Prostate Cancer – Most common among males in India
Prostate cancer is a cancer of the small, walnut-shaped gland near the urinary bladder in men, that produces seminal fluid, nourishes and transports the sperm. Located in front of the rectum and just below the bladder, where the urine is stored, the prostate also surrounds the urethra, the canal through which urine passes out of the body. Older men, usually in the sixth decade of their life, are at a higher risk of this disease.Symptoms
At the early stages of this cancer, most men will not experience any symptoms. Some men, however, will experience the following symptoms that might indicate the presence of prostate cancer:
- Frequent urination, especially at night
- Difficulty in starting urination or holding back urine
- Weak or interrupted flow of urine
- Painful or burning urination
- Difficulty in having an erection
- Painful ejaculation
- Blood in urine or semen
- Frequent pain or stiffness in the lower back, hip or upper thigh
Causes
The exact cause of prostate cancer is under investigation. However, increasing age and high testosterone are known risk factors.Diagnosis
Since the above mentioned symptoms can potentially indicate the presence of other diseases or disorders, men who experience any of these symptoms should undergo a thorough check-up to determine the underlying cause of the symptoms.
- A blood test for a protein known as Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA)
- An ultrasound examination through the rectum is suggested, usually after the doctor has examined the prostate through the rectum (Digital Rectal Examination – DRE)
Treatment
The prostate cancer treatment options depend on several factors, such as:
- How fast the cancer is growing
- How much it has spread
- The overall health
- The benefits and the potential side effects of the treatment
Immediate treatment may not be necessary
For men diagnosed with a very early stage of prostate cancer, treatment may not be necessary right away. Some men may never need treatment. Instead, doctors sometimes recommend active surveillance.
In active surveillance, regular follow-up blood tests, rectal exams and possibly biopsies may be performed to monitor progression of your cancer. If tests show that cancer is progressing, then the doctor recommends surgery or radiation.
Active surveillance carries a risk that the cancer may grow and spread between checkups, making it less likely to be cured.
Radiation therapy
Radiation therapy uses high-powered energy to kill cancer cells. Prostate cancer radiation therapy can be delivered in two ways:
External beam radiation: During external beam radiation therapy, the patient lies on a table while a machine moves around the body, directing high-powered energy beams to the cancer. The patient undergoes external beam radiation treatments five days a week for several weeks. External beam radiation uses x-rays or protons to deliver the radiation.
Brachytherapy: Brachytherapy involves placing many rice-sized radioactive seeds in the prostate tissue. The radioactive seeds deliver a low dose of radiation over a long period of time. The doctor implants the radioactive seeds in the prostate using a needle guided by ultrasound images. The implanted seeds eventually stop giving off radiation and don’t need to be removed.
Hormone therapy
Hormone therapy is treatment to stop the body from producing the male hormone testosterone. Prostate cancer cells rely on testosterone to help them grow. Cutting off the supply of hormones may cause cancer cells to die or to grow more slowly. Hormone therapy options include:
- Medications that stop the body from producing testosterone
- Medications that block testosterone from reaching cancer cells
- Surgery to remove the testicles (orchiectomy)
Hormone therapy is used in men with advanced prostate cancer to shrink the cancer and slow the growth of tumours. In men with early-stage prostate cancer, hormone therapy may be used to shrink tumours before radiation therapy. This can make it more likely that radiation therapy will be successful.
Hormone therapy is sometimes used after surgery or radiation therapy to slow the growth of any cancer cells left behind.
Surgery to remove the prostate
Surgery for prostate cancer involves removing the prostate gland, some surrounding tissue and a few lymph nodes. Ways the radical prostatectomy procedure can be performed include:
- Using a robot to assist with surgery
- Making an incision in your abdomen
- Making an incision between your anus and scrotum
- Laparoscopic prostatectomy
Freezing prostate tissue
Cryosurgery or cryoablation involves freezing tissue to kill cancer cells. During cryosurgery for prostate cancer, small needles are inserted in the prostate using ultrasound images as guidance. A very cold gas is placed in the needles, which causes the surrounding tissue to freeze. A second gas is then placed in the needles to reheat the tissue. The cycles of freezing and thawing kill the cancer cells and some surrounding healthy tissue.
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy uses drugs to kill rapidly growing cells, including cancer cells. Chemotherapy can be administered through a vein in your arm, in pill form or both.
Chemotherapy may be a treatment option for men with prostate cancer that has spread to distant areas of their bodies. Chemotherapy may also be an option for cancers that don’t respond to hormone therapy.
Multiple new chemotherapy drugs have recently been approved for treatment of progressive, metastatic prostate cancer.
Immunotherapy
A form of immunotherapy has been developed to treat advanced, recurrent prostate cancer. This treatment takes some of the patient’s own immune cells, genetically engineers them to fight prostate cancer, and then injects the cells back into the patient’s body through a vein. Some men do respond to this therapy with some improvement in their cancer, but the treatment is very expensive and requires multiple visits.
Management
Depending on the stage of the disease, hormonal therapy, surgery and/or radiation therapy are initiated. Some patients may require chemotherapy at a later stage.
Specialists:
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Blue Whale Game: Fortis Healthcare Launches 24×7 Helpline
The helpline offers to be medium through which people can freely open up to trained mental health care professionals and avail immediate help. The helpline is also available for family members who notice sudden negative behavioural changes among the young in the family.
Fortis Healthcare on Thursday launched a 24×7 helpline to provide psychological support to teenagers increasingly getting trapped in the macabre online game Blue Whale Challenge.
The helpline — 8376804102 — is available for anyone who is directly undergoing undue mental stress and anxiety as a participant in the challenge.
The Blue Whale Challenge, reportedly created by a former convict in Russia, is said to psychologically provoke players to indulge in daring, self-destructive tasks for 50 days before finally taking the “winning” step of killing themselves — and each task must be filmed and shared as “proof”.
The helpline is also available for family members who notice sudden negative behavioural changes among the young in the family.
“We have been receiving calls both from teenagers as well as concerned parents. This helpline is geared towards intervening in times of crises as well as imparting psycho-education to help individuals and families cope with the situation,” Samir Parikh, Director, (Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences) at Fortis Healthcare, said in a statement on Thursday.
The helpline offers to be medium through which people can freely open up to trained mental health care professionals and avail immediate help.
According to media reports, over six cases across India have been suspected to be linked to the deadly game.
While taking measures to curb the deadly game, the government recently directed internet majors — Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Microsoft and Yahoo — to erase links pertaining to the Blue Whale Challenge.
“Instances of children committing suicide while Blue Whale Challenge have been reported in India… You are hereby requested to ensure that any such link of this deadly game in its own name or similar game is immediately removed from your platform,” the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology stated.
Source: http://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/health/blue-whale-game-fortis-launches-24×7-helpline-4834386/
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Is it safe to get vaccines when you’re pregnant ?
Certain vaccines are actually recommended during pregnancy: the Tdap vaccine (tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis), which helps protect against whooping cough, as well as the flu shot.
You can get the flu shot during any trimester or before pregnancy, depending on whether it’s flu season when you’re expecting. Experts generally recommend that pregnant women get the Tdap between the 27- and 36-week marks.
Any friends and family members who will spend time around your newborn should get these vaccines, too.
Then there are the vaccines you definitely should not get if you’re pregnant. Types made with live strains of a virus could potentially transmit the virus to the baby.
The MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine is a live-virus vaccine; women are advised to wait at least a month after receiving it before getting pregnant. Same goes for the varicella vaccine (for chicken pox).
Many women received these vaccines as children, but your doctor will want to make sure you’re immune by doing a pre-pregnancy blood test.
Rubella, for example, can cause serious birth defects if a pregnant woman gets infected—so it’s important to make sure you’re up-to-date on all vaccinations before you try to conceive.
Source: http://www.health.com/pregnancy/vaccines-pregnancy
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Coming Soon: Pill To Ward Off Diabetes & Heart Disease
If what some scientists are saying is true, preventing both heart disease and diabetes could be as simple as popping a single pill.
Soon, preventing both heart disease and diabetes could be as simple as popping a single pill, if predictions by a team of scientists prove true.
A large analysis of genetic data found that both the conditions, which are the leading causes of death and illness across the world, are linked by the same genes. The team led by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania first looked into what causes Type 2 diabetes (T2D) and then clarified how T2D and coronary heart disease (CHD) are linked.
Examining genome sequence information for more than 250,000 people, the researchers first uncovered 16 new diabetes genetic risk factors and one new CHD genetic risk factor; hence providing novel insights about the mechanisms of the two diseases.
They then showed that most of the sites on the genome known to be associated with higher diabetes risk are also associated with higher CHD risk. For eight of these sites, the researchers were able to identify a specific gene variant that influences risk for both diseases. The shared genetic risk factors affect biological pathways including immunity, cell proliferation, and heart development.
The findings add to the basic scientific understanding of both these major diseases and point to potential targets for future drugs. “Identifying these gene variants linked to both type 2 diabetes and CHD risk in principle opens up opportunities to lower the risk of both outcomes with a single drug,” said co-senior author Danish Saleheen. “From a drug development perspective, it would make sense to focus on those pathways that are most strongly linked to both diseases,” Saleheen said.
The researchers found evidence that, on the whole, the genetic link between the diseases appears to work in one direction, so that risk genes for type 2 diabetes are much more likely to be associated with higher CHD risk than the other way around. Additionally, there could be some pathways where pharmacological lowering of one disease increases the risk of the other.
The scientists also found that diabetes-linked gene variants tend to differ in their apparent effects on CHD risk, depending on their mechanisms. Variants that increase the chance of obesity or high blood pressure, for example, appear to boost CHD risk more strongly than variants that alter insulin or glucose levels.
The dual-effect risk loci also include the region covering the gene FABP4, which is already being investigated for its potential as a diabetes and heart-disease drug target. In mouse studies, inhibition of this gene’s protein has been shown to have anti-atherosclerotic, i.e., helps fight thickening and hardening with fat on the inside of arteries and anti-diabetic effects.
Saleheen, co-senior author Benjamin F. Voight and their colleagues now plan further investigations of the dual-risk genes uncovered in the study. The researchers also hope to learn more about the biology of the newly discovered dual-risk genes by studying people who have mutations in those genes, Saleheen said. The study is published in Nature Genetics.
Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/health/miracle-cure-pill-to-ward-off-diabetes-heart-disease-could-soon-be-reality/story-jt5M8MrJWIQLhwhmQ27pNO.html
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Natural protein may help to prevent blindness
Researchers have found that a naturally occurring protein helps to protect the retina against glaucoma.
Scientists may be on the brink of a new strategy to prevent blindness, after discovering a naturally occurring protein that protects the eye from one of the leading causes: glaucoma.
Glaucoma is an umbrella term for a number of diseases that damage the optic nerve, which is the cluster of nerve fibers that links the retina – the light-sensitive tissue that lines the back of the eye – to the brain.
Optic nerve damage disrupts the transmission of visual signals to the brain, which can result in vision loss and blindness.
Glaucoma is most commonly caused by a buildup of eye pressure, which can damage the optic nerve. However, the precise mechanisms by which optic nerve damage occurs have been unclear, but researchers from Macquarie University in Australia may have shed some light.
The team found that a protein called neuroserpin plays a key role in retinal health, but that this protein is inactivated in glaucoma. They suggest that their findings may lead to much-needed strategies to prevent and treat the disease.
Lead study author Dr. Vivek Gupta, of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Macquarie University, and colleagues recently published their results in the journal Scientific Reports.
Neuroserpin and glaucoma
Neuroserpin is already established as a protein that blocks the activity of an enzyme called plasmin, protecting neurons, or nerve cells, against plasmin-induced damage.
For their study, Dr. Gupta and colleagues set out to determine how neuroserpin and plasmin are affected by glaucoma.
The researchers came to their findings by analyzing retinal cells derived from humans with and without glaucoma, as well as retinas from rat models of the disease.
The analysis revealed that neuroserpin is deactivated in response to oxidative stress, which can be triggered by environmental factors such as air pollution.
Oxidative stress is an imbalance between the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) – which are molecules that can damage cell structures – and the body’s ability to offset their harmful effects.
Interestingly, the researchers found that neuroserpin was inactive in retinal cells from glaucoma patients and in the retinas of glaucoma rat models, which prevented the protein from inhibiting plasmin activity.
“Over a long period of time,” explains Dr. Gupta, “increased enzyme activity gradually digests the eye tissue and promotes cell death causing the adverse effects associated with glaucoma.”
‘Breakthrough findings’
It is estimated that glaucoma affects around 2.2 million adults aged 40 and older in the United States, and it is one of the country’s leading causes of vision loss and blindness.
There is currently no cure for glaucoma, but there are treatments that can help to slow progression of the disease if it is detected early enough.
Dr. Gupta and team hope that their findings will open the door to new strategies that could help to prevent or treat glaucoma.
“Ophthalmologists and vision scientists have always wondered what damages the optic nerve in the back of the eyes, which is widely observed in glaucoma,” notes study co-author Dr. Mehdi Mirzaei, of the Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences at Macquarie University.
“The breakthrough findings of this study,” he adds, “help us understand the disease mechanism and answer a key question that has eluded scientists for several years.”
“This long-term collaborative study has opened up a completely new line of investigation in glaucoma research that will lead to new treatment avenues for the disease.”
Dr. Vivek Gupta
In future studies, the team plans to investigate whether or not antioxidants – which are molecules that help to prevent cell damage caused by ROS – could be an effective treatment for glaucoma.
Source: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/319588.php
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Hope for cancer patients: Ancient Chinese ink could non-invasively treat the disease
Scientists found that Hu-ink kills cancer cells in a laboratory dish. Under normal conditions, the ink is non-toxic.
The deadly disease cancer often sneaks up on patients. While the cure for cancer is still being researched, scientists claim that a plant-based ink, that has been used by Chinese calligraphers for hundreds of years, could non-invasively kill cancer cells. As cancer cells leave a tumour, they frequently make their way to lymph nodes, which are part of the immune system. In this case, the main treatment option is surgery, but this can result in complications.
Photothermal therapy (PTT) is an emerging non-invasive treatment option in which nanomaterials are injected and accumulate in cancer cells. A laser heats up the nanomaterials, and this heat kills the cells. Many of these nanomaterials are expensive, difficult to make and toxic.
However, a traditional Chinese ink called Hu-Kaiwen (Hu- ink) has similar properties to the nanomaterials used in PTT. For example, they are the same colour, and are both carbon-based and stable in water. The researchers including those from Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China analysed Hu-ink and found that it consists of nanoparticles and thin layers of carbon. When Hu-ink was heated with a laser, its temperature rose by 55 degrees Celsius, much higher than current nanomaterials.
Under PPT conditions, the Hu-ink killed cancer cells in a laboratory dish, but under normal conditions, the ink was non-toxic. This was also the scenario observed in mice with tumours. The researchers also noted that Hu-ink could act as a probe to locate tumours and metastases because it absorbs near-infrared light, which goes through skin.
Source: http://www.hindustantimes.com/health/hope-for-cancer-patients-ancient-chinese-ink-could-non-invasively-treat-the-disease/story-qCg6heFDGWVvHVAz2hvbpK.html
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