Immunotherapy before liver cancer surgery can kill tumor, and likely residual cancer cells

MILLIONS of Brits have been urged to take up a rapid test to see if they have bowel cancer. The Health Secretary has called on men over 60 to make sure they have the life-saving checkups. It couldn't be easier - with a home testing kit on offer, or use...

Christine Bronstein took at home colon cancer test after seeing blood in her stool. It was positive, but her doctor texted: "You don't have cancer :)"

New research from Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Cancer Center characterizes a new molecular type of high-risk pediatric liver cancer. The study, published in the Journal of Hepatology, showed that these tumors have better outcomes when patients were treated by transplantation, rather than by chemotherapy and surgery alone.

Biomarkers are often used during the management of cancer to guide treatment decisions and predict patient outcomes. However, it is often difficult to identify appropriate biomarkers that that can be consistently reproduced and are easily analyzed with limited patient specimens. In a new study featured on the cover of the May 1 issue of the journal Cancer Research, Moffitt Cancer Center researchers report on their identification of biomarkers based on a type of genetic modification called methylation that predicts the type of tumor immune environment and patient outcomes.

The pharmaceutical company Pfizer has voluntary recalled a blood pressure medication for the second time in a month. Pfizer is recalling five lots of blood pressure medicine Accupril because of elevated levels of a nitrosamine, Nnitroso-quinapril, the company said in a news release posted Friday on the FDA website. Nitrosamines...

Unfortunately, the 27-year-old mother and the 31-year-old father say their baby daughter has months to live. The 1-year-old child is suffering from a rare condition which was caused by a gene defect both parents carry. The parents knew something was wrong with their child when the baby started to go off her food at six weeks. The baby also started to lose weight, the couple said. The condition was confirmed with genetic testing and the doctors said it affects her ability to absorb the nutrients she needs from food. The condition is so rare it is thought to only occur in one in 79,000,000 people, the doctors said.

Walking at a brisk pace for just 75 minutes every week could cut your risk of depression, a new study finds. The World Health Organization recommends everyone should exercise for at least two-and-a-half hours every seven days. But researchers at Cambridge University, England, found adults who got half as much...

Common supplements, such as St. John's wort, calcium, and iron, can reduce the efficacy of certain drugs, like antibiotics and antiviral medication.

Tragic events like wars, famines, earthquakes, and accidents create fearful memories in our brain. These memories continue to haunt us even after the actual event has passed. Luckily, researchers from Tokyo University of Science (TUS) have recently been able to understand the hidden biochemical mechanisms involved in the selective suppression of fearful memories, which is called fear extinction. The researchers, who had previously demonstrated fear extinction in mice using the chemically synthesized compound "KNT-127," have now identified the underlying mechanism of this compound's action. Their findings have been published recently in Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience.

A significant percentage of Black men found to have normal lung function after race-based adjustments to spirometry were actually found to have emphysema on their computed tomography (CT) scans, according to research published at the ATS 2022 international conference. "Black adults in the U.S. are more likely to have unrecognized...

The characteristics of acceptable preapproval evidence were more flexible for novel drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2020, according to a research letter published online May 17 in JAMA Network Open. Mayookha Mitra-Majumdar, M.P.H., from the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston,...

Shielding those vulnerable to COVID-19, while allowing the virus to spread, largely unmitigated, through the rest of the population, would have failed according to a new modeling paper published today in PLOS Global Public Health by University of Bath scientists. Shielding strategies or "focused protection", as advocated for in the...

People addicted to and dependent on opioids who used buprenorphine not prescribed by a physician at the time they enter a treatment center are more likely to remain in treatment for opioid use disorder, according to a Rutgers study. The study, published in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, examined...

Patients with severe COVID-19 who were given imatinib had lower mortality rates at 90-day follow-up, according to research published at the ATS 2022 international conference. The study investigated the long-term efficacy of imatinib in hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the Netherlands as part of the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled CounterCOVID study. A tyrosine kinase inhibitor, imatinib is currently an oncology drug as it blocks an abnormal protein that signals cancer cells. The drug also blocks potentially deadly leakage of the small blood vessels in the lungs under inflammatory conditions, as is often seen in severe SARS-CoV-2 infections. The researchers wanted to find out whether imatinib can treat severe COVID-19 patients by improving their clinical outcomes.

Brensocatib did not improve the clinical status of patients hospitalized with severe SARS-CoV-2 infection in the double-blind randomized, placebo-controlled STOP-COVID19 multicenter clinical trial, according to research published at the ATS 2022 international conference. The study, which began in June of 2020, took place at 14 UK hospitals, where participants were...

A greater proportion of patients with severe, uncontrolled asthma had more significant clinical responses to tezepelumab than placebo, according to research published at the ATS 2022 international conference. The study showed that nearly half of those enrolled achieved complete response to treatment across measures of exacerbation reduction, asthma control, lung function, and clinician assessment.

A new paper in Family Practice, published by Oxford University Press, indicates that receiving hormone replacement therapy within six months of a recorded diagnosis of COVID-19 was associated with a reduction in mortality from the disease. The novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) continues to spread. Men and...

Brain fog, headaches, and insomnia are some of the neurological symptoms doctors have observed in COVID-19 patients. Neurological sequelae after a viral infection is not new—in fact, following the 1918 influenza pandemic, it took almost a decade for patients to present with the neurological syndrome called "post-encephalic parkinsonism." But, the mechanisms by which viruses impact the brain are poorly understood. Now, Jefferson and collaborators show, in a new study performed in mice, that the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic could increase the risk of brain degeneration seen in Parkinson's disease.

Sleep problems are not excessive in patients with newly diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis, according to a study recently published in RMD Open. Lauren Lyne, from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, and colleagues investigated sleep quality and duration in 3,265 patients with newly diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis (1998 to 2018) and during one to 12 years after diagnosis.

The American College of Lifestyle Medicine has released an expert consensus statement to assist clinicians in achieving remission of type 2 diabetes in adults using diet as a primary intervention. The expert consensus statement is endorsed by the American Association of Clinical Endocrinology (AACE), supported by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) and cosponsored by the Endocrine Society.