breast cancer tagged posts

The Paired Perils of Breast Cancer and Diabetes

A breast cancer cell captured in the process of division, with tubulin (a structural protein) in red; mitochondria in green; and chromosomes in blue. Photo credit: Wei Qian\National Cancer Institute

Researchers have discovered a mechanism linking breast cancer and diabetes, each of which promotes development and growth of the other. Breast cancer and type 2 diabetes would seem to be distinctly different diseases, with commonality only in their commonality. Breast cancer is the second most diagnosed malignancy after some types of skin cancer; approximately 1 in eight U.S. women will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of their lifetime. More than 10 percent of the U.S...

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An Estrogen Receptor that Promotes Cancer also Causes Drug-Binding Protein.

Three-dimensional culture of human breast cancer cells, with DNA stained blue and a protein in the cell surface membrane stained green. Image by NIH

Cancer cells proliferate despite a myriad of stresses — from oxygen deprivation to chemotherapy — that would kill any ordinary cell. Now, researchers at UC San Francisco have gained insight into how they may be doing this through the downstream activity of a powerful estrogen receptor. The discovery offers clues to overcoming resistance to therapies like tamoxifen that are used in many types of breast cancer.

Estrogen receptor α (ERα) drives more than 70 percent of breast cancers. The new research published Sept...

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New Study Links Moderate Alcohol Use with Higher Cancer Risk

One in four new breast cancers and one in five colon cancers in Canada attributed to alcohol. A new study from the World Health Organization’s (WHO) International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), published in the journal Lancet Oncology, has found an association between alcohol and a substantially higher risk of several forms of cancer, including breast, colon, and oral cancers. Increased risk was evident even among light to moderate drinkers (up to two drinks a day), who represented 1 in 7 of all new cancers in 2020 and more than 100,000 cases worldwide.

In Canada, alcohol use was linked to 7,000 new cases of cancer in 2020, including 24 per cent of breast cancer cases, 20 per cent of colon cancers, 15 per cent of rectal cancers, and 13 per cent of oral and liver cancers.

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Drug is promising against Pancreatic and Breast Cancers

Modulation of Cancer-Associated Fibrotic Stroma by An Integrin αvβ3 Targeting Protein for Pancreatic Cancer Treatment

ProAgio, a drug developed by Georgia State University biology professor Zhi-Ren Liu and his team, is effective at treating pancreatic cancer and prolonging survival in mice, according to a study published in the journal Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

A second study, published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, shows the drug is also effective against triple-negative breast cancer, a fast-growing and hard-to-treat type of breast cancer that carries a poor prognosis.

ProAgio, created from a human protein, targets the cell surface receptor  integrin αvβ3 which is expressed on cancer-associated fibroblasts...

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