News From The Journal Of Clinical Investigation: Oct. 24, 2012
10/26/2012
Reaching the point of no return: early intervention in a mouse model of obesity Obesity is a chronic metabolic disorder that affects half a billion people worldwide. Managing obesity is difficult, as many patients rebound to their pre-treatment weight. There is a hypothesis that chronic weight gain causes the body to adopt a state that supports excess weight...
Discovery Of Potential Tumor And Metastasis Suppressor In Breast Cancer
10/26/2012
A protein that is necessary for lactation in mammals inhibits the critical cellular transition that is an early indicator of breast cancer and metastasis, according to research conducted at the University at Buffalo and Princeton University and highlighted as the cover paper in November issue of Nature Cell Biology...
Prasugrel May Benefit Patients Triaged To Medical Therapy Following Angiography
10/26/2012
Prasugrel, a novel anti-platelet therapy, is used to prevent recurrent cardiovascular events in patients who have had a prior heart attack, suffer severe chest pain and have been treated with coronary artery procedures (revascularization)...
Pancreatic Cancer Discovery Offers New Hope For Patients
10/25/2012
A set of mutated genes responsible for causing pancreatic cancer have been discovered by Australian researchers and revealed in a new study published in the journal Nature. This is the first time a collaboration of the world's best experts has been carried out to determine the genetic factors that influence 50 different types of cancer...
In Metastatic Prostate Cancer, A Noninvasive Assay Monitored Treatment Response
10/25/2012
Deciding the ideal treatment for patients with metastatic prostate cancer that stops responding to initial therapy could be guided by certain analyses of cancer cells isolated from the patients' blood, according to data published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research...
Decrease In Colorectal Cancer Rates May Be Due To Increased Use Of Colonoscopy Screening
10/25/2012
Use of colonoscopy for colorectal cancer screening could explain a significant decrease in the cancer's incidence over the past decade, according to a new study from researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine...
Determining Which Bowel Cancer Patients Will Benefit From Avastin
10/25/2012
Avastin, or Bevacizumab, has been shown to increase survival from bowel cancer in around ten to 15 per cent of patients, but it has been impossible to predict who will benefit. Avastin works by targeting and blocking the VEGF-A protein, two major forms of which are VEGF165 and VEGF165b...
Genetic Changes Plus "Tumorous Environment" Enable Breast Cancer Cells To Spread
10/25/2012
A new study from Johns Hopkins researchers suggests that the lethal spread of breast cancer is as dependent on a tumor's protein-rich environment as on genetic changes inside tumor cells...
Breast Density And Cancer Risk: Gene Polymorphisms Identified
10/25/2012
It has long been known that breast density, or mammographic density, is a strong risk factor for breast cancer, and that estrogen and progestin hormone therapy increases dense breast tissue...
Potent Growth Factor Identified For Blood Stem Cells
10/25/2012
Duke Medicine researchers studying the interaction of blood stem cells and the niche where they reside have identified a protein that may be a long-sought growth factor for blood stem cells. The protein is called pleiotrophin, and is produced by cells that line the blood vessels in bone marrow...