Breast cancer patients who have a strong social support system in the first year after diagnosis are less likely to die or have a recurrence of cancer, according to new research from Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) and the Shanghai Institute …
Are you ready for robots in the ER?
A group of computer engineers at Vanderbilt University is convinced that the basic technology is now available to create robot assistants that can perform effectively in the often-chaotic environment of the emer…
At health spas, mall kiosks, and “oxygen bars” across the country, people are paying to breathe oxygen. For about a dollar a minute, enthusiasts inhale 95 percent oxygen ? air offers a paltry 21 percent O2 ? and report that it relieves a variety of maladies from hangovers to headaches. The practice may be a bad idea, according to scientists studying the damaging effects of free radicals ? highly reactive molecules derived from oxygen.
A team of scientists has shrunk tumors or delayed their growth in animal studies by using radiation to enable a drug to “zero in” and block the tumor blood vessels. The work, reported in the January issue of the journal Cancer Cell, is a model for what might be achieved in patients by using radiation to activate drug targets in tumors. “We can now use combinations of chemotherapy and radiation to improve the anti-cancer effect for many of our patients, but the side effects can be great,” said Dr. Dennis Hallahan, chair of Radiation Oncology at Vanderbilt- Ingram. “With this approach, we hope we can ultimately deliver drugs directly and selectively to the tumor alone, and reduce side effects.”
Physicians treating deadly liver tumors are finding success by injecting patients with radioactive microspheres that get trapped in the web of small blood vessels feeding a tumor and zap the cancerous cells. “The liver doesn’t tolerate external beam radiation in sufficient doses to affect tumor without damaging the remaining good liver,” said one physician researcher working on the treatment. “These spheres emit radiation for a short distance, less than a centimeter. If you can cluster radiation right around the tumor, the radiation exposure at the tumor site compared to normal liver is favorable.”