UCLA biomolecular engineer Yvonne Chen explains recent advances her work has made in engineering cellular receptors to better target cancer cells to improve cancer treatments.
Tag Archives: Cancer
Infographics: “Prostate Cancer – How To Face It”
TOP JOURNALS: RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS FROM SCIENCE MAGAZINE (AUGUST 21, 2020)
Health: Lung Cancer Deaths Drop As Targeted Therapies Improve (NEJM)
NEJM (Aug 13, 2020) – Population-level mortality from NSCLC in the United States fell sharply from 2013 to 2016, and survival after diagnosis improved substantially. Our analysis suggests that a reduction in incidence along with treatment advances — particularly approvals for and use of targeted therapies — is likely to explain the reduction in mortality observed during this period.
“The survival benefit for patients with non-small cell lung cancer treated with targeted therapies has been demonstrated in clinical trials, but this study highlights the impact of these treatments at the population level,” said Nadia Howlader, Ph.D., of NCI’s Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, who led the study. “We can now see the impact of advances in lung cancer treatment on survival.”
TOP JOURNALS: RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS FROM SCIENCE MAGAZINE (August 7, 2020)
Health: New Studies Find “Coffee & Caffeine” Lower Heart Disease, Cancer Risk
NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE (JULY 23, 2020): A large body of evidence suggests that consumption of caffeinated coffee, the main source of caffeine intake in adults in the United States, does not increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases and cancers. In fact, consumption of 3 to 5 standard cups of coffee daily has been consistently associated with a reduced risk of several chronic diseases.
Coffee and tea have been consumed for hundreds of years and have become an important part of cultural traditions and social life.5 In addition, people use coffee beverages to increase wakefulness and work productivity. The caffeine content of commonly used sources of caffeine is shown in Table 1. For a typical serving, the caffeine content is highest in coffee, energy drinks, and caffeine tablets; intermediate in tea; and lowest in soft drinks. In the United States, 85% of adults consume caffeine daily,6 and average caffeine intake is 135 mg per day, which is equivalent to about 1.5 standard cups of coffee (with a standard cup defined as 8 fluid oz [235 ml]).7 Coffee is the predominant source of caffeine ingested by adults, whereas soft drinks and tea are more important sources of caffeine ingested by adolescents,
Infographic: “Advanced Prostate Cancer” In The U.S. Is Rising (2020)
Health Infographics: “Cancers Associated With Overweight & Obesity”
There is consistent evidence that higher amounts of body fat are associated with increased risks of a number of cancers (6), including:
- Endometrial cancer: Obese and overweight women are two to about four times as likely as normal-weight women to develop endometrial cancer (cancer of the lining of the uterus), and extremely obese women are about seven times as likely to develop the more common of the two main types of this cancer (7). The risk of endometrial cancer increases with increasing weight gain in adulthood, particularly among women who have never used menopausal hormone therapy (8).
- Esophageal adenocarcinoma: People who are overweight or obese are about twice as likely as normal-weight people to develop a type of esophageal cancer called esophageal adenocarcinoma, and people who are extremely obese are more than four times as likely (9).
- Gastric cardia cancer: People who are obese are nearly twice as likely as normal-weight people to develop cancer in the upper part of the stomach, that is, the part that is closest to the esophagus (10).
- Liver cancer: People who are overweight or obese are up to twice as likely as normal-weight people to develop liver cancer. The association between overweight/obesity and liver cancer is stronger in men than women (11, 12).
- Kidney cancer: People who are overweight or obese are nearly twice as likely as normal-weight people to develop renal cell cancer, the most common form of kidney cancer (13). The association of renal cell cancer with obesity is independent of its association with high blood pressure, a known risk factor for kidney cancer (14).
- Multiple myeloma: Compared with normal-weight individuals, overweight and obese individuals have a slight (10% to 20%) increase in the risk of developing multiple myeloma (15).
- Meningioma: The risk of this slow-growing brain tumor that arises in the membranes surrounding the brain and the spinal cord is increased by about 50% in people who are obese and about 20% in people who are overweight (16).
- Pancreatic cancer: People who are overweight or obese are about 1.5 times as likely to develop pancreatic cancer as normal-weight people (17).
- Colorectal cancer: People who are obese are slightly (about 30%) more likely to develop colorectal cancer than normal-weight people (18).A higher BMI is associated with increased risks of colon and rectal cancers in both men and in women, but the increases are higher in men than in women (18).
- Gallbladder cancer: Compared with normal-weight people, people who are overweight have a slight (about 20%) increase in risk of gallbladder cancer, and people who are obese have a 60% increase in risk of gallbladder cancer (19, 20). The risk increase is greater in women than men.
- Breast cancer: Many studies have shown that, in postmenopausal women, a higher BMI is associated with a modest increase in risk of breast cancer. For example, a 5-unit increase in BMI is associated with a 12% increase in risk (21). Among postmenopausal women, those who are obese have a 20% to 40% increase in risk of developing breast cancer compared with normal-weight women (22). The higher risks are seen mainly in women who have never used menopausal hormone therapy and for tumors that express hormone receptors. Obesity is also a risk factor for breast cancer in men (23).In premenopausal women, by contrast, overweight and obesity have been found to be associated with a 20% decreased risk of breast tumors that express hormone receptors (22).
- Ovarian cancer: Higher BMI is associated with a slight increase in the risk of ovarian cancer, particularly in women who have never used menopausal hormone therapy (24). For example, a 5-unit increase in BMI is associated with a 10% increase in risk among women who have never used menopausal hormone therapy (24).
- Thyroid cancer: Higher BMI (specifically, a 5-unit increase in BMI) is associated with a slight (10%) increase in the risk of thyroid cancer (25).
Top Health Infographics: A Detailed Look Into “Cancer’s Complexity”
Research Infographics: “The Genetics Of Cancer”
