WEDNESDAY, Oct. 22 — A new study suggests that people with advanced colon cancer who have a particular gene mutation won’t benefit from the medication cetuximab (Erbitux).
While the drug can add months to the lives of people without a mutation in a gene called K-ras, those who have the mutation won’t see any benefit from this additional therapy, reports the study, which is published in the Oct. 23 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
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January 13th, 2009 | Posted in Breast Cancer, Colorectal Cancer, News | Tags: cancer, Certain, Colon, Drug, Gene, Help, Mutation, Those, with, Wont
WEDNESDAY, Oct. 15 — A common stomach bacteria may protect against a certain form of esophageal cancer, a new review suggests.
People with H. pylori strains that also had the CagA gene were almost half as likely to get adenocarcinoma of the esophagus, a cancer that develops in the tube that passes food from the throat to the stomach, according to the report published in the October issue of Cancer Prevention Research.
“CagA-positive strains of H. pylori may decrease the risk of adenocarcinoma by reducing acid production in the stomach and, therefore, reducing acid reflux to the esophagus,” study co-author Dr. Farin Kamangar, a research fellow at the National Cancer Institute, said in an American Association for Cancer Research news release. “It may also work by decreasing the production of the hormone ghrelin, which is secreted from the stomach to stimulate appetite. A reduction in the level of ghrelin may lead to lower rates of obesity, an important risk factor for adenocarcinoma.”
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January 4th, 2009 | Posted in News | Tags: Against, Bacteria, cancer, Certain, Guard, Might, Stomach, Throat