Missing link, scientists can have found to common brain cancer

Thursday, Aug. 4 HealthDay News)-A map of genetic mutations associated with the second most common form of brain cancer seems the biological cause of tumors, researchers report show.

Created protein-coding genes in seven samples of tissue from oligodendroglioma tumors the card by sequencing and focused on recurrent mutations in two genes (CIC and FUBP1), previously not these types of tumors associated with.

The genes appear the missing link in the "two hit" theory of cancer development, so the scientists. That is, each cell in the body has two copies of the 23 pairs of chromosomes, the thousands of genes, to produce the protein. If a copy is missing, the other copy for the lack of protein can form. But if the second copy fails, it can be cancer.

Scientists have known for years, that's "first hit" in Oligodendrogliomas in regions 1 and 19, which together, causing the loss of many genes chromosomes will be shown.

In this study, researchers found mutations in the CIC and FUBP1 on chromosomes 1 and 19, suggesting that they cause the "second hit" cancer required are.

Further mutations in the Genentech-the cell processes signal rules-samples have been found in an additional 27 tumor . All of the tumor samples in the study analyzed two thirds of CIC and FUBP1 mutations, had, said the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center scientists.

"If we find gene that mutates in the most tumors, it is likely that the way by this gene is regulated crucial for the development and the biology of the tumor," Nickolas Papadopoulos, Associate Professor of Oncology, said in a press release Center.

The study appears in the journal scienceAug. 4.

About 20 percent of the brain is Oligodendrogliomas, making mostly in age from 30 to 45 and in most cases on the frontal lobe in cells that are to coat the neurons. Treatment includes surgery, followed by chemotherapy and radiation. Median survival is 10 years.

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Hepatitis A Forerunner Of Cancer!

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com -every kind of illness should never be considered trivial. Such as hepatitis, when indicating a condition of the heart that is experiencing inflammation. Most societies are still lacking care and disease with Justin on this one, because it considers the impact brought about indirectly and it took quite a long time.

"This must be notified that the hepatitis was the forerunner for becoming a cancer may be afraid of a little person," said Prof. Dr. h. Ali Sulaiman, PhD, SpPD-KGEH, the Division of Hepatology, Department of internal medicine, Faculty of medicine University of Indonesia, Thursday (24/6/2011).

According to Ali, according to the Study of chronic hepatitis C prevalence in health care professionals in 2008, approximately 3.4 million population are infected with hepatitis c. Indonesia And about 2 million are infected with the virus genotype 1 (hard diterapi).

"Hepatitis C is genotipnya, so type 1 and 2. Type 1 (one) is the largest and are difficult to treat, "he said.

As for the treatment of genotype 1, Ali spoke, could do with menyuntikan pegasys. However the prices for these drugs is still considered very expensive. Just imagine, once injection Pegasys, ranging between 1-2 million rupiah.

"But to genotip 1 (one) it should be injected 48 times," he said.

Given the still high cost of such treatment, Ali hope with the help of the Government, these drugs could be made generic.

"Perhaps it is our hope in the effort if we want to carry out efforts in the fight against hepatitis B and C," he said.

For control of hepatitis can not if just prioritizing one only, is it hepatitis B or C, as both Ali according to equally important and can be fatal if not treated appropriately.

"Because both are equally so of cancer," he said.

Hepatitis can be caused by various things, such as viral infections, parasites, bacteria, chemical substances, auto immune system, illegal drugs as well as alcohol. Hepatitis B and C can develop into liver cirrhosis and liver cancer, can even cause he needed a liver transplant. The good news is hepatitis B can be prevented through vaccination, and most infections hepatitis C can be cured.

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Confirmed gene patent in cancer test

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In a closely watched case, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday that genes can be patented, overturning a lower court decision that had shocked the biotechnology industry.

The Court of appeals for the Federal Circuit, which specializes in patent cases, said that Myriad Genetics which entitled to patents on two human genes used to predict if women have an increased risk of getting breast and ovarian cancer.

The court ruled that DNA isolated from the body which eligible for patents because it was "markedly different" in its chemical structure from DNA that exists inside the chromosomes in the body. As a result, the isolated DNA is not simply a product of nature, which would not be eligible for a patent.

The 2-to-1 decision on the gene of del issue so what a rejection of arguments made by the Obama administration, which had filed a friend of the court brief arguing that isolated DNA should not be patented. That letter went against the long standing policy of the United States Patent and Trademark Office to grant such patents.

The appeals court ruled against myriad in another part of the case, however. The court said that myriad's patent claims on the process of analyzing whether a patient's genes had mutations that raised the risk of cancer which not patentable because it involved only "patent-ineligible abstract mental steps."

The case may eventually reach the Supreme Court.

The decision on the patentability of genes and DNA cheered much, though not all, of the biotechnology industry. Thousands of human genes have been patented, and some biotechnology executives say such patents are essential for encouraging innovation.

"It basically adhered to the policy, the Patent Office has pursued since the early ' 80 of, when the biotech industry was born," said Gerald j. Flattmann Jr., a patent lawyer at Paul Hastings in New York, who represents pharmaceutical companies but which are not involved in this case. "Isolated gene patents are the cornerstone of the biotechnology industry."

Critics say it is unethical to patent something that is part of the human body or the natural world. Some also say that the cost of testing might be reduced if companies did not hold testing monopolies because of their patents. Myriad, which holds the patents on the genes called BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes with the University of Utah Research Foundation, charges more than $3,000 for its breast cancer risk test.

A lawsuit challenging the patents on the breast cancer risk genes which filed in 2009 by the American Civil Liberties Union and the public patent Foundation, acting as the lawyers for various cancer patients, medical researchers and medical societies.

In U.S. on opinion issued in March 2010, District Judge Robert W. sweet in Manhattan ruled the patents were invalid. The importance of DNA, he said, what the information content it carried in terms of how proteins should be made. In that aspect, he said, the isolated DNA was not really different from the DNA in the body. The argument that isolating the DNA made it different, he said, what is just "a lawyer's trick."

But the appellate decision Friday rejected judge sweet's reasoning, saying that since DNA is a chemical, the chemical structure is what matters and that "informational content is irrelevant to that fact."

"The claims cover molecules that are markedly different - have a distinctive chemical identity and nature - from molecules that exist in nature," judge Alan D. Lourie wrote for the court.

Peter D. Meldrum, chief executive of myriad, said Friday that he was "absolutely delighted with the ruling." He said the patent claims that the court ruled invalid were not important and that patent protection for the company's test which is as strong as before the lawsuit which was filed.

Daniel B. Ravicher, executive director of the public patent Foundation, which helped file the suit, called the decision a partial victory for the plaintiffs. 1250–1400 That one judge dissented on the gene patents, he said, "They can't agree among themselves."

Mr. Ravicher said the plaintiffs were considering either asking the entire appellate court to rehear the gene of del aspects of the case or appealing to the Supreme Court.

While judge Lourie's opinion spoke for the court, the other two judges wrote their own opinions.

Judge Kimberly A. Moore agreed that genes were patentable but cited somewhat different reasoning, including that only Congress should change Patent Office policy to grant such patents.

"Judicial restraint is particularly important here because on entire industry developed in the decades since the Patent Office first granted patents to isolated DNA," Judge Moore wrote. "Disturbing the biotechnology industry's settled expectations now risks impeding, not promoting innovation."

But the third judge on the panel, William C. Bryson, dissented, saying that the genes should not be patented just because they were isolated from the body. In some respects, he wrote, "extracting a gene is akin to snapping a leaf from a tree."

Judge Lourie, in the prevailing opinion, rejected that analogy, saying that isolating DNA created a new chemical entity. It what not simply a matter of separating or purifying the DNA, he said, and not like snapping off a leaf or extracting a mineral from the earth.

The patent claims that the appellate court ruled invalid involved analyzing a patient's genes to see if they had deleterious mutations. Many diagnostic tests involve analyzing some gene or chemical in the body, and whether such tests can be patented is an issue that the Supreme Court has agreed to consider in another case.

Lisa A. Haile, a patent lawyer at DLA Piper in San Diego who is not involved in the myriad case, said the appeals court on Friday suggested myriad's claims would have been upheld if there was another step, such as sequencing the genes, in addition to just mental steps.

"You can 't say diagnostic claims aren't' t patentable," Ms. Haile said. "It's just the way these claims were written."

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Vital signs: risks: women's cancer risk increases with height, study

A woman is ever greater, your risk for canceris the greater, a large-scale study.

Researchers at the University of Oxford in England analyzed data on more than 1.2 million British women for an average 9.4 years followed. There were more than 97,000 cases of cancer among women. The researchers found that for every four-inch increase in the height of more than 5 feet 1 inch, the risk that a woman by around 16 per cent increase would cancer. The study was published online July 21 in the Lancet Oncology.

The analysis covers the 17 types of cancer, but the relative risk increase is statistically significant for only 10 of them. The authors suggest that levels of growth hormone on the development of cancer could be involved in or higher people are simply vulnerable to mutations because their bodies include more cells.

The authors reviewed previous studies showing that a similar connection between height and an increased risk of cancer in Asia, Australasia, Europe and North America has been observed.

"There is interest in this study he us a clue about how cancer could develop,", said Jane Green, the lead author and an epidemiologist at Oxford. "It is the similarity to many different types of cancer in people with many different risk factors, and in many different populations, which makes us think that it is something very important in the development of cancer."

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Myriad breast cancer genes can be patented: US Court

An federal appeals court ruled in favor of Myriad Genetics after a legal battle to whether the US company could keep his patent on genes an inherited form of breast cancer associated.

The ruling overturns a lower court ruling and allows the Utah-based company, isolated called maintain its patents on genes BRCA1 and BRCA2, despite complaints by rights groups, who say it an unfair monopoly and women's health choices limited.

The US Court of appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that such patents on isolated DNA molecules, in accordance with the patent and Trademark Office (PTO), in the last 29 years "longstanding practice" could take place.

The 2-1 decision also said that the company can patent not five largely framed processes the compare or the analysis of DNA sequences, because they were "abstract mental processes."

Myriad spokeswoman said however, that aspect of the judgment of the company capability for the isolated gene test not hurt.

"Our intellectual property position today is otherwise placed as before the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) even in that case," said Rebecca Chambers, head of investor relations, AFP.

She said the company has explained yet 232 claims, procedures or steps, just to test, "as part of 23 patents, that describe how we go about doing the BRAC analysis test, who were not even part of this complaint."

Backed by pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, myriad received a number of US patents in the 1990s on two generations-BRCA1- and BRCA2-associated with strong hereditary forms of breast and ovarian cancer in women.

According to the National Cancer Institute develop 12% of women in the general population breast cancer in their lifetimes, compared with 60 per cent of women who have inherited mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2.

Can 1.4 percent of the women in their lifetimes with ovarian cancer but the number is growing at 15-40 percent of women with the BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation are diagnosed.

The myriad patents means the company has "exclusive right to the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 diagnostic tests to perform and to prevent that all researchers receive only a look at the genes without first permission from myriad", ACLU, said a statement.

A major complaint in the lawsuit, in 2009 by a coalition of patient advocacy and medical groups represented by the ACLU was submitted, that the company exercised too much control over the tests and costs.

"Myriad makes it impossible for women or a comprehensive second opinion to obtain results to access alternative tests monopoly on the BRCA genes." It also countless, a high price for their can calculate, "ACLU Attorney Sandra Park AFP" said.

The ACLU was consulting with its customers and would they decide soon, or for the federal circuit appeal to the full 12-member Court of appeals to Court of Justice, said the matter to the Supreme.

Analyst Robert Cook Deegan of the Institute for Genome Sciences and policy at Duke University in North Carolina, said that he expected that the dispute over whether DNA is human something patented and owned would continue.

"This is probably not the last stage in this game," he said. "The fact that all three judges gave very different lines of reasoning me suggests that it will be a new round to go, to be."

When the matter of Supreme reaches court, he said that the result would be "very unpredictable."

But Friday's ruling was expected, that to make some waves in the biotechnology industry or on the US stock market.

"The impact of the federal circuit decision in the myriad case on the biotech industry should be minimal," said biotech intellectual property lawyer Roberte Marie Makowski.

"At least this decision provides a level of patents existing security for the industry and research efforts at the moment."

Biotech company began the patenting of genes and the genetic material in the 1980s. More than 20 percent of the 24,000 human gene patents have been granted since then in the United States.

A gene within the human body cannot be patented. But after he is identified, removed and isolated, a company can apply for exclusive rights, use it for commercial purposes.

Only a few country-including Brazil and Chile-allow no patents on genes in any way.

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Hepatitis A Forerunner Of Cancer!

every kind of illness should never be considered trivial. Such as hepatitis, when indicating a condition of the heart that is experiencing inflammation. Most societies are still lacking care and disease with Justin on this one, because it considers the impact brought about indirectly and it took quite a long time.

"This must be notified that the hepatitis was the forerunner for becoming a cancer may be afraid of a little person," said Prof. Dr. h. Ali Sulaiman, PhD, SpPD-KGEH, the Division of Hepatology, Department of internal medicine, Faculty of medicine University of Indonesia, Thursday (24/6/2011).

According to Ali, according to the Study of chronic hepatitis C prevalence in health care professionals in 2008, approximately 3.4 million population are infected with hepatitis c. Indonesia And about 2 million are infected with the virus genotype 1 (hard diterapi).

"Hepatitis C is genotipnya, so type 1 and 2. Type 1 (one) is the largest and are difficult to treat, "he said.

As for the treatment of genotype 1, Ali spoke, could do with menyuntikan pegasys. However the prices for these drugs is still considered very expensive. Just imagine, once injection Pegasys, ranging between 1-2 million rupiah.

"But to genotip 1 (one) it should be injected 48 times," he said.

Given the still high cost of such treatment, Ali hope with the help of the Government, these drugs could be made generic.

"Perhaps it is our hope in the effort if we want to carry out efforts in the fight against hepatitis B and C," he said.

For control of hepatitis can not if just prioritizing one only, is it hepatitis B or C, as both Ali according to equally important and can be fatal if not treated appropriately.

"Because both are equally so of cancer," he said.

Hepatitis can be caused by various things, such as viral infections, parasites, bacteria, chemical substances, auto immune system, illegal drugs as well as alcohol. Hepatitis B and C can develop into liver cirrhosis and liver cancer, can even cause he needed a liver transplant. The good news is hepatitis B can be prevented through vaccination, and most infections hepatitis C can be cured.

Read more »

Poor turned away from cancer screenings

Sunday, Dec. 13

ALBANY, New York (AP) - as the economy in the device and more people go without health insurance, women in at least 20 States are Lowincome is turned away or put on long waiting lists for free cancer screenings, according to the American Cancer Society cancer action network.

The organisation, that State budget strains force to reject some programs people, which otherwise free mammography might be considered and Pap smears found in the unofficial overview of programs for July 2008 to April 2009. Turned away just as many are not known; in some cases, women are screened by other programs or in accordance with various providers.

"Called I am and I panicked," said Erin LaBarge, 47. This would have been their third time a free mammogram of the screening program in St. Lawrence County. The resident of Norwood, n.y., but was told that she could get their free mammogram this year because there isn't enough not old money and she is enough.

New York used to screen women of all ages, but this year the budget crunch it has forced women under 50 are that at the highest risk and exclude.

"It's a scary thought." It really is, "said LaBarge, who fear that it is a higher risk, because her grandmother died of breast cancer."

The Cancer Society has an estimate for how much percent of breast cancer diagnoses coming of mammography screenings, but says that women have a 98 percent survival rate for breast cancer

Cancer is early during phase I caught. It shrinks II and III, and 27 percent to stage IV - to 84 per cent during the periods when cancer has reached its most advanced point.

"I know already, there are women who die, we are with mammography whose lives and could have saved other discoveries,", said Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer of the company.

In New York City provider in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens says the Cancer Society Western and 15,000 less free mammograms will perform in Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester County project, which they almost for the financial year end of April 2010, as compared to the previous year.

The Cancer Society has no way to include, how many women are to be averted, and many providers do not have as many are denied screening, or whether the women find another alternative. The cost of screening vary, but average mammography is about $100, while a PAP screen ranging from $75 to $200, may according to the society.

Project renewal van scan, which gives mammograms around New York City, in the rule targets has 6,000 women a year but cut back to 3,100 this year Director Mary Solomon said.

Each State handles differently free demonstrations. Some use State funds to federal grants, get to complement each other while other private support of Susan G. Komen for the cure Foundation and other groups.

At least 14 countries cut budgets for free cancer screenings this year: Colorado, Montana, Illinois, Alabama, Minnesota, Connecticut, South Carolina, Utah, Missouri, Washington, Ohio, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas.

Some States have reduced their budgets still found opportunities services; some States, which have reduced their budgets do not still find women turn away, because enough money not to need to.

"This medical care by offering [demonstrations] only in the first half of the fiscal year or by rationing back is to the programs," said Brawley. "It is, people are dying results in rationing."

New York, who has fought for two years with deficits in the billions, used women of all ages to screen for breast cancer, but after $3.5 million in the budget this year cuts women under 50 - such as LaBarge - are no longer entitled, if they know cancer seriously weighing the breast cancer gene or a family history. Despite the LaBarge family history she refused, screening due to their age and lack of funding.

"We easily, do not do this", says Claudia Hutton, spokeswoman for the Agency. "This is not a cut, we would have made if the State had the money, but the State don't have the money simply."

The question of women, if mammography should get broke into controversy last month when the US preventive services task force recommended that the tests are routinely women 50 and then every two years does not propagate.

She broke with the Cancer Society long standing position that women should start getting mammograms at the age of 40, and every year thereafter; American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists mammography is recommended every one to two years for women in their 40s and annually after the age of 50 years.

The American Cancer Society opposes the Federal task force recommendations.

"I believe they here made a mistake," said Brawley.

In 2009 estimates the cancer society, 34,600 women between 40 and 49 be found will have nationwide breast cancer; in this age group, 4,300 breast cancer deaths are this year projected.

Oregon, with 57,000 eligible women now free screenings to 6,000 a year limited, Amy said Manchester Harris, Executive Director of breast and cervical cancer program. Many States, including Oregon, nor screen women with symptoms, such as a breast lump.

"It's pretty painful," women, to make, said Shari House, owner of the health center Pearl in Portland.

"they annoying, they get depressed, get hopelessly," she said. "It's like with a door in your face slapped."

Sarah Gudz, who directs the Ohio Department of health breast and cervical cancer project, said the pool of women who search has increased after free screening higher unemployment and more people without insurance.

Ohio assigned to$ 2.5 million for 2008 / 09; State funding fell to $700,000 for 2009 / 10. Almost 17,000 women served in Ohio last year, but the State is expected to finance to 14,000 screenings 2009 / 10.

The Federal of centers for disease control and prevention estimates that since 1991, the free screening program has provided more than 8 million tests for more than 3.4 million women, recognition of more than 39,000 breast cancers, 2,400 invasive cervical cancers and 126,000 pre maligne cervical lesions.

The American Cancer Society cancer action network says that the economy has forced cuts in the demonstrations at a time when more people are not insured.

The company respondents programs for July 2008 to April 2009 and found that State budget strains force to reject some programs people, could be considered otherwise free mammography and Pap smears.

In some cases, women are protected by other programs or in accordance with various providers.

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