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Thread: Cancer breakthroughs, research & treatment

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    waltky's Avatar Senior Member
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    Lightbulb Cancer breakthroughs, research & treatment

    Chemotherapy bath for liver cancer...

    First liver cancer 'chemo-bath' in the UK
    11 November 2012 : Chemotherapy affects the whole body and can cause side effects
    A "chemo-bath" which delivers toxic cancer drugs to just one organ in the body has been used on patients in the UK for the first time, say doctors. Chemotherapy drugs kill rapidly growing cells such as cancers, but they also attack healthy parts of the body. Doctors at Southampton General Hospital believe targeting just one organ can prevent side effects. They also say it means they can give higher doses without causing damage to the patient. Chemotherapy drugs are normally injected into the veins of patients. However, the whole body, rather than just the tumour, is exposed. It results in side effects such as fatigue, feeling sick, hair loss and damage to fertility.

    Targeted

    Two patients in the UK have now received chemotherapy focused on just their liver. Both had a rare eye cancer which had spread to the liver. The operation works by inflating balloons inside blood vessels on either side of the liver to isolate it from the rest of the body. The liver is then pumped full of chemotherapy drugs, which are filtered out before the liver is reconnected to the main blood supply. It means only a tiny fraction of the chemotherapy dose ends up in the body.

    Dr Brian Stedman, a consultant interventional radiologist, said: "To cut off an organ from the body for 60 minutes, soak it in a high dose of drug and then filter the blood almost completely clean before returning is truly groundbreaking. "Previously, the outlook for patients specifically suffering from cancer which has spread to the liver has been poor because standard chemotherapy's effect is limited by the unwanted damage the drug causes to the rest of the body." The surgery took place in the past three months and both patients are said to be doing well and their tumours "all look smaller", he said.

    Dr Stedman told the BBC: "In 20 years' time the idea of injecting a drug which poisons the whole body for a cancer in just one small area will seem bonkers." He suggested that any organ which could be easily separated from the blood supply, such as the kidney, pancreas and lungs, would be suitable for this kind of approach. However, he said the method was "in its infancy" and he was "not sure this is the finished product or the end of the story". The technique is also being tested in the US and elsewhere in Europe.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-20270400

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    Calypso Jones's Avatar Banned
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    Assuring that the Elites will ave their cures while the rest of us get our death panels.

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    roadmaster's Avatar Senior Member
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    Quote Originally Posted by Calypso Jones View Post
    Assuring that the Elites will ave their cures while the rest of us get our death panels.
    I hope it doesn't happen in my lifetime but I do believe people will accept killing the ones in the nursing homes to reduce debt. They will see them as a burden on the health system.

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    waltky's Avatar Senior Member
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    DNA tweak 'boosts' cancer-killing cells...

    Gene editing 'boosts' cancer-killing cells
    Thu, 14 Apr 2016 - Cancer scientists have genetically modified the immune system to help them attack tumours in mice.
    Cancer scientists have genetically modified the immune system to help it attack tumours in mice. The immune system is the body's own defence against infection and cancer, but tumours develop ways of stopping the onslaught. The University College London team manipulated the DNA of immune cells to allow them to keep up the fight. Experts said the idea needed to be tested in human trials, but it was still exciting. Harnessing the power of the immune system to fight cancer is one of the most exciting fields in medicine. A lot of the research is targeted at the "chemical handshake" that tumours use to disable immune cells. A class of drugs called checkpoint inhibitors, such as pembrolizumab and nivolumab, interrupt the handshake and are already available for patients.


    This has lead to spectacular results for some patients, but it can lead to side-effects as the drugs affect the whole immune system. The approach now being tried effectively cuts off one of the hands - known technically as PD-1 - to prevent the handshake, but is targeted only at those immune cells attacking the cancer. In experiments on mice, scientists extracted killer T cells - which gobble up cancerous tissue - from inside the tumour. The assumption is the immune cells clustering inside the tumour are trained to attack it. Cutting edge gene editing technology was then used to change the DNA - the code of life - inside the killer T cells so that PD-1 was removed and cancers would be unable to stop them. It is known colloquially as "cutting the brakes". In experiments on melanoma and fibrosarcoma, mouse survival increased from less than 20% after 60 days without treatment to more than 70% with treatment.

    Dr Sergio Quezada, one of the researchers, said: "This is an exciting discovery and means we may have a way to get around cancer's defences while only targeting the immune cells that recognise the cancer. "While drugs that block PD-1 do show promise, this method only knocks out PD-1 on the T cells that can find the tumour - which could mean fewer side effects for patients." Dr Alan Worsley, from Cancer Research UK which funded the study, said: "I think it's actually pretty exciting - it's elegant, simple, straightforward and it makes sense. "We're going to see how this works in trials, but potentially it gets around the side effects." He said in immunotherapy drug trials "so many people had to come off because of the side effects, here it's not your whole immune system going crazy it's just those in the tumour."

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-36049907

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    Quote Originally Posted by Calypso Jones View Post
    Assuring that the Elites will ave their cures while the rest of us get our death panels.
    LOL. In time, if it works, it will become the normal practice where it is appropriate.

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    There is another promising technique in which they genetically alter viruses, including the dreaded polio virus, so that it cannot reproduce and spread. Then they do a slow drip of a solution containing the virus directly into the tumor. At some point afterward, the immune system hones in on the genetically altered virus and kills both the virus and the tumor.

    They have successfully treated brain tumors with this method.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Calypso Jones View Post
    Assuring that the Elites will ave their cures while the rest of us get our death panels.
    So can you put a figure on how many people in the US got 'their death panels' since the article was published four years ago?

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    Their is a lot of good cancer research now. I heard an interview with a doctor yesterday that said in 10 years most cancers should be beaten.

    Boosting immunity seems to be one of the biggest new methods.
    ΜOΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ


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    Quote Originally Posted by Beevee View Post
    So can you put a figure on how many people in the US got 'their death panels' since the article was published four years ago?
    Ask Paul (the DNC hack) Krugaman:

    ΜOΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ


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    While there are advances being made in many areas, the "cure" for cancer has been ten years away for decades.
    News: Rich people paying rich people to tell middle class people to blame poor people.

    They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.

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