Oncology techniques

Alexey Levin, Voice of AmericaCancer stem cells

American researchers have discovered and cloned specific cells on which the aggressiveness of ovarian tumors depends.

Until recently, it was believed that each tumor contains only one type of cell. However, in recent years, oncologists have realized that there is a specific population of tumor cells that have a special ability to multiply and are highly resistant to chemotherapeutic drugs. Cells with such properties have been called cancer stem cells. When their existence was proven, scientists began searching for stem cells of specific tumors.

Now, Gil Mohr, a professor at the Yale University School of Medicine, and his colleagues have discovered stem cells that give rise to the most dangerous ovarian tumors. Their discovery creates prerequisites for the search for drugs that can destroy these cells or at least block their division. Success in the implementation of this program will lead to the emergence of new methods of treatment of ovarian cancer.

Vegetable fats and prostate cancerLimiting the use of certain vegetable oils may contribute to the prevention of malignant tumors of the prostate gland.

This trend was revealed in animal experiments by employees of the University of California at Los Angeles. William Aronson and his colleagues experimented with mice with a genetically programmed tendency to malignant degeneration of prostate cells in old age.

The experimental animals were divided into two groups. Part of the mice received 40% of food calories from vegetable oils containing a lot of polyunsaturated fatty acids. These include, for example, such widespread products as sunflower, corn and soybean oil. Olive oil, on the contrary, mainly consists of another type of fats containing monounsaturated acids.

Mice from the second group were kept on diets, the caloric content of which was provided with fats by only 12%. The incidence of prostate cancer among them was almost a third less than in the first group. Scientists also found that precancerous conditions in these animals occurred much less frequently than in mice with exactly the same heredity, which were given fatty foods.

Scientists from Los Angeles do not yet know to what extent the results obtained may apply to humans. This remains to be found out in the course of subsequent studies that are already planned.

Lung cancer and oral cavityAt the Texas Cancer Center named after

Anderson developed a new method for detecting pathological mutations that contribute to the appearance of cancerous tumors of lung tissue.

Medical statistics have long proved with complete reliability that smokers suffer from oncological diseases of the respiratory system much more often than non-smokers. The reasons for this are also known – if not all, then many. The components of tobacco smoke damage or drown out several genes at once that counteract the malignant degeneration of epithelial cells lining the inner surface of the lungs and bronchi. Therefore, timely detection of the abnormal state of these genes makes it possible to assess the risk of developing tumor foci long before their occurrence.

To perform such an analysis, it is necessary to obtain samples of epithelial cells. Doctors do just that, doing tissue scrapings with a bronchoscope, a fiber-optic device for examining the inner surface of the trachea and bronchi. Now oncologists from Houston have discovered that the necessary data can be obtained without climbing inside the bronchial tree.

Professor Li Mao and his collaborators proved that the analysis of epithelial cells of the oral cavity gives almost the same results as the study of bronchial epithelial cells. This means that the processes of precancerous degeneration of lung cells can be detected much easier, faster and cheaper compared to standard methods.

Cancer and alcoholEven very moderate consumption of alcoholic beverages increases the likelihood of breast cancer in older women.

This conclusion is contained in the report of the staff of the National Institute of Oncology. Its authors studied information about the health status and household habits of 184 thousand women accumulated during several surveys.

Analysis of the collected data showed that just one or two glasses of wine a day or an equivalent amount of other alcoholic beverages in terms of pure alcohol increases the risk of hormone-dependent breast cancer by a third. Women who allow themselves at least three such doses of alcohol every day are at risk of getting this form of lung cancer one and a half times more often than those who completely abstain from alcohol.

Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru29.04.2008