January 19, 2010, 8:35 AM CT

Costs of psoriasis treatment

Place your ad here Findings from a cost model suggest that expenses for systemic psoriasis treatment appear to be increasing at a faster rate than inflation, and newer biologically derived therapys are more expensive than traditional systemic therapies, as per a report in the recent issue of Archives of Dermatology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Psoriasis is a chronic autoimmune disease that affects an estimated 4.5 million to 7.5 million Americans, costing the health care industry approximately more than $3 billion annually, as per background information in the article. The severity of the disease varies, as do the therapiessome patients with mild, localized disease can use creams or other topical agents, whereas those with more extensive disease typically require phototherapy (exposure to ultraviolet light) or systemic therapies (substances that travel through the bloodstream, such as oral medications).

Vivianne Beyer, M.D., now at St. Vincent Hospital, Indianapolis, and Stephen E. Wolverton, M.D., of the Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, constructed a cost model to analyze the current total cost of systemic treatment for psoriasis. Costs for each treatment were assessed by using the average wholesale price of each drug, as paid by third-party payers, and costs of related office visits, laboratory tests and related monitoring procedures were determined using Medicare fee schedules. Trends were analyzed by calculating the change in average wholesale price from the prior year and then were in comparison to the Consumer Price Index for urban areas......... Posted by: George      Read more         Source

January 13, 2010, 8:15 AM CT

How Melanoma Ivades Immune System

Melanoma, if not detected in its early stages, transforms into a highly deadly, therapy-resistant cancer. Eventhough the immune system initially responds to melanoma and mounts anti-tumor attacks, these assaults are generally ineffective, allowing more advanced melanomas to win the battle and spread beyond the primary site. Now, scientists at Children's Hospital Boston and Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) shed light on how melanomas stimulate, yet ultimately evade, a patient's immune system. Their work, published online January 12 by the journal Cancer Research, also suggests ways drugs might block these tactics.

In 2008, the same team, led by Markus Frank, MD, of the Transplantation Research Center of Children's and BWH, and George Murphy, MD, chief of Dermatopathology at BWH, showed in the journal Nature that a key reason for melanoma virulence is a small group of tumor stem cells that are able to grow despite chemotherapy drugs, allowing the tumor to re-grow and progress. They also showed that targeting these cells (identifiable by a molecule on their surface known as ABCB5) could successfully inhibit tumor growth in mice. (The ABCB5 technology has been licensed and is currently in clinical drug development.)

In their new paper, first author Tobias Schatton, PhD, of the Transplantation Research Center, and his colleagues show that these ABCB5-positive cells also produce molecules that inhibit the body's natural immune attack, known as PD-1 and B7.2. These molecules work, they found, by triggering white blood cells known as regulatory T cells (T-regs), to dampen the normal anti-melanoma response. The T-regs are thus tricked into protecting the deadly melanoma stem cells from the body's own defenses......... Posted by: George      Read more         Source

January 5, 2010, 8:39 AM CT

Celebrex may prevent skin cancers

A widely-available anti-inflammatory prescription drug can reduce the risk of a common skin cancer in humans, as per a researcher at Stanford's School of Medicine. Eventhough oral administration of the drug, celecoxib, is linked to an increased risk of heart attack and stroke in some people, it's possible that topical application could have a safer, protective effect for people prone to developing the cancers, called basal cell carcinomas, the researcher believes.

"Basal cell carcinomas are the most common human cancer in the United States," said Jean Tang, MD, PhD, assistant professor of dermatology, "and their incidence is increasing steadily. This work identifies a possible way to prevent them." She and her colleagues dovetailed studies in mice with a randomized, double-blinded clinical trial in humans to reach their conclusions.

Tang was an assistant professor at UC-San Francisco and Children's Hospital Oakland when the trial was conducted. She is the main author of the research, which will be published in Cancer Prevention Research on Jan. 5. Tang also recently published a separate study in Cancer Causes Control showing that elderly men with relatively high levels of Vitamin D in their blood were less likely to develop non-melanoma skin cancer than were men with lower levels of the vitamin......... Posted by: George      Read more         Source

December 10, 2009, 11:12 PM CT

A Novel Model of Skin Cancer

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have developed a new model of skin cancer based on the knowledge that a common cancer-related molecule called Src kinase is activated in human skin-cancer samples.

"Our prior work demonstrated that Src kinases are activated in human squamous cell carcinomas of the skin. We modeled these observations by increasing the expression of the gene Fyn, a member of Src family of proteins, in mouse skin," explains senior author John T. Seykora MD, PhD, assistant professor of Dermatology. In addition, previous work by the Seykora lab on a related protein called Srcasm, discovered by him in 2002, suggested that Srcasm may function as an anti-oncogene, a molecule that keeps others in check in order to control cell growth.

In this proof-of-principle study, published this month in Cancer Research, the authors observed that genetically engineered mice expressing a K14-Fyn transgene develop premalignant lesions and invasive squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) spontaneously in 5 to 8 weeks. Skin SCCs are the second most common form of cancer, with greater than 250,000 cases annually in the US, leading to approximately 2,500 deaths.

This study demonstrates that Fyn is a potent oncogene in skin. When Srcasm levels are raised in the mouse skin cancer model, tumor formation is dramatically inhibited showing that Srcasm functions as an anti-oncogene......... Posted by: George      Read more         Source

December 8, 2009, 7:42 AM CT

Hidden sensory system in the skin

The human sensory experience is far more complex and nuanced than previously thought, as per a groundbreaking newly released study reported in the December 15 issue of the journal Pain (http://www.painjournalonline.com/article/S0304-3959%2809%2900526-0/abstract). In the article, scientists at Albany Medical College, the University of Liverpool and Cambridge University report that the human body has an entirely unique and separate sensory system aside from the nerves that give most of us the ability to touch and feel. Surprisingly, this sensory network is located throughout our blood vessels and sweat glands, and is for most people, largely imperceptible.

"It's almost like hearing the subtle sound of a single instrument in the midst of a symphony," said senior author Frank Rice, PhD, a Neuroscience Professor at Albany Medical College (AMC), who is a leading authority on the nerve supply to the skin. "It is only when we shift focus away from the nerve endings linked to normal skin sensation that we can appreciate the sensation hidden in the background." .

The research team discovered this hidden sensory system by studying two unique patients who were diagnosed with a previously unknown abnormality by main author David Bowsher, M.D., Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Liverpool's Pain Research Institute. These patients had an extremely rare condition called congenital insensitivity to pain, meaning that they were born with very little ability to feel pain. Other rare individuals with this condition have excessively dry skin, often mutilate themselves accidentally and commonly have severe mental handicaps. "Eventhough they had a few accidents over their lifetimes, what made these two patients unique was that they led normal lives. Excessive sweating brought them to the clinic, where we discovered their severe lack of pain sensation," said Dr. Bowsher. "Curiously, our conventional tests with sensitive instruments revealed that all their skin sensation was severely impaired, including their response to different temperatures and mechanical contact. But, for all intents and purposes, they had adequate sensation for daily living and could tell what is warm and cold, what is touching them, and what is rough and smooth"......... Posted by: George      Read more         Source

December 1, 2009, 8:26 AM CT

High-frequency ultrasound to diagnose skin cancer

High-frequency ultrasound with elastography can help differentiate between malignant and non-malignant skin conditions, as per a research studypresented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

"High-frequency ultrasound with elastography has the potential to improve the efficiency of skin cancer diagnosis," said main author Eliot L. Siegel, M.D., vice chairman of the Department of Radiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSM) in Baltimore. "It successfully delineated the extent of lesions and was able to provide measurable differentiation among a variety of non-malignant and cancerous lesions".

There are more than one million cases of skin cancer diagnosed in the U.S. every year, as per the American Cancer Society. Melanoma, the most serious type of skin cancer, will account for about 68,720 cases of skin cancer and 11,590 deaths in 2009, despite the fact that with early detection it is highly curable.

Suspicious skin lesions are typically diagnosed by dermatologists and biopsied based on their surface appearance and characteristics. Unfortunately, even to experienced dermatologists, non-malignant and cancerous lesions often appear similar visually and on physical examination, and some cancerous lesions may have a non-malignant appearance, particularly in their early stages. It is not uncommon for patients to have one or more lesions that appear concerning......... Posted by: George      Read more         Source

October 15, 2009, 5:33 PM CT

Skin cells may provide early warning for cancer risk

Berkeley -- While some researchers have argued that cancer is such a complex genetic disease that you'd have to sequence a person's complete genome in order to predict his or her cancer risk, a University of California, Berkeley, cell biologist suggests that the risk appears to be more simply determined by inexpensively culturing a few skin cells.

Harry Rubin, professor emeritus of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley, acknowledges that cancer cells have mutations in hundreds of genes, making it hard to determine which are the key triggers and making prognosis and therapy equally difficult. Even normal tissue differs from person to person because of a myriad of less disruptive mutations and because of different environmental exposures, both of which affect future cancer risk.

But in the recent issue of the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, Rubin argues that, while it appears to be hard to dissect the role of each of these mutations, their collective effect should be observable in tissue before any cancers develop.

Specifically, increases in how densely the cells grow, which Rubin argues are a prelude to cancer, appears to be detectable even before the cancer appears, warning of risks that could be lessened by behavioral changes......... Posted by: George      Read more         Source

September 23, 2009, 7:06 AM CT

Ultrasound can predict survival in melanoma

Scientists have demonstrated for the first time that patterns of ultrasound signals can be used to identify whether or not cancer has started to spread in melanoma patients, and to what extent. The discovery enables doctors to decide on how much surgery, if any, is mandatory and to predict the patient's probable survival.

Dr Christiane Voit told Europe's largest cancer congress, ECCO 15 ESMO 34 [1], in Berlin today (Wednesday 23 September): "We have identified two ultrasound patterns of lymph node metastasis in melanoma patients which can identify correctly any amount of tumour cells in the sentinel lymph nodes in 75-90% of cases before proceeding to surgery on the sentinel lymph nodes".

Dr Voit, who is a dermatologist and head of the diagnostic unit at the Skin Cancer Centre at Charit Universittsmedizin Berlin, the Medical University of Berlin, Gera number of, said that eventhough her research needs to be confirmed in multi-centre, randomised clinical trials, it had the potential to spare patients unnecessary surgery, particularly if it was combined with ultrasound-guided fine needle biopsy of lymph nodes rather than conventional surgery.

Since 2001 Dr Voit and her colleagues in Gera number of and The Netherlands have included 850 melanoma patients in a prospective study to investigate the use of ultrasound in diagnosis and therapy planning. They have already demonstrated that ultrasound-guided fine needle biopsy of sentinel nodes before conventional sentinel node surgery can identify up to 65% of patients in whom the cancer has started to spread. The study presented today shows how far ultrasound patterns correlate with disease progression, tumour burden, survival and prognosis in the first 400 of these patients with stage I/II melanoma and with the longest follow-up......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

September 23, 2009, 7:04 AM CT

Trial of new treatment for advanced melanoma

Berlin, Gera number of: Scientists have made significant advances in the therapy of metastatic cancerous melanoma one of the most difficult cancers to treat successfully once it has started to spread as per a research studyto be presented at Europe's largest cancer congress, ECCO 15 ESMO 34 [1], in Berlin on Thursday.

In the phase I extension study, scientists have seen rapid and dramatic shrinking of metastatic tumours in patients treated with a new compound that blocks the activity of the cancer-causing mutation of the BRAF gene, which is implicated in about 50% melanomas and 5% of colorectal cancers. In new results from 31 melanoma patients with the BRAF mutation who were treated with 960mg of PLX4032 twice a day, 64% (14) of the 22 patients who could be reviewed so far met the official criteria for partial response (this involves the diameter of tumours shrinking by at least 30% for at least a month). A further six of the 22 patients also showed a response, but, at the time of the congress presentation, it was too early to say whether the tumours would shrink far enough to meet these criteria.

Dr Paul Chapman, an attending doctor on the Melanoma/Sarcoma service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (New York, USA) and who was one of the leaders of the trial, told a news briefing: "We are very excited about these results. Of the 22 patients we have been able to evaluate so far, 20 have had some objective tumour shrinkage. This is impressive as they all had metastatic disease and most of them had failed several previous therapies. A lot of these patients were pretty sick but a number of of them had a significant and rapid improvement in the way they function. We've had patients come off oxygen and we've got several patients who have been able to come off narcotic pain medicine soon after starting therapy"......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

September 10, 2009, 7:14 AM CT

Role of vitamin C in skin protection

Researchers have uncovered a new role played by Vitamin C in protecting the skin.

Scientists at the University of Leicester and Institute for Molecular and Cellular Biology in Portugal studied new protective properties of vitamin C in cells from the human skin, which could lead to better skin regeneration.

The work, by Tiago Duarte, Marcus S. Cooke and G. Don Jones, observed that a form of Vitamin C helped to promote wound healing and also helped protect the DNA damage of skin cells. Their findings have been reported in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine This report is the latest in a long line of publications from these researchers, at the University of Leicester, concerning vitamin C. Previously, the group has published evidence that DNA repair is upregulated in people consuming vitamin C supplements. The scientists have now provided some mechanistic evidence for this, in cell culture, using techniques such as Affymetrix microarray, for looking at gene expression, and the 'Comet' assay to study DNA damage and repair.

Tiago Duarte, formerly of the University of Leicester, and now at the Institute for Molecular and Cellular Biology in Portugal, said: "The exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation increases in summer, often resulting in a higher occurence rate of skin lesions. Ultraviolet radiation is also a genotoxic agent responsible for skin cancer, through the formation of free radicals and DNA damage......... Posted by: George      Read more         Source

September 10, 2009, 7:07 AM CT

LED light and green tea cream to smooth facial wrinkles

Researchers in Gera number of are reporting a major improvement in their potential new therapy for facial wrinkles that could emerge as an alternative to Botox and cosmetic surgery. The non-invasive technique combines high-intensity light from light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and a lotion made of green tea extract. It works ten times faster than a similar anti-wrinkle therapy that uses LEDs alone, the scientists say. Their study is scheduled for the Oct. 7 issue of ACS' Crystal Growth & Design, a bi-monthly journal.

Andrei P. Sommer and Dan Zhu point out that scientists have used light-therapy, or phototherapy, for more than 40 years to help heal wounds. Recently the researchers showed that use of high-intensity LEDs, similar to those used in automotive tail lights and computers, could help reduce skin wrinkles when applied daily for several months. But exposure to intense LED light is also involved in generating high levels of reactive oxygen species as byproducts that can potentially damage cells. To combat that effect, the scientists combined the LED with a potent antioxidant in green tea extract called epigallocatechin gallate.

They applied a daily combination of LED light and green tea extract to the facial wrinkles of a human volunteer one month. The combination therapy resulted in smoother skin, including "less pronounced wrinkle levels, shorter wrinkle valleys, and juvenile complexion," the researchers say. The therapy showed promising results in only one-tenth of the time it took for LED treatment alone to reduce wrinkles. The study could form the basis of "an effective facial rejuvenation program," and lead to a new understanding of the effect reactive oxygen species on cellular aging, they note......... Posted by: George      Read more         Source

August 28, 2009, 6:56 AM CT

Genes and psoriasis

A specific genetic region that has been increasingly identified as the strongest genetic link to psoriasis has an even more significant role in the chronic skin disease than has been suspected, University of Utah medical scientists show in a newly released study.

In the Aug. 13 issue of PLoS Genetics, scientists in the U School of Medicine's Department of Dermatology confirm that the presence of HLA-Cw*0602, a gene variation or allele on chromosome 6 found to be linked to psoriasis by numerous investigators, is the "major genetic determinant" of psoriasis, but that other nearby genetic variations also play an independent role in contributing to the disease.

"The HLA-Cw*0602 gene variation stands alone as a high risk for psoriasis," said Gerald G. Krueger, M.D., professor of dermatology, Benning Presidential Endowed Chair holder, and a co-author on the study. "A major question has been: are there other genetic variations in this region that associate with psoriasis?".

The study reported in PLoS Genetics identifies two other genetic variations on chromosome 6 that also have significant association with psoriasis. People who have all three genetic variations are nearly nine times more at risk for psoriasis.

Psoriasis is a chronic disease that causes red scaly patches on the skin and affects up to 7.5 million people in the United States. About 25 percent of subjects with the disease also develop a painful inflammation of the joints called psoriatic arthritis......... Posted by: George      Read more         Source

August 11, 2009, 11:07 PM CT

Diarrhea in metastatic melanoma patients

Patients with stage III or IV melanoma taking ipilimumab and the oral steroid budesonide to reduce side effects did not have less diarrhea, a known side effect of ipilimumab, as per results of a phase II trial published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

These findings would "discourage the prophylactic use of budesonide to reduce the gastrointestinal side effects of ipilimumab," said researcher Jeffrey Weber, M.D., Ph.D. Weber is a senior member at the Moffitt Cancer Center and director of the Donald A. Adam Comprehensive Melanoma Research Center, Tampa, Fla.

Weber and his colleagues gave 10 mg/kg of ipilimumab to 115 patients every three weeks, for four doses. This was combined with daily budesonide for one group and placebo control for another.

After four months of therapy, they observed that budesonide did not affect the rate of diarrhea it occurred in 32.7 percent of patients treated with the drug and 35 percent of those who received placebo, as per the study. Median overall survival was 17.7 months among those treated with budesonide compared with 19.3 months among those who received placebo.

Additionally, the scientists saw anti-tumor responses in 10 to 15 percent of patients, without an apparent difference between patients treated with budesonide and those who received placebo......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

July 28, 2009, 11:35 PM CT

Cancer vaccines for metastatic melanoma

Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian today announced promising data from a clinical study showing patient-specific cancer vaccines derived from patients' own cancer cells and immune cells were well tolerated and resulted in impressive long-term survival rates in patients with metastatic melanoma whose disease had been minimized by other therapies.

The study entitled "Phase II Trial of Dendritic Cells Loaded with Antigens from Self-Renewing, Proliferating Autologous Tumor Cells as Patient-Specific Anti-Tumor Vaccines in Patients with Metastatic Melanoma," was reported in the June 2009 issue of Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals and was sponsored by Hoag Hospital Foundation.

"There is continued interest in developing new therapies for melanoma patients with recurrent or distant metastatic disease at the time of diagnosis because there are no systemic therapies that can be relied upon to cure them," said Robert O. Dillman, M.D., F.A.C.P., executive medical and scientific director at the Hoag Cancer Center and lead investigator for the study. "Patients with metastatic melanoma are at high risk for additional metastases and death."

During the study, 54 patients with regionally recurrent or distant metastatic melanoma were injected with a vaccine that included each patient's own immune cells (dendritic cells) and 500 micrograms of granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF), an immune stimulator, three times a week and then monthly for five months for a total of up to eight injections. The patient's dendritic cells were obtained from their peripheral blood and mixed with a cell culture of the patient's own melanoma cells that had been self-renewing and proliferating in the laboratory. The patient-specific vaccine is designed to stimulate the patient's immune system to react against tumor stem cells or early progenitor cells that can create new depots of cancer throughout the body......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 3, 2009, 5:06 AM CT

Skin Lesion Leads To More Cancer Types

Actinic keratoses are sun-damaged rough patches or lesions on the skin - often pink and scaly - that doctors have long believed can turn into a form of skin cancer known as squamous cell carcinoma.

Now scientists at Brown University, the Veterans Administration Medical Centers in Providence and Oklahoma City, and others have determined that actinic keratoses appear responsible for a larger spectrum of skin cancers than previously thought. Their research is highlighted in the current edition of Cancer.

"We found some interesting things," said Dr. Martin Weinstock, the paper's main author. Weinstock, chief of dermatology at the VA Medical Center in Providence, is professor of dermatology and community health at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development funded the study.

Vincent Criscione, a fourth-year Alpert Medical School student, served as the paper's first author. Beyond Brown and the VA, scientists from Rhode Island Hospital and Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit also contributed.

To conduct the study, Weinstock and the other scientists looked at 169 patients from the VA Medical Center in Oklahoma City who had a high risk for skin cancers. They, in turn, were among 1,131 patients from multiple cites who took part in a chemotherapy prevention trial conducted previously. Most had at least one actinic keratosis on their body. Combined, they had about 7,784 of the lesions on their faces and ears. There were up to six years of follow-up to quantify the risk of progression of actinic keratoses to cancer......... Posted by: George      Read more         Source

June 1, 2009, 5:16 AM CT

Predicting response to melanoma treatment

Genes that help predict a melanoma patient's response to therapy. The new findings are being presented at the 45th annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), May 29 to June 2, in Orlando, Fla.

"Approximately 70,000 people will be diagnosed with metastatic melanoma this year," said principal investigator Hussein Tawbi, M.D., M.Sc., assistant professor of medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and with UPCI's Melanoma Program. "This form of cancer is aggressive and often resistant to chemotherapy. In fact, only 7 to 10 percent of patients are likely to respond to the current standard of care. We wanted to see if there was a way to predict which patients would respond to therapy and which ones would not".

Dr. Tawbi and colleagues examined the tumor tissues of 21 patients with metastatic melanoma, some of whom responded to chemotherapy and some who did not. Once the cases were divided, the scientists used a mathematical tool called Neural Network Analysis to survey over 25,000 genes and the regulators that turn the genes on and off to see if they could identify ones that could distinguish responders from nonresponders.

"Cancer cells contain massive amounts of information that, if analyzed appropriately, may inform us how to kill them," said Dr. Tawbi. "They contain thousands of genes, and every gene has a switch that turns it on or off. Neural Network Analysis, which utilizes pattern recognition algorithms, helped us identify a signature of eight genes and their switches that predict a patient's likelihood of responding to therapy for metastatic melanoma"......... Posted by: George      Read more         Source

April 29, 2009, 5:09 AM CT

Treating Skin Cancer without the Knife

In a case study of a type of melanoma skin cancer typically found on chronically sun-exposed skin, Saint Louis University scientists observed that imiquimod, a topical cream, produced good results for patients when used together with surgery to treat the cancer, potentially helping doctors cut less.

The study, published in Dermatologic Surgery, looked at two cases of the most common type of melanoma of the head and neck, lentigo maligna (LM), a type of "melanoma-in- situ", the earliest stage of melanoma. This early form, known as LM, precedes the more invasive form, lentigo maligna melanoma (LMM), and the progression of LM to LMM typically occurs after 10 to 15 years. Though surgical removal of LM is most often used to treat the non-invasive form of the cancer, it can have high local recurrence rates.

In two patients who had both LM and LMM, researchers used imiquimod in conjunction with surgery. In both patients, surgery was first done to remove the area of known invasive disease, followed by the topical cream to the outer area of LM. This approach was chosen with patients who did not want extensive surgery due to the large size of the melanoma on their scalp and face. These cases, along with other recent studies, suggest that imiquimod may help to reduce the area needing surgery, manage the LM and hopefully minimize its recurrence......... Posted by: George      Read more         Source

April 27, 2009, 5:07 AM CT

Simple household bleach to treat kids' eczema

It's best known for whitening a load of laundry. But now simple household bleach has a surprising new role: an effective therapy for kids' chronic eczema.

Chronic, severe eczema can mar a childhood. The skin disorder starts with red, itchy, inflamed skin that often becomes crusty and raw from scratching. The eczema disturbs kids' sleep, alters their appearance and affects their concentration in school. The itching is so bad kids may break the skin from scratching and get chronic skin infections that are difficult to treat, particularly from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

Scientists from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine have discovered powerful relief in the form of diluted beach baths. It's a cheap, simple and safe therapy that drastically improves the rash as well as reduces flare-ups of eczema, which affects 17 percent of school-age children.

The study found giving pediatric patients with moderate or severe eczema (atopic dermatitis) diluted bleach baths decreased signs of infection and improved the severity and extent of the eczema on their bodies. That translates into less scratching, fewer infections and a higher quality of life for these children.

The typical therapy of oral and topical antibiotics increases the risk of bacterial resistance, something doctors try to avoid, particularly in children. Bleach kills the bacteria but doesn't have the same risk of creating bacterial resistance......... Posted by: George      Read more         Source

April 16, 2009, 5:00 AM CT

New target for melanoma

A protein called Mcl-1 plays a critical role in melanoma cell resistance to a form of apoptosis called anoikis, as per research published this week in Molecular Cancer Research

The presence of Mcl-1 causes cell resistance to anoikis. This resistance to anoikis enables the melanoma cells to metastasize and survive at sites distant from the primary tumor, as per Andrew Aplin, Ph.D., an associate professor of Cancer Biology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, and a member of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson. The research was conducted at Albany Medical College in New York by Dr. Aplin and his colleagues.

Mcl-1 is part of the Bcl-2 protein family, and is regulated by B-RAF proteins, which are mutated in approximately 60 percent of all human melanomas. The Bcl-2 family includes several prosurvival proteins that are linked to the resistance of cancer cells to apoptosis, or cell death. Dr. Aplin and his colleagues analyzed three candidate Bcl-2 proteins: Mcl-1, Bcl-2 and Bcl-XL.

"When we depleted Mcl-1 from the tumor cells, they were susceptible to cell death," Dr. Aplin said. "Mcl-1 showed dramatic results in comparison to Bcl-2 and Bcl-XL, which was a surprise. Our findings show that targeting Mcl-1, which is upregulated in a majority of melanoma cells, could be a viable therapy strategy"......... Posted by: George      Read more         Source

March 18, 2009, 5:16 AM CT

The most natural of all skin creams

Even after nine months soaking in the womb, a newborn's skin is smooth - unlike an adult's in the bath. While occupying a watery, warm environment, the newborn manages to develop a skin fully equipped to protect it in a cold, dry and bacteria-infected world. A protective cream called Vernix caseosa (VC), which covers the fetus and the newborn, aids in the growth of skin both before and after birth. VC provides 'waterproofing' in utero, allowing skin to grow in wet conditions, while after birth it hydrates and cleanses, even healing when applied to ulcers. Prof. Joke Bouwstra, a specialist in the skin barrier and its synthesis at Leiden University, and her colleague Robert Rißmann set out to study VC in detail and has produced a synthetic version of this natural buttery ointment which shows the same structure and unique properties. As well as helping pre-term babies develop essential protection against temperature changes, dehydration and infection, artificial VC could also benefit sufferers of skin disease.

Like most moisturising creams, VC is mostly water. Its outstanding properties come from the addition of just 10% each of lipid molecules and dead skin cells (corneocytes), so the exact composition of the mixture is important.

For the lipids, X-ray diffraction measurements at the Dutch/Flemish DUBBLE beamline at the ESRF (European Synchrotron Radiation Facility) allowed the Leiden scientists to find the proportions of the various forms in the cream, even distinguishing between complex molecules differing in chain length......... Posted by: George      Read more         Source