Archive for the ‘Bladder Cancer’ Category

Berberine–Containing Herbs (Goldenseal, Barberry, Goldthread, and Oregon Grape)

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Posted 08 Nov 2011 — by James Street
Category Berberine, Bladder Cancer, Brain, Skin

Berberine, strong and bitter in taste and found in various herbs, delivers anti-inflammatory properties via COX-2 inhibition (Fukuda et al. 1999). Kaempferol, a constituent of berberine, is a strikingly active inhibitor of COX-2 activity (Chen et al. 1999; Newmark et al. 2000). Berberine is unique, having the ability to inhibit COX-2 activity without involving the beneficial COX-1 enzyme. Berberine, perhaps by impacting the production of cyclooxygenase, influences the development of cancers at various sites:

  • Berberine is effective against bladder cancers (Chung et al. 1999).
  • Berberine suppressed colon carcinogenesis and inhibited COX-2 without COX-1 inhibition. The COX-2 enzyme is abundantly expressed in colon cancer cells and plays a role in tumorigenesis. The berberine-COX-2 connection appears to best explain the mechanism of berberine’s anti-inflammatory and antitumor-promoting effects (Fukuda et al. 1999, Newmark et al. 2000).
  • Berberine-induced apoptosis in human leukemia cells (Kuo et al. 1995).
  • Berberine inhibited the development of skin tumors (Kitagawa et al. 1986).
  • Berberine has potent antitumor activity against human and rat malignant brain tumors (Zhang et al. 1990). Studies using goldenseal, which contains the alkaloid berberine, showed average cancer kill rate of 91% in rats, over twice that seen in BCNU (a standard chemotherapy agent for brain tumors). Rat studies used 10 mg/kg of berberine.

A suggested dose is three 250-mg capsules of goldenseal each day. The preparation should be standardized to provide 5% hydrastine. Various respected herbalists suggest that goldenseal should be cycled (rotated with other herbals) rather than routinely administered. Goldenseal contains the alkaloids berberine, hydrastine, and canadine.

New chemotherapy treatment targets cancer directly

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Posted 20 Aug 2011 — by James Street
Category Bladder Cancer, Hormone, Prostate Cancer, Targeted Cancer Therapy

MIAMI (WTVJ/NBC) – Researchers have developed new drugs that go directly to cancer cells.

Cancer patient Robert Chambers received the last of six treatments Tuesday with an experimental drug therapy designed to target his bladder cancer, which had spread to his liver and lymph nodes.

His wife, Alice, says before enrolling in this clinical trial he was in a lot of pain.

“He was in the bed all the time, exhausted, and he was ready to let go. We were pretty close to the edge of saying it can’t go on like this,” she said.

In the pharmacy at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, they carefully mix the combination therapy designed by a Nobel Prize-wining researcher at the University of Miami.

AEZS 108 combines a traditional chemotherapy agent, adriamycin, with a synthetic version of a hormone produced by the brain.

It helps deliver the chemo right to the cancer cells, which are covered with receptors for that hormone.

That’s why this is called targeted therapy.

“It’s like a lock and key, and if you take a bomb and attach it to the key, you can deliver a bomb to the cancer cell. And that’s how the stuff works,” said Dr. Norman Block, UM researcher.

“That means that in theory the drug will internalize in the cancer cells not so much in the normal cells” said Dr. Gustavo Fernandez, Chambers’ oncologist.

Chambers is the first patient here to try this experimental targeted therapy, and he’s had promising results.

“I had a tumor that I could feel in my neck, and after two treatments I couldn’t feel it anymore. After two treatments I was off the pain medications,” he said.

In July, the Chambers were able to celebrate their 43rd anniversary.

“He’s back to vacuuming the pool and cooking and all those good things,” Alice Chambers said.

Doctors said his tumors are 70 percent smaller after four treatments. UM is one of only two sites in the country testing this new therapy.

“In California, one of our collaborators is using it for prostate cancer that’s become resistant to normal chemicals, and it’s working very well,” Block said.

UM Sylvester researchers hope to try the new therapy on pancreatic and breast cancer.

They hope to start before the end of the year.

Copyright 2011 WTVJ via NBC. All rights reserved.

Improper bladder cancer treatment costing lives

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Posted 30 Jul 2011 — by James Street
Category Bladder Cancer, Finance and Politics of cancer research and treatment
July 29, 2011 7:08 PM

By Jonathan LaPook

(CBS News)

You may not know it, but bladder cancer is the fifth most common form of cancer in the U.S. More than 70,000 Americans were diagnosed with the disease last year, and nearly 15,000 died from it.

New research shows a big problem may be that almost no one gets the recommended treatment, as CBS News correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook reports.

Six years ago, Adam Schaffer was enjoying Thanksgiving with his family until, he said, “I went to the bathroom, and there was a whole bunch of red. And it was very scary.”

He was just 44 years old. The doctor’s diagnosis floored him.

“He said you have bladder cancer,” Schaffer recalled. “And you could feel the room spinning.”

His first doctor removed the tumor but did not follow up with standard recommended treatment. Failure to follow guidelines is dangerously common and one reason bladder cancer survival has not improved in 25 years, says UCLA’s Dr. Karim Chamie.

“If we were to get a report card based on our performance with these guideline measures, I’d say we’d be failing our patients right now,” said Chamie, a uric oncologist at the schools’ Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Learn more about bladder cancer

For the first two years after finding early bladder cancer, doctors are supposed to test the urine for abnormal cells and examine the inside of the bladder every three months. They’re also supposed to fill it with an anti-cancer drug at least six times.

But among 4,500 patients in a recent study, only one received that recommended care. And 42 percent of doctors failed to perform those tests even once — the bare minimum.

“If we miss the boat we’re going to lose them,” Chamie said. “These are all potentially curable patients.”

Dr Bernard Bochner from Memorial Sloan Kettering specializes in bladder cancer. He says it’s unclear why follow-up is so poor.

“This is certainly not acceptable within the medical community,” he said. “We need to do a better job, there’s no question about that.”

Schaffer says he’s doing well now because he found a new doctor — and the right care. He credits his new team with saving his life.

Bladder cancer that hasn’t spread has a 50-to-70 percent chance of recurring. That’s why it’s so important to stay on top of it.

Over 25 years, bladder cancer survival has not improved. It remains the most expensive cancer to treat. It gets among the lowest amount of funding of all cancers. There’s no reason why patients aren’t getting proper care. The disease needs more attention, more advocacy, and better-educated doctors.

Bladder cancer patients rarely receive recommended care

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Posted 11 Jul 2011 — by James Street
Category Bladder Cancer, Finance and Politics of cancer research and treatment

 

Published: 11/07/2011 00:01:01

A new study has found that almost all patients with high-grade noninvasive bladder cancer do not receive complete care as recommended by current guidelines.  The study indicates that efforts are needed to identify and overcome barriers to providing optimal care to patients with bladder cancer.

High-grade noninvasive bladder cancer has up to a 70 percent chance of recurring after treatment and up to a 50 percent chance of progressing to a more invasive tumor.

Effective treatment for patients with high-grade noninvasive bladder cancer is critical. If the bladder tumor recurs and remains noninvasive, patients must undergo multiple operations; if it recurs and progresses to an invasive cancer, patients are at risk of having the cancer spread, and they may need to have their bladder removed and undergo radiation and chemotherapy treatments.

Medical guidelines advocate for delivering anticancer chemotherapy directly into the bladder (intravesical therapy) in order to minimize recurrence and progression of bladder cancer. They also recommend an intense follow-up schedule involving the use of a scope to evaluate the bladder (cytoscopy) and a urine test (cytology) every three months.

To see whether patients are actually receiving this recommended care, Karim Chamie, MD, MSHS of the University of California Los Angeles led a team of researchers from UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center that analyzed information on 4,545 patients diagnosed with high-grade noninvasive bladder cancer from 1992 to 2002 whose data were contained in the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER)-Medicare database, which links cancer registry information to a master file of Medicare enrollment.

“To our surprise, out of the 4,545 patients, only one received care that was compliant with all the guideline recommendations,” said Dr. Chamie. “In addition, nearly half of urologists have not performed at least one cystoscopy, one cytology, and one instillation of intravesical therapy for any given patient in the first two years after diagnosis.”

The researchers measured whether patients’ age, race, socioeconomic status, severity of other medical conditions, and extent of their bladder cancer contributed to the low compliance rate with guideline recommendations.

They discovered that these patient-level factors had little effect. Rather, the most important predictor of whether a patient underwent recommended care was the physician. Additional studies are needed to identify why the vast majority of physicians are not following medical guidelines related to bladder cancer.

Based on these findings, “one would deduce that more than 99 percent of patients with high-risk bladder cancer are not receiving recommended care. This is significantly less than what most patients with bladder cancer, their physicians, and policy makers believe is happening,” said Dr. Chamie. “We hope that shedding light on the level of discordance between ideal and routine care will prompt policy makers to modify reimbursement policies or support quality-improvement initiatives in the future.”