Really good post over at The Pump Handle. The Labor Department is announcing lower workplace injury rates, the lowest rates recorded since records have been kept. But critics point out that at least part of this is an artifact in how injuries are reported. OSHA changed the definition of injuries/illnesses, and according to researcher Lee Friedman 83% of the decline in reported rates is due to the change in definition.
The Senate passed a bill banning asbestos last week; it now goes to the House.
One feature: the law would require the National Institutes of Health to establish an asbestos-related disease research treatment network. Yeah!
The Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine was awarded to scientists who pioneered gene manipulation techniques. Their discoveries allow researchers to produce mice called “knockout” mice, which miss particular genes. Over the last couple decades this method has found wide use in the research into the causes of cancer and many other diseases.
U.S. News is reporting that Georgia Tech researchers developed a small device that could detect cancer. It’s an acoutic sensor that detects small amounts of mesothelin in the blood. Mesothelin is one of the markers of mesothelioma. “Early detection is a holy grail of cancer research,” the article says. Indeed it is, and although this new development probably won’t yield practical applications for a few years, it is encouraging news.
There’s a story in the Wall Street Journal today about alternative therapies for cancer, and in particular when patients use these therapies in addition to conventional ones from their doctor. The article says half of Americans have used alternative or complementary techniques. The journal Chest this month addresses these therapies in conjunction with cancer.
Herbal supplements can interfere with chemotherapy or radiation, but at other times, some complementary therapies can help with symptom control. Some drugs work better if patients take vitamin supplements. Chest recommends doctors discuss any therapies patients may be using.
ASCO put out a page called “Targeting Molecular Defects May Be the Future of Cancer Therapy”. I don’t know about that choice of language - “molecular defects”? Are there such things? Anyway, the article is mostly about stem cells. Michael Clarke of Stanford pointed out that cancer stem cells may be used to diagnose metastasis in the future, and that treatments may target cancer stem cells. Jeremy Rich discussed the potential inhibition of CHK1 and CHK2 to target cancer stem cells, as the stem cells would be more susceptible than the tumor mass.
In this month’s Scientific American, Peter Duesberg talks about a new theory of cancer genesis. He speculates that changes in chomonsones cause cells to go malignant, not mutations of genes.
Duesberg has a reputation as an outsider in scientific circles because of his maverick theory about the cause of AIDS, but he established his credentials by being one of the first scientists to discover the role in mutations of key genes involved in cell function regulation. His new theory could get around some of the problems with the dominant gene theory of cancer, including the fact that asbestos does not cause genetic mutations, but it does cause cancer.
M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is conducting a trial on alpha-lipoic acid and whether it can precent neurpathy in patients undergoing chemotherapy with platinum agents. Alpha-lipoic acid has received much attention in recent years as a constituent of foods, an antioxidant, and a dietary supplement. Chemotherapy-induced neuropathy is a common problem in cancer patients and researchers feel there is a good chance the ALA can help, as it has been shown to help in neuropathy in diabetes patients. More here.
It’s long been known that more men than women get mesothelioma, and at this was because men tended to work in the jobs where there was asbestos exposure. Pipefitters, shipbuilders, etc. - these were male dominated jobs. Now a study at the University of Western Australia shows that men are actually more likely to get the cancer than women, even accounting for differences in asbestos exposure. Men had more than four times the rate of mesothelioma as women, after accounting for cumulative asbestos. The researchers also found that the people exposed to asbestos as a child were less likely to develop fatal mesothelioma than people exposed as adults.
There is an unusual mesothelioma epidemic in Cappadocia, Turkey. An abstract published in Nature reports that an incredible 50% of deaths in three villiages were due to this form of cancer during the period studied. The area has natural deposits of the mineral erionite. Research showed that certain families were more likely to develop mesothelioma than others.
