevalent endocrine malignancy with increasing incidence rate in recent years. Females are more likely to have thyroid cancer at a ratio of 3:1. The main risk factors of thyroid cancer are genetic factor, environmental factors and exposure to ionization radiations at childhood.

Exposure to ionization radiations cause single strand and double strand breaks and can produce chromosomal damage and release of reactive oxygen species that causes genomic instability. In human there are many pathways to repair this DNA damage, out of which double strand break repair (DSBR) pathway is an important and preferred pathway to repair such lesion.

This pathway has two types, non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) and homologous recombinant repair (HRR) pathway. HRR is an error prone pathway which is template specific and considered to play a significant role in the repair of DNA double strand damage produced by ionization radiations. HR encompasses many genes, but major role is performed by RAD51 and RAD51-like genes such as XRCC2 and XRCC3.

PDF LINK

An Additional risk of Lung Cancer from Recurrent Exposure to Ethyl Carbamate

Ethyl carbamate  urethane is the ester of carbamic acid. It has been found mainly as a by-product of fermented foods and beverages. EC is widely distributed in fermented foods and beverages, such as spirit, wine, beer, bread, soy sauce, and yoghurt, due to unintentional fermentation during production or storage process of fermented foods or beverages.

EC has been formed from substances like urea, hydrogen cyanide, citrulline, and N-carbamyl compounds during foods and beverage fermentations. Earlier studies reported that unrecorded wine is rich with EC due to reaction between ethyl alcohol and hydrogen cyanide or urea wine.

The Joint Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)/World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) reported that EC increase the probable health risk of carcinogenicity of certain types of alcoholic beverages for regular drinkers, especially in unrecorded alcohol. EC exhibits carcinogenic activity on different sites such as the liver, ovary, and skin in a dose dependent manner due to its potential genotoxic activity.

PDF LINK

Male Breast Cancer

Breast is made up of glands called lobules that can make milk and thin tubes called ducts that carry the milk from the lobules to the nipple. Breast tissue also contains fat and connective tissue, lymph nodes, and blood vessels.Bosom tumor for the most part begins off in the inward covering of milk pipes or the lobules that supply them with milk.

A harmful tumor can spread to different parts of the body.The main indication of bosom growth regularly is a bosom protuberance or an anomalous mammogram. Bosom disease stages range from right on time, treatable bosom malignancy to metastatic bosom growth.

Breast cancer is one of the most common malignancies in women but is relatively rare in men with an incidence rate of 0.5% compared to female breast cancer. The risk of breast cancer in male increases with age and men usually present with later stage of disease those results in a worse outcome.

Radio sensitization of Colon Cancer Cells Mediated by Gemcitabine through Cell Cycle Synchronization

Colon cancer is the third most common malign neoplasm worldwide. For the last 10 years, mortality rate from colon cancer has declined by 3%, and the largest drops occurred in adults aged 65 and olde. This decline can be attributed to the increase of screening, which detects and allows the removal of precancerous polyps.

In contrast, rates increased during this time period among adults younger than 50 years. In Brazil this type of cancer is ranked in third place among other incidences of cancer and it is the third cause of deaths from cancer. In general, the most affected age range is of 40-70 years. The conditions associated to increase a risk to develop colon cancer include a personal history of colorectal cancer or adenomatous polyps.

A personal history of inflammatory bowel disease (ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease); a strong family history of colorectal cancer or polyps; a known family history of a hereditary colorectal cancer syndrome such as familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) or hereditary non-polyposis colon cancer.

PDF LINK

The Prognostic Role of Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes CD8 and Foxp3 and their Impact on Recurrence in Breast Cancer Patients

The presence of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) either within the tumor stroma or tumor epithelium reflects the immune response of the host against the tumor, defined as cancer “immunoediting”. Large tumors are in the “escape” phase during which immune cells are not able to stop tumor growth but their presence at least denotes standby immunocompetency which can be reactivated by treatment.

Many TILs have been recognized. Of those, fork head box P3- positive (Foxp3+) regulatory T cells (Tregs), CD8+ T cells, and CD4+ T cells are known to be the main keys for immune surveillance and tolerance, respectively [4]. CD8+ T cells are mediators of antitumor immunity and can lyse tumor cells directly. The clinical importance of CD8+ T cells has been suggested by many recent studies that reported a survival benefit in correlation with an increase in CD8+ T cells in large cohorts of various human cancer patients.

CD4+ T cells have an important role in antitumor immunity that was implicated by their helper or memory cell functions. CD4+ T cells may have several effector functions, such as priming tumor-specific cytotoxic T cells or macrophages that are involved in clearance of tumor cells. In contrast, Tregs are known to have a very important role in escape of antitumor T-cell response in cancer cells [13], due to their ability to potently suppress immune reaction against tumors in vivo.

PDF LINK