esophageal cancer
PHILADELPHIA (August 28, 2009) -- Do patients choose where to get their care based on how long it takes to them to get there? Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have recently documented a growing trend in the centralization of cancer surgery -- more patients seeking care at high volume centers, which are generally located in metropolitan areas.
Recently, the number of patients with GERD has increased in Japan. However, there have been few reports about the pathological findings in the esophageal squamous epithelium, and there are differing opinions among pathologists about the findings considered characteristic of chronic reflux esophagitis.
Using the Vienna classification system, it has been shown in clinic-based cohorts that there can be a significant change in disease behavior over time, whereas disease location remains relatively stable. Clinical and environmental factors as well as medical therapy might be relevant in predicting disease behavior change in patients with CD.
SASKATOON, SASKATCHEWAN ?Canadian Light Source (CLS) staff scientist Luca Quaroni and Dr. Alan Casson, Head of the Department of Surgery at the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) used the synchrotron's infrared microscope to identify tissue afflicted with a condition known as Barrett's Esophagus from chemical fingerprints associated with the disease, which can lead to esophageal cancer.
NEW YORK (May 29, 2009) -- Patients who have gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) for a prolonged period have an increased risk of developing Barrett's esophagus, a pre-cancerous condition where the tissue lining the esophagus becomes damaged by stomach acid and transformed into something like the inside of the stomach.
OAK BROOK, Ill. - May 14, 2009 - In a review of more than 2,000 patients coded for Barrett's esophagus, electronic diagnosis overestimated the prevalence of the disease according to researchers in California. They found that only 61.9 percent of patients assigned a billing diagnosis code for Barrett's esophagus actually had Barrett's esophagus after a manual record review.
(CHICAGO) - Gastroenterologists at Rush University Medical Center are studying the safety and efficacy of a new system for delivering chemotherapy for patients with esophageal cancer, a rare, but deadly disease that attacks the throat. The unique drug therapy delivers a highly concentrated dose of chemotherapy injected directly on to the hard-to-reach tumors in the esophagus non-surgically.
Many people of East Asian descent possess an enzyme deficiency that causes their skin to redden, or flush, when they drink alcohol.
There is growing evidence, say researchers in this week's PLoS Medicine, that people who experience facial flushing after drinking alcohol are at much higher risk of esophageal cancer from alcohol consumption than those who do not.
Drinking one glass of wine a day may lower the risk of Barrett's Esophagus by 56 percent, according to a new study by the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in the March issue of Gastroenterology. Barrett's Esophagus is a precursor to esophageal cancer, the nation's fastest growing cancer with an incidence rate that's jumped 500 percent in the last 30 years.
Cancer researchers at Jefferson Medical College and the Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia have found that zinc treatment may help prevent esophageal and oral cancers in those individuals at high risk. Oral and esophageal cancers are associated with nutritional zinc deficiency, and a rise in the expression of the enzyme COX-2 is connected with these cancers. Louise Fong, Ph.D., assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, and her co-workers have found that zinc given orally to zinc-deficient rats reverses the development of precancerous conditions in the esophagus and tongue and reverses the high expression of COX-2 there as well.
According to new research presented today at Digestive Disease Week, drinking caffeinated beverages may benefit some people who are at high-risk for liver disease. Conversely, a study by researchers from India found that soda drinkers, who represent a huge percentage of the American population, may actually have an increased risk of developing esophageal cancer.
When it comes to the microbes that inhabit the gastrointestinal tract, one person's poison may be another's cure. Heliobacter pylori, the bacterium that causes gastric ulcers and stomach cancer in some people, may actually protect against cancer of the esophagus. A new study by researchers at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland is shedding some light on this baffling paradox.
Gastroenterologists at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., report photodynamic therapy (PDT) appears to destroy the abnormal tissue of Barrett's esophagus as well as superficial esophageal cancer. Here's how PDT works. Patients are given an injection of a photosensitizing drug called porfimer sodium (Photofrin). Cells in the body absorb this drug. Normal cells get rid of it, but the drug tends to collect in premalignant and malignant cells. Two days after the injection of Photofrin, physicians insert and endoscope into the sedated patient's esophagus. An endoscope is a thin, flexible tube with a miniature camera on its tip. Physicians deliver a specific wavelength of red laser light through the endoscope to the targeted cells. The laser light destroys the Photofrin-containing cells. Normal esophageal cells grow back in their place.
