Tag: cancer

Categories : CancerTags :

Alcohol Linked to A High Proportion of Cancers

On By ModernMedia

A new study shows that cancer is attributable to a significant proportion of cancer cases across the United States.

It is well known that alcohol is linked to cancers, but the state-level data shows for first time the impact of different levels of alcohol consumption and its cancer effects. This is also concerning for South Africa as the country has high rates of alcohol use, consuming 5 billion litres of alcohol annually, around 9 to 10 litres of pure alcohol for each individual (and likely more if sorghum beer is counted).

From data spanning 2013 to 2016, the percentage of cancer cases that are linked to alcohol ranged from a high of 6.7% in Delaware to a low of 2.9% in Utah. Following this pattern, Delaware also had the highest proportion of alcohol-related cancer deaths (4.5%) and Utah had the lowest (1.9%).
Farhad Islami, MD, PhD, and a team at the American Cancer Society, said: “This information is important for prioritising state-level cancer prevention and control efforts to reduce alcohol consumption and the burden of alcohol-related cancers.”

Alcohol use was more tightly linked to certain cancers: the proportion of oral cavity/pharyngeal cancer cases attributable to alcohol ranged from 36% in Utah to 62.5% in Delaware and was over 45% in all but five US states.

The majority of cases and deaths from the examined cancer types were found more in men, reflecting men’s higher consumption of alcohol.

Overall, alcohol was attributable to 8% of all cancer cases and 3.2% of cancer deaths. The American Cancer Society’s guideline for Diet and Physical Activity for Cancer Prevention states that it is best to abstain from alcohol entirely, and if not to limit drinks to 2 per day for men and 1 per day for women.

Source: Science Daily

Journal information: Ann Goding Sauer, Stacey A. Fedewa, Priti Bandi, Adair K. Minihan, Michal Stoklosa, Jeffrey Drope, Susan M. Gapstur, Ahmedin Jemal, Farhad Islami. Proportion of cancer cases and deaths attributable to alcohol consumption by US state, 2013-2016. Cancer Epidemiology, 2021; 71: 101893 DOI: 10.1016/j.canep.2021.101893

Categories : Addiction CancerTags :

Nearly a Fifth of Cancer Patients on Opioids Misuse Them

On By ModernMedia

A new report reveals that 19% of cancer patients receiving opioids are misusing them, referred to a nonmedical opioid use (NMOU) behaviour. 

Opioid addiction remains a persistent and serious problem in the United States, and is growing elsewhere in the world, with some 16 million individuals worldwide suffering from opioid misuse disorder.
The study,  led by Sriram Yennurajalingam, MD, MS, of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, included 1554 patients at a supportive care clinic for a comprehensive cancer centre. Of those engaging in NMOU behaviour, the most common (29%) was an early request for a refill, followed by self-directed dose escalation (15%), co-using illicit or non-prescribed drugs (13%), and impaired daily function due to opioids (11%).

Independent risk factors that increased the risk of NMOU behaviour included being single or divorced, as well as pain levels, opioid risk screening score, and morphine equivalent daily dose.

In their recommendations, Yennurajalingam and co-authors wrote: “Based on these findings, a universal screening, setting limits on opioid use by limiting supply, more intense follow-up with an interdisciplinary team to provide optimal use of medications for pain and symptom management, and the provision of counseling and support to patients and their family members may help prevent the development of these NMOU behaviors.”

Source: MedPage Today

Journal information: Yennurajalingam S, et al. Frequency of and factors associated with nonmedical opioid use behavior among patients with cancer receiving opioids for cancer pain, JAMA Oncol 2020; DOI: 10.1001/jamaoncol.2020.6789.

Categories : CancerTags :

Opioid Use Linked to Pancreatic Cancer Risk

On By ModernMedia

New research has shown that the use and misuse of the highly addictive opioid class of medications may pose an additional threat – pancreatic cancer. 

In the United States, opioid misuse has spiralled into one of the biggest healthcare epidemics facing the country. Of 70 000 deaths from substance abuse in the country in 2017, 68% involved opioids. Among patients prescribed opioids for chronic pain, 29% are misusing them and 12% have developed an opioid misuse disorder. Rates of pancreatic cancer are also on the increase in the US. In West Central Asia, opium use recently been linked to pancreatic cancer.Using Centres for Disease Control (CDC) data, the study’s researchers controlled for confounding variables, took opioid death rates as a surrogate for proscription and misuse, and compared it to incidences of pancreatic cancer. 

Analysing the dataset, they found that opioid use was associated with pancreatic cancer rates, with the opioid use rates predicting the pancreatic cancer trends years later.Faraz Bishehsari, MD, Ph.D., the corresponding author of the study, said: “Our mechanistic studies could provide further insights on the pathways that opioid could potentially impact progression of cancer.”

In order to confirm the findings, there is a need for sizeable population-based studies or longitudinal datasets that reliably track long-term outcomes in opioid users. Once these findings are confirmed by population-based studies, these will have an impact in considering alternative pain management methods in patients.Adding credence to this link is a recent post-hoc analysis of advanced cancer patients that showed patients receiving regular opioid antagonists had a significantly improved survival rate over placebo.

Source: Medical Xpress

Journal information: Usman Barlass et al. Opioid use as a potential risk factor for pancreatic cancer in the United States: An analysis of state and national level databases, PLOS ONE (2021). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244285

Categories : UncategorizedTags :

Oncologist Forgives $650 000 in Patient Debts

On By ModernMedia

An oncologist in the United States has forgiven $650 000 in patients’ debts. After 30 years of business, Dr Omar Atiq closed down his Arkansas cancer treatment centre last year. He had previously engaged a debt collector company to chase up clients’ outstanding bills.

“Over time I realised that there are people who just are unable to pay,” Dr Atiq said to ABC’s Good Morning America. “So my wife and I, as a family, we thought about it and looked at forgiving all the debt. We saw that we could do it and then just went ahead and did it.”

Dr Atiq is originally from Pakistan, and founded the Arkansas Cancer Clinic in 1991.”We thought there was not a better time to do this than during a pandemic that has decimated homes, people’s lives and businesses and all sorts of stuff,” Dr Atiq said, quoted by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

When sending his Christmas greeting card to patients, he wrote, “The Arkansas Cancer Clinic was proud to serve you as a patient. Although various health insurances pay most of the bills for [the] majority of patients, even the deductibles and co-pays can be burdensome. Unfortunately, that is the way our health care system currently works. The clinic has decided to forego all balances owed to the clinic by its patients. Happy Holidays.”
In the view of the president of the debt collection company he engaged, Dr Atiq is “a very caring individual”.

Bea Cheesman, of RMC of America, said, “He’s always been extremely easy to work with as a client. It’s just a wonderful thing that he and his family did in forgiving this debt because the people with oncology bills do have more challenges than the bulk of the population.”Dr Atiq approached the Arkansas Medical Society to ensure there was nothing improper about the move.

Source:BBC News

Categories : UncategorizedTags :

Earlier Immunotherapy and Chemo May Help Stomach Cancer Treatment

On By ModernMedia

New research indicates that earlier immunotherapy in combination with normal chemotherapy may be needed to treat stomach cancer, which is often resistant to the treatment.

“Patients with advanced stomach cancer have limited treatment options,” says Woosook Kim, PhD, first author of the paper. “Many are not eligible for surgical resection, and response to radiotherapy or chemotherapy is often low.”

Many cancers release proteins that prevent the immune system from attacking them; immunotherapy blocks these proteins, re-enabling the immune system’s attack. However, current immunotherapy drugs do not work very well for stomach cancer. Looking at advanced tumours in mice, researchers discovered that they have abundant myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), which release even more immune system-blocking proteins, swamping the immunotherapy drugs.

“Our study suggests that adding chemotherapy to immunotherapy may improve responsiveness in part through the targeting of MDSCs,” said Timothy Wang, MD, the study leader. “While we do not have enough information to determine if the level of MDSCs may predict response to this dual regimen, our findings show that administering immunotherapy in combination with chemotherapy earlier in the course of the disease, when MDSC levels are much lower, may boost response rates in stomach cancer,” Wang concluded.

Source: Medical Xpress

Categories : UncategorizedTags :

Breast Cancer Patients in Public Healthcare System Face Great Obstacles

On By ModernMedia

In an in-depth article, the Daily Maverick reports on the huge challenges that breast cancer sufferers face in obtaining treatment from the public healthcare sector in South Africa.

A diagnosis might take up to six months, whereas one can be obtained in a space of weeks in private healthcare. Breast reconstructions are not available under public healthcare, forcing the survivor to find some way of hiding the disfigurement. The critical drug trastuzumab is classed as an unfunded mandate even in the Western Cape. Yet in the private sector, it is a prescribed minimum benefit. There are language barriers for patients, and a lack of palliative care medicines upon discharge. They also are not connected online, and cannot engage with initiatives such as Pinktober. In a country beset by gender-based violence and inequality, women’s health often is not a priority.

The remedy still lags very far behind. Since its inception in 2017, The Breast Cancer Control Policy has not been implemented anywhere in South Africa. In order to implement this policy, registered nurses have their job descriptions updated to include a primary modality of breast cancer screenings.

The COVID pandemic has set back progress even further, with care being postponed and many hospices being forced to close.

Categories : Cancer Lab Tests and ImagingTags :

New Multi-cancer Blood Test Offered by NHS

On By ModernMedia

A new blood test developed by the California-based Grail company tests for DNA methylation, and is supposedly able to screen for over 50 cancer types this way.

The NHS is to offer the test to 165 000 people from the middle of next year, with 140 000 screened through their medical records and the remaining 25 000 through referrals from suspected symptoms. It is hoped that widespread screening and early detection will drastically improve cancer survival rates, consequently easing pressure on healthcare services.

Lawrence Young, a professor of molecular oncology, at Warwick University, said the Galleri test was one of several novel blood tests being developed to spot cancer early on. “A publication from the Circulating Cell-free Genome Atlas consortium examining the Galleri test in 6 689 participants has generated very encouraging results in more than 50 different cancers at different stages of development.”

However, there was disagreement from some cancer experts regarding Galleri’s  potential effectiveness. Paul Pharoah, a professor of cancer epidemiology, at Cambridge University, said that it was premature for the NHS to embrace an unproven test. He said, “The Galleri blood test is a test that might be able to detect cancer in the blood in individuals with early cancer, though the evidence that it does this effectively is weak,” Pharoah said. According to him, only a single published paper on the tests was available, wherein they detected a mere 25% of early-stage cancers and under half of late-stage cases.

Source: The Guardian

Categories : CancerTags :

Ovarian Cancer Risk not Raised by Fertility Treatments

On By ModernMedia

Existing research has thus far indicated that women who used assisted reproduction technologies (ART) were at greater risk for ovarian cancer and non-malignant borderline ovarian tumours resulting from overstimulation of the ovaries.

The tumours were proposed to be caused by excess sex hormones and disruption of ovarian tissue from multiple punctures. A pair of meta-analyses in 2013 indicated that women who used reproductive technologies were at increased risk of ovarian cancer, but no causative link was established; infertility itself could have caused the increased risk.

Researchers in the Netherlands used a database of 30 625 women who received ovarian stimulation for ART between 1983 and 2001 and 9 988 women who were infertile but did not use ART. These were linked to the Netherlands Cancer Registry and the Dutch Pathology Registry to check for invasive and borderline ovarian cancers.

Though there was an increase in ovarian cancer in women who had received ART, the increase was due to women who had received ART but not been able to fall pregnant: not having had a pregnancy has shown to be a risk factor for ovarian cancer.

Source: Medical Xpress