Cancer

Avian tumor viruses are important, economically significant pathogens in the poultry industry, and can provide scientific insight in topics that cannot be experimented in humans. The present review will present viral-induced tumors in poultry and will emphasize the specific findings that can be taken from their study, regarding (a) multiple...

Earlier studies have suggested an association between breast cancer aggressiveness and the presence of viral sequences resembling mouse mammary tumor virus (MMTV). This study was to determine if inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) in the United States had a higher proportion of cases with these viral sequences than non-IBC patients and...

Frank J. Jenkins Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA

Introduction: Studies have shown that a diet high in fruit and vegetable intake, as well as a routine including daily exercise or physical activity, can independently affect relapse rates and survivorship in breast cancer patients. Fruits and vegetables contain powerful anti-oxidant molecules, capable of preventing tumor formation and proliferation. Exercise...

Curcumin is a compound with anti-tumor effects in a tolerable dose. A recent paper by Rowe et al described that curcumin induced DNA damage in triple negative breast cancer cells and regulated BRCA1 protein expression and modification. Related research and potential use of curcumin will be discussed in this article....

Objective: To assess the performance of a test for breast cancer utilizing synchrotron x-ray diffraction analysis of scalp hair from women undergoing diagnostic radiology assessment. Design and Setting: A double-blinded clinical trial of women who attended diagnostic radiology clinics in Australia. Patients: 1796 women referred for diagnostic radiology, with no previous history...

Purpose: Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a potent regulator of angiogenesis and thereby involved in the development and progression of solid tumors. A 936C> T polymorphism in the VEGF gene has been associated with reduced VEGF plasma levels. Purpose of the present study was to analyze the potential association...

Pancreatic adenocarcinoma is associated with advanced presentation and poor survival. Currently approved therapies have minimal effect on patient survival. Pancreatic adenocarcinomas have a high incidence of activated K-RAS, which may confer resistance to epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitors. Mixed lineage kinase-3 (MLK3) is a MAP3K that activates multiple MAPK...

Pancreatic adenocarcinoma is an aggressive cancer with a greater than 95% mortality rate and short survival after diagnosis. Chemotherapeutic resistance hinders successful treatment. This resistance is often associated with mutations in codon 12 of the K-Ras gene (K-Ras 12), which is present in over 90% of all pancreatic adenocarcinomas. Codon...

The extracellular matrix glycosaminoglycan hyaluronan plays a key role in the development and pathogenesis of malignant disease. Reflecting its functional importance, the molecule is expressed at greatly elevated levels within many solid tumors. Although little explored, differences in the level of hyaluronan present in normal and malignant tissues could potentially...

Proteases play important roles during tumor angiogenesis, invasion, and metastasis. Various molecular imaging techniques have been employed for protease imaging: optical (both fluorescence and bioluminescence), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), and positron emission tomography (PET). In this review, we will summarize the current status of imaging...

A 69 year old male who presented with painful, swollen and inflamed scrotum is presented as a unique case report. He was initially treated as a case of infection and was subject to further investigation due to poor response to antibiotics. CT scan showed thickened scrotal wall and an incision...

Multi-class cancer classification based on microarray data is described. A generalized output-coding scheme based on One Versus One (OVO) combined with Latent Variable Model (LVM) is used. Results from the proposed One Versus One (OVO) output- coding strategy is compared with the results obtained from the generalized One Versus All...

The recently published article by Wang, and commented on by Ertel in this journal, describes development of a method, named the Bimodality Index, to objectively identify and rank meaningful and reliable bimodal patterns from large-scale gene expression datasets. This is an important step because genes with a bimodal distribution may...

The discovery of effective cancer treatments is a key goal for pharmaceutical companies. However, the current costs of bringing a cancer drug to the market in the USA is now estimated at $1 billion per FDA approved drug, with many months of research at the bench and costly clinical trials....

Gene selection is of vital importance in molecular classification of cancer using high-dimensional gene expression data. Because of the distinct characteristics inherent to specific cancerous gene expression profiles, developing flexible and robust feature selection methods is extremely crucial. We investigated the properties of one feature selection approach proposed in our...

Gene selection is of vital importance in molecular classification of cancer using high-dimensional gene expression data. Because of the distinct characteristics inherent to specific cancerous gene expression profiles, developing flexible and robust feature selection methods is extremely crucial. We investigated the properties of one feature selection approach proposed in our...

With insights gained through molecular profiling, cancer is recognized as a heterogeneous disease with distinct subtypes and outcomes that can be predicted by a limited number of biomarkers. Statistical methods such as supervised classification and machine learning identify distinguishing features associated with disease subtype but are not necessarily clear or...

Objective: To evaluate adjuvant chemotherapy use for Stage III colon cancer. Methods: This analysis included 973 patients with surgically treated stage III colon cancer. Socioeconomic information from the 2000 census was linked to patients’ residential census tracts. Vital status through 12/31/02 was obtained from medical records and linkage to state vital...

Background: The author intended to clarify the therapeutic effect and prognostic factors of metastasectomy and timing of pulmonary metastases in osteosarcoma patents. Methods: Data was obtained retrospectively on all consecutive osteosarcoma patients from 1985 to 2005 in author’s institute. Fifty-two patients with pulmonary nodules were identified, including 24 patients undergoing pulmonary...

The well-written and researched article reported in Clinical Medicine: Oncology by Dr. Washio and Dr. Mori entitled “Risk factors for renal cell cancer in a Japanese population”1 makes evident the differences in incidence and mortality rates from renal cell carcinoma (RCC) between different populations and highlights the relevance of carrying...

Pathological grade is a useful prognostic factor for stratifying breast cancer patients into favorable (low-grade, well-differentiated tumors) and less favorable (high-grade, poorly-differentiated tumors) outcome groups. Under the current system of tumor grading, however, a large proportion of tumors are characterized as intermediate-grade, making determination of optimal treatments difficult. In an...

Introductory Editorial by Dr Mitchell Smith, Lymphoma Service, Department of Medical Oncology, Fox Chase Cancer Centre, Pennsylvania, U.S.A

The myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are clonal stem cell disorders, characterized by ineffective and dysplastic hematopoiesis. The genetic and epigenetic pathways that determine disease stage and progression are largely unknown. In the current study we used gene expression microarray methodology to examine the gene expression differences between normal hematopoietic cells and...

In the review, the nature of protein multifunctionality is analyzed. In the first part of the review the principles of structural/functional organization of protein are discussed. In the second part, the main mechanisms involved in development of multiple functions on a single gene product(s) are analyzed. The last part represents...

Sirtuins are NAD+-dependent histone deacetylases (Class III HDACs). Recently, Sirtuins have been shown to play important roles, both direct and indirect, in transcriptional regulation. This transcriptional control, through incorporation of Sirtuins into transcription complexes and deacetylation of histones locally at gene promoters, or direct interaction with specific transcription factors, is...

In the last two decades there has been considerable progress in our understanding of the role of sphingolipids in controlling signal transduction processes, particularly in the mechanisms leading to regulation of cell growth and death. Ceramide is a well-characterized sphingolipid metabolite and second messenger that can be produced by cancer...

Gene associated with retinoid-interferon-β-induced mortality (GRIM)—19, was originally identifi ed as a critical regulatory protein necessary for Interferon-β-Retinoic acid-induced cell death. Overexpression of GRIM-19 activates cell death and its suppression or inactivation promotes cell growth. GRIM-19 targets multiple proteins/pathways for exerting growth control and cell death. However, GRIM-19 is also...

A great amount of literature has demonstrated a connection between obesity, visceral fat and the metabolic disorders such as hyperglycemia, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia. Lately, there has been an increased interest in understanding if cancer is related to obesity and visceral fat accumulation. The prevalence of both obesity and cancer are...