Latest research shows 2 items are key to decrease symptoms and prolong survival for LMC patients

Results specific for patients with leptomeningeal carcinomatosis from NSCLC

2013-04-23

(Press-News.org) DENVER – Lung cancer is one of the most common primary cancers that cause leptomeningeal carcinomatosis (LMC), when cancer spreads to the membranes surrounding the spinal cord and brain. Cases of LMC have increased because of the improved survival of lung cancer patients with the help of new advances in treatment. This is the type of cancer diagnosis facingValerie Harper, who played Rhonda on "The Mary Tyler Moore Show." Now research published in the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer's Journal of Thoracic Oncology (JTO) shows the effectiveness of intraventricular chemotherapy (chemotherapy injected directly into the ventricles of the brain) in terms of symptom response rate and overall survival in patients with LMC from non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Researchers from the National Cancer Center in Goyang, Korea did a retrospective analysis on 105 patients with NSCLC who had undergone intraventricular chemotherapy. They conclude that intraventricular chemotherapy for patients with LMC from NSCLC could palliate associated symptoms and prolong patients' survival. "Among the 54 patients with increased ICP at the entry of the treatment," the study says, "20 patients achieved normal ICP (< 15 cm H2O) after the intraventricular chemotherapy, excluding three patients who underwent a ventriculo-peritoneal shunt. However, 15 of 51 patients with normal ICP at the start of treatment showed increased ICP during the course of the therapy and remained uncontrolled. Thus, the total increased ICP control rate of intraventricular therapy was 20 of 69 (29 percent)." As a result, the researchers conclude that, "Careful selection of patients for intraventricular chemotherapy is recommended, with aggressive ICP control, and concurrent systemic chemotherapy." ### The lead author of this work is Dr. Ho-Shin Gwak. Co-authors include IASLC members Dr. Sang Hoon Shin, Dr. Ji-Youn Han, Dr. Heung Tae Kim and Dr. Jin Soo Lee.

About the IASLC: The International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC) is the only global organization dedicated to the study of lung cancer. Founded in 1974, the association's membership includes more than 3,500 lung cancer specialists in 80 countries. To learn more about IASLC please visit http://www.iaslc.org.

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Tumors with ALK rearrangements can harbor more mutations

2013-04-23

DENVER – The identification of potentially targetable kinase mutations has been an exciting advancement in lung cancer treatment. Although the mutations driving many lung carcinomas remain unknown, approximately 50 percent of lung adenocarcinoma cases harbor KRAS mutation, EGFR mutation, or ALK translocation, and an additional 5 percent or so have been shown to have mutations involving BRAF, PIK3CA, HER2, MET, MEK1, NRAS, and AKT. In the vast majority, these driver mutations are mutually exclusive. But in a recent study published in the International Association for the ...

Lung cancer mortality rates linked to primary care provider density

2013-04-23

DENVER – Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related deaths and is tied as the third leading cause of death overall in industrialized countries. Within the United States, several groups identified by race, sex, and socioeconomic status have been linked to increased cancer mortality, suggesting a disparity because of these characteristics. The relationships are complicated by the fact that many of these characteristics may also be associated with areas of decreased access to care and local resources and not inherently based on implicit biases. Researchers from ...

Physicists find right (and left) solution for on-chip optics

2013-04-23

Cambridge, Mass. - April 22, 2013 - A Harvard-led team of researchers has created a new type of nanoscale device that converts an optical signal into waves that travel along a metal surface. Significantly, the device can recognize specific kinds of polarized light and accordingly send the signal in one direction or another. The findings, published in the April 19 issue of Science, offer a new way to precisely manipulate light at the subwavelength scale without damaging a signal that could carry data. This opens the door to a new generation of on-chip optical interconnects ...

Regional insights set latest study of climate history apart

2013-04-23

As climate studies saturate scientific journals and mainstream media, with opposing viewpoints quickly squaring off in reaction and debate, new findings can easily be lost in the noise. But in the case of Northern Arizona University Regents' professor Darrell Kaufman and a study appearing in Nature Geoscience, obscurity is an unlikely fate. What Kaufman—the lead co-author of "Continental-scale temperature variability during the last two millennia"—and 78 experts from 24 countries have done is to assemble the most comprehensive study to date of temperature change of ...

Study: Physicians less likely to 'bond' with overweight patients

2013-04-23

In a small study of 39 primary care doctors and 208 of their patients, Johns Hopkins researchers have found that physicians built much less of an emotional rapport with their overweight and obese patients than with their patients of normal weight. Bonding and empathy are essential to the patient-physician relationship. When physicians express more empathy, studies have shown that patients are more likely to adhere to medical recommendations and respond to behavior-change counseling — all vital elements in helping overweight and obese patients lose weight and improve ...

Fish was on the menu for early flying dinosaur

2013-04-23

(Edmonton) University of Alberta led research reveals that Microraptor, a small flying dinosaur was a complete hunter, able to swoop down and pickup fish as well as its previously known prey of birds and tree dwelling mammals. U of A paleontology graduate student Scott Persons says new evidence of Microrpator's hunting ability came from fossilized remains in China. "We were very fortunate that this Microraptor was found in volcanic ash and its stomach content of fish was easily identified." Prior to this, paleontologists believed microraptors which were about the size ...

Scientists cage dead zebras in Africa to understand the spread of anthrax

2013-04-23

AUSTIN, Texas — Scavengers might not play as key a role in spreading anthrax through wildlife populations as previously assumed, according to findings from a small study conducted in Etosha National Park in northern Namibia. Wildlife managers currently spend large amounts of money and time to control anthrax outbreaks by preventing scavengers from feeding on infected carcasses. The effort might be ill spent, according to results published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology by an international consortium of researchers led by Steven Bellan, an ecologist at The ...

Scientists map all possible drug-like chemical compounds

2013-04-23

DURHAM, NC -- Drug developers may have a new tool to search for more effective medications and new materials. It's a computer algorithm that can model and catalogue the entire set of lightweight, carbon-containing molecules that chemists could feasibly create in a lab. The small-molecule universe has more than 10^60 (that's 1 with 60 zeroes after it) chemical structures. Duke chemist David Beratan said that many of the world's problems have molecular solutions in this chemical space, whether it's a cure for disease or a new material to capture sunlight. But, he said, ...

Gone, but not forgotten

2013-04-23

An international team of neuroscientists has described for the first time in exhaustive detail the underlying neurobiology of an amnesiac who suffered from profound memory loss after damage to key portions of his brain. Writing in this week's Online Early Edition of PNAS, principal investigator Larry R. Squire, PhD, professor in the departments of Neurosciences, Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Veteran Affairs San Diego Healthcare System (VASDHS) – with colleagues at UC Davis and the University of Castilla-La ...

UCSB scientist identifies protein molecule used to maintain adult stem cells in fruit flies

2013-04-23

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Understanding exactly how stem cells form into specific organs and tissues is the holy grail of regenerative medicine. Now a UC Santa Barbara researcher has added to that body of knowledge by determining how stem cells produce different types of "daughter" cells in Drosophila (fruit flies). The findings appear today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Denise Montell, Duggan Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at UCSB, and colleagues studied the ovaries of fruit flies in order to see stem cells in their ...

Latest research shows 2 items are key to decrease symptoms and prolong survival for LMC patients

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