Recommendation in Joining the Founding 100

I chose to join this group because I believe that it is on the cutting edge of cancer patient medical treatment.
The following is an explanation of their group.

Joining the Founding 100

What is "Is My Cancer Different?™"
IsMyCancerDiffererent.com is a first-of-its-kind GE Healthcare-sponsored website that educates people about the benefits of asking for more personalized cancer treatment. Our goal is to empower patients, their families, and friends by informing them of the advanced testing options available to them by asking a simple question: Is My Cancer Different?™ The answer to which we believe is always the same: YES.

If you have a blog and would like to join this wonderful group, then go to the following website:

http://ismycancerdifferent.com/founding-100/#!prettyPhoto[iframes]/0/

Inflammation and Breast Cancer Cells

A new report published by Private MD Labs discusses the research that has determined that women that have inflammation in their body such as arthritis may lead to the spread of breast cancer cells.

Women with an inflammatory disease my want to see lab testing for breast cancer. The article states that prior studies in mice have shown that individuals with arthritis are more likely to develop breast cancer. The new findings are among the first to show that this inflammatory joint condition may play a role in the spread of tumor cells throughout the body.

For the study, researchers from the University of North Carolina studied the effects of breast cancer in mice bred to have arthritis. The results showed that these mice were more likely to have tumor cells spread to the lungs and bones. Pro-inflammatory molecules associated with the joint condition appeared to play a role in the metastasis.

"The clinical implications of this research are huge," said lead researcher Lopamudra Das Roy. "We already have data that show that women with breast cancer and arthritis have lower survival as compared with women with breast cancer and no arthritis.

Das Roy added that the finding could help researchers find new drug targets that prevent the spread of breast cancer.

http://www.privatemdlabs.com/blood-testing-news/Breast/Inflammatory-molecules-linked-to-breast-cancer-metastasis--$800743607.php

Three Types of Transplants For Cancer Treatment

Transplants have played a vital role in cancer treatment in the past few years. Many leukemia and lymphoma patients have benefited from this procedure.  Many lab tests have to be performed before becoming a candidate to receive a transplant. There are three types of transplants that are available in the medical community.

Autologous

Autologous HSCT requires the extraction (apheresis) of haematopoietic stem cells (HSC) from the patient and storage of the harvested cells in a freezer. The patient is then treated with high-dose chemotherapy with or without radiotherapy with the intention of eradicating the patient's malignant cell population at the cost of partial or complete bone marrow ablation (destruction of patient's bone marrow function to grow new blood cells). The patient's own stored stem cells are then returned to his/her body, where they replace destroyed tissue and resume the patient's normal blood cell production. Autologous transplants have the advantage of lower risk of infection during the immune-compromised portion of the treatment since the recovery of immune function is rapid. Also, the incidence of patients experiencing rejection (graft-versus-host disease) is very rare due to the donor and recipient being the same individual. These advantages have established autologous HSCT as one of the standard second-line treatments for such diseases as lymphoma. However, for others such as Acute Myeloid Leukemia, the reduced mortality of the autogenous relative to allogeneic HSCT may be outweighed by an increased likelihood of cancer relapse and related mortality, and therefore the allogeneic treatment may be preferred for those conditions. Researchers have conducted small studies using non-myeloablative hematopoietic stem cell transplantation as a possible treatment for type I (insulin dependent) diabetes in children and adults. Results have been promising; however, as of 2009 it was premature to speculate whether these experiments will lead to effective treatments for diabetes.

Allogeneic

Allogeneic HSCT involves two people: the (healthy) donor and the (patient) recipient. Allogeneic HSC donors must have a tissue (HLA) type that matches the recipient. Matching is performed on the basis of variability at three or more loci of the HLA gene, and a perfect match at these loci is preferred. Even if there is a good match at these critical alleles, the recipient will require immunosuppressive medications to mitigate graft-versus-host disease. Allogeneic transplant donors may be related (usually a closely HLA matched sibling), syngeneic (a monozygotic or 'identical' twin of the patient - necessarily extremely rare since few patients have an identical twin, but offering a source of perfectly HLA matched stem cells) or unrelated (donor who is not related and found to have very close degree of HLA matching). Unrelated donors may be found through a registry of bone marrow donors such as the National Marrow Donor Program. People who would like to be tested for a specific family member or friend without joining any of the bone marrow registry data banks may contact a private HLA testing laboratory and be tested with a mouth swab to see if they are a potential match. A "savior sibling" may be intentionally selected by preimplantation genetic diagnosis in order to match a child both regarding HLA type and being free of any obvious inheritable disorder. Allogeneic transplants are also performed using umbilical cord blood as the source of stem cells. In general, by transplanting healthy stem cells to the recipient's immune system, allogeneic HSCTs appear to improve chances for cure or long-term remission once the immediate transplant-related complications are resolved.
A compatible donor is found by doing additional HLA-testing from the blood of potential donors. The HLA genes fall in two categories (Type I and Type II). In general, mismatches of the Type-I genes (i.e. HLA-A, HLA-B, or HLA-C) increase the risk of graft rejection. A mismatch of an HLA Type II gene (i.e. HLA-DR, or HLA-DQB1) increases the risk of graft-versus-host disease. In addition a genetic mismatch as small as a single DNA base pair is significant so perfect matches require knowledge of the exact DNA sequence of these genes for both donor and recipient. Leading transplant centers currently perform testing for all five of these HLA genes before declaring that a donor and recipient are HLA-identical.
Race and ethnicity are known to play a major role in donor recruitment drives, as members of the same ethnic group are more likely to have matching genes, including the genes for HLA.

Synogeneic 

Syngeneic bone marrow transplantation is a procedure in which a person receives bone marrow donated by his or her healthy identical twin.  This is more of a specific term for a for the procedure above.


For more information:
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Therapy/bone-marrow-transplant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syngeneic_bone_marrow_transplantation

 

A Gene Predicts Recurrence In Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Researchers identify a gene that predicts recurrence in squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.

Squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck—which typically arises from thin, flat cells that line moist surfaces inside the mouth, nose and throat—is the sixth most common type of cancer worldwide, and it has a relatively low five-year survival rate and a high recurrence rate. Recently, the disease has become even more prevalent among adults 40 years of age or younger. These statistics underscore the need for a greater understanding of the molecular underpinnings of this form of cancer. Toward this goal, Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers have identified a gene that predicts disease recurrence in individuals with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.

The new findings, which will be presented at the AACR Annual Meeting 2012 on Monday, April 2, show that patients with one common variant of a gene which encodes the cytochrome P450 (CYP1B1) protein are likely to have a longer time-to-recurrence than those with the more typical form of the gene.
"This is the first study to look at the association between CYP1B1 variants and time-to-recurrence in head and neck cancer, and the findings could lead to personalized treatment strategies for patients with this type of cancer," says Fox Chase study author Ekaterina Shatalova, Ph.D., research associate in the lab of Margie L. Clapper, Ph.D., also senior investigator on the study.
Shatalova, Clapper and their colleagues focused on CYP1B1 because this enzyme is known to produce carcinogens by metabolizing tobacco smoke and alcohol—substances that increase the risk of squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. This protein is also abundant in tumor tissue from a wide range of organs, including the breast and lung.

The results could have important implications for the treatment of patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck. Clinicians could use information about variations in the CYP1B1 gene to identify individuals who are at risk for faster recurrence. That subset of patients could receive "a treatment regimen that is tailored to be more aggressive," Clapper says. "Using a personalized medicine approach, we could impact the duration of the disease-free interval for these individuals if we knew ahead of time which ones were more likely to experience recurrence at a faster rate."

To read the complete article: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-04-gene-recurrence-squamous-cell-carcinoma.html