Ovarian tissue freezing can be an alternative method to promote fertility, especially in women who cannot undergo egg freezing due to cancer or other medical reasons, researchers say. The procedure which is still considered experimental involves removal and freezing of ovarian tissue for later use.
The procedure which is still considered experimental involves removal and freezing of ovarian tissue for later use. The study, published in the journal Reproductive Sciences, showed that ovarian tissue freezing helped nearly four out of 10 (37.7 per cent) women to have children later in life. Between 1999 and 2016, a total of 309 ovarian tissue freezing procedures resulted in 84 births and eight pregnancies that lasted beyond the first trimester, data showed.
“Despite the clinical progress within the past two decades, the procedure still remains in the experimental realm,” said Fernanda Pacheco from the Innovation Fertility Preservation and IVF in New York, US.
“Now, women considering this procedure to preserve fertility and postpone childbearing have more information at their disposal. Given these recent data, ovarian tissue cryopreservation should be considered as a viable option for fertility preservation,” Pacheco added. The procedure also restored reproductive functions. It reversed menopause in nearly two out of three women (63.9 per cent). This included either a resumed menstrual cycle, ovarian follicular growth, or natural fertility. Ideally, egg freezing is done by cancer patients before beginning their treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation therapy, which can have lasting impact on their fertility.
Kutluk Oktay, from New York Medical College, who performed the world’s first ovarian tissue cryopreservation in 1999 considers the procedure is superior to egg freezing as it can also reverse reproductive functions. “The next frontier is to explore the procedure’s potential in delaying childbearing among healthy women, not just cancer patients,” Oktay added.
00seshunarayanahttps://imedworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/MedWorks-Logo-02-300x300.pngseshunarayana2020-08-10 21:37:092020-08-10 21:37:09‘Ovarian tissue freezing’ may provide hope for fertility treatment
In India, 23 per cent of heart failure patients die within one year of diagnosis, a study revealed on Tuesday, adding that the country is next to Africa where the rate stands at 34 per cent. Of the total deaths, 46 per cent were due to cardiac issues, while non-cardiac causes led to 16 per cent deaths in patients, at one year, according to the first comprehensive study on heart failures conducted across six geographies globally.
The International Congestive Heart Failure (INTER-CHF) study said that death rate of patients due to heart failures in Southeast Asia is 15 per cent, seven per cent in China, nine per cent both in South America and West Asia, significantly lower than in Indian patients.
“In India, heart-related diseases occur a decade early than the people of west. Lack of awareness, out of pocket expenditure and lack of infrastructure are corroborating to the heart-related diseases,” said Sundeep Mishra, Professor of Cardiology at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). Stating that with increasing life expectancy of the population, incidence of heart failure is increasing in an epidemic proportion, the cardiology expert said that the marked variation in mortality in low-income countries like India can be attributed also to the quality and access to primary healthcare facilities. The study was aimed at measuring mortality at one year in patients, due to heart failure in India, Africa, China, the Middle East, South East Asia and South America. During the study, 5,823 patients across 108 centres in six geographies were enrolled. Patients were followed up at six months and one year from enrolment. The mean age of patients was 59 years, with a male to female ratio of 60:40.The primary outcome of the study was to record all cause mortality within one year.
A previous study by AIIMS, published in the journal of Practice of Cardiovascular Sciences, highlighted that late diagnosis results in one third of patients dying during hospital admission and one-fourth dying within three months of diagnosis. Calling for a community based approach to resolve the issue, Mishra said a lot of Indians also do not understand the difference between heart failure and heart attack because of which they do not consult doctors.
“Heart failure refers to the condition where the blood pumping capacity of the heart is reduced. Whereas heart attack is secondary to blocked coronary circulation, where the blood supply to muscles of heart is cut or drastically reduced. Heart failure is a serious health hazard and can be life threatening if ignored,” Mishra told IANS, while speaking about the rising heart failure cases. According to the World Health Organisation, heart failure impacts more than 60 million people worldwide.
The risk of death of heart failure patients is comparable to that of patients with advanced cancer. It currently costs the world economy $108 billion every year. Although, heart failure may strike at any age, it is more common in people over the age of 65. It includes high blood pressure, prior heart attack, enlarged heart and diabetes. Mishra said the major reason for low awareness of heart failure among people is the fact that patients mistake it for signs of getting older. “Although there is no cure for heart failure, patients who are diagnosed early need to follow their treatment and make lifestyle changes to live longer, feel better and be more active. It is, therefore, vital that patients and care givers are aware of the symptoms of heart failure, leading to better recognition and earlier diagnosis,” said Mishra.
00seshunarayanahttps://imedworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/MedWorks-Logo-02-300x300.pngseshunarayana2020-08-10 21:33:102020-08-10 21:33:10‘23% of heart failure patients die within a year of diagnosis’
Researchers have identified a new cell mechanism that could lead to a fundamental change in the diagnosis and treatment of leukaemia.
A team in the University of Kent’s pharmacy school conducted a study that discovered that leukaemia cells release a protein, known as galctin-9, that prevents a patient’s own immune system from killing cancerous blood cells.
Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) – a type of blood cancer that affects over 250,000 people every year worldwide – progresses rapidly because its cells are capable of avoiding the patient’s immune surveillance. It does this by inactivating the body’s immune cells, cytotoxic T lymphocytes and natural killer (NK) cells.
Existing treatment strategies consist of aggressive chemotherapy and stem cell transplantation, which often do not result in effective remission of the disease. This is because of a lack of understanding of the molecular mechanisms that allow malignant cells to escape attack by the body’s immune cells.
Now the researchers at the Medway School of Pharmacy, led by Dr Vadim Sumbayev, Dr Bernhard Gibbs and Professor Yuri Ushkaryov, have found that leukaemia cells – but not healthy blood cells – express a receptor called latrophilin 1 (LPHN1). Stimulation of this receptor causes these cancer cells to release galectin-9, which then prevents the patient’s immune system from fighting the cancer cells.
The discovery of this cell mechanism paves the way for new ‘biomarkers’ for AML diagnosis, as well as potential targets for AML immune therapy, say the researchers.
‘Targeting this pathway will crucially enhance patients own immune defences, helping them to eliminate leukaemia cells’, said Dr Sumbayev. He added that the discovery has the potential to also be beneficial in the treatment of other cancers.
Article: The Tim-3-galectin-9 Secretory Pathway is Involved in the Immune Escape of Human Acute Myeloid Leukemia Cells, Vadim V. Sumbayev et al., EBioMedicine, doi: 10.1016/j.ebiom.2017.07.018, published online 19 July 2017.
00seshunarayanahttps://imedworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/MedWorks-Logo-02-300x300.pngseshunarayana2020-08-10 21:24:502020-08-10 21:24:50New discovery could lead to ‘fundamental’ change in leukemia treatment
A new study has found a prion-like mechanism that drives type 2 diabetes.
Although the findings are preliminary, new research suggests that type 2 diabetes may be transmissible in a way that is similar to prion disorders such as “mad cow disease.” Type 2 diabetes affects more than 420 million people worldwide, its causes remain largely unknown. However, a new study has uncovered a novel mechanism that may drive the disease. The discovery could change the way we approach type 2 diabetes, both from a research perspective and from a therapeutic point of view.
More specifically, the study investigates the possibility that type 2 diabetes might be caused by a misfolding of islet amyloid polypeptide protein (IAPP). The research was led by Claudio Soto at the McGovern Medical School in Houston, TX, which is part of the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. The findings, published in The Journal of Experimental Medicine, show that type 2 diabetes shares similarities with a group of transmissible neurodegenerative diseases known as “prion diseases.” Examples of such diseases include bovine spongiform encephalopathy – popularly known as “mad cow disease” – or its human equivalent, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
IAPP in type 2 diabetes Previous research has shown that up to 80 percent of all type 2 diabetes patients have an accumulation of IAPP in the pancreas’ islets. These are small clusters of cells inside the pancreas, which contain, among other cells, insulin-producing beta cells.
IAPP is a peptide hormone that is secreted together with insulin by the pancreatic beta cells. While the effect of this excessive IAPP in type 2 diabetes is not fully known, it is believed that it damages the beta cells, stopping them from producing the insulin that the body needs to lower blood sugar levels.
Examining the ‘prion-like’ mechanism Prion diseases get their name from the excessive accumulation of an abnormal form of a so-called prion protein – that is, a cellular protein that occurs naturally in the body. This abnormal form of the prion protein is generated through a mechanism called misfolding. Normally, proteins gain their functional shape through a process referred to as folding. But when they do not fold correctly, or “misfold,” these proteins clump together, forming aggregates such as the ones found in Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and other neurodegenerative conditions.
Moreover, in some of these diseases, a few of the misfolded proteins can act as “seeds” that trigger other proteins to misfold. In these diseases, the seeds – or abnormal prions – can transmit from one person, or animal, to another.
Prion-like mechanism may cause diabetes For their research, Soto and his team designed a mouse model wherein the mice’s pancreases were genetically modified to express human IAPP. They injected misfolded IAPP into these mice and found that it triggered the formation of protein deposits, or aggregates, in the mice’s pancreases. Additionally, the mice developed type 2 diabetes symptoms within weeks of having IAPP injected: they lost beta cells and had high blood sugar levels. Furthermore, the researchers examined the effect of misfolded IAPP in pancreatic islet cultures, taken from healthy humans. There, too, misfolded IAPP triggered the formation of large IAPP aggregates. Therefore, it appears that misfolded IAPP can, in fact, cause aggregates in a way that is similar to infectious prion disorders.
Although there have been numerous cases of patients who developed type 2 diabetes after organ transplantation, the authors caution against jumping to conclusions.
“Considering the experimental nature of the models and conditions utilized in this study, the results should not be extrapolated to conclude that type 2 diabetes is a transmissible disease in humans without additional studies,” Soto warns.
He further comments on the significance of the findings, saying, “Until now, this concept has not been considered. Our data, therefore, [open] up an entirely new area of research with profound implications for public health.”
“Perhaps more important than a putative inter-individual transmission, the prion-like mechanism may play a key role in the spreading of the pathology from cell to cell or islet to islet during the progression of type 2 diabetes.” – Claudio Soto
00seshunarayanahttps://imedworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/MedWorks-Logo-02-300x300.pngseshunarayana2020-08-10 21:20:182020-08-10 21:20:18Could Type 2 Diabetes Be Transmissible ?
Of the 85,000 liver failure patients who join the country’s wait list annually, less than 3% get an organ. Also, of the two lakh fresh annual registrations for kidneys, 8,000 manage a transplant. Thousands waiting for heart or lungs face bigger odds as barely 1% get an organ before time runs out.
Despite cadaveric organ donations witnessing a near fourfold increase in the last five years, the demand-supply disparity in the country remains grave.Over 2.5 lakh deaths in India are attributed to organ failure annually, while cadaver donations are still very few in comparison. India’s organ donation rate in 2016 stood at an abysmal 0.8 persons per million population compared to Spain’s 36 per million, Croatia’s 32 per million or US’s 26 per million.
Experts say the gap exists because only ten states and two UTs have an active donation and transplant programme.States such as UP , Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Goa and the North-East are yet to make a debut. Stakeholders blame lack of awareness, infra and political will as well as myths and misconceptions for the sluggish pace of cadaver donation.
” Even after decades, the programme is a non-starter because of systemic complexities.The problem lies within hospitals and is not so much about people’s acceptance any more. Police formalities remain difficult and time-consuming, discouraging people from donating,” says Dr Sunil Shroff of Chennaibased Mohan Foundation. “
There have been cases where people have approached us wanting to donate organs but either the hospital or the city lacked the infrastructure to retrieve organs,” he says, underlining how in a country with an acute shortage, organs get wasted.
Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka, Telengana and Gujarat currently lead the way. Delhi and Chandigarh too managed 30 donations in 2016.
Dr Vimal Bhandari, director of the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation, says the government is aware of the crisis. “We have signed an MoU with Spain which has the world’s highest donation rate. About 100 countries are learning their model. Their experts will train five of our regional coordination centres,” he says, adding that Spain took 30 years to build its programme.Unlike Spain, where majority of brain deaths occur due to haemorrhage, in India, road accidents are the main killer.
India’s infrastructure too is growing. The national network facilitated 136 instances of organ sharing between cities and e states. “Last year, we even saved the lives of two foreigners who underwent heart transplants here,” Dr Bhandari says.e Tamil Nadu runs India’s g most successful programme by e taking a slew of decisions to ea se donations about a decade , back; families donating organs a don’t have to move for NOCs or post-mortems. Also, the state offers free kidney , liver and heart transplants in government hospitals like developed nations.
Maharashtra, that crossed 100 cadaver donations last year despite one of Mumbai ‘s top hospitals being involved in a kid ney racket, has carried out 1,064 transplants in the last five years. Pune has suddenly emerged as a high-donation centre, surpassing Mumbai. “Till April 2017, 69 donations took place in Maharashtra,” said Dr Gauri Rathod, Maharashtra’s nodal officer for organ donation. Hyderabad and other districts of Telangana have crossed over 1,000 organ donations since 2013. From less than 1 per million population, the donation rate has now reached 4.4.From just 41 being recorded in 2013 to 106 organ donations in 2016. In 2017, over 80 organ donations have already been reported. “But there is an urgent need for education among doctors. In many cases, doctors are uncomfortable in declaring brain death. This is true of government hospitals,” says Dr G Swarnalatha, in-charge Jeevandan.
Karnataka, too, is charting its own success story with donations taking a leap from 18 in 2013 to 70 in 2016. Dr Kishore Phadke, convener at Jeevasarthakathe–the state organ transplant authority–attributes this to linked Aadhaar cards with pledging organs. ” Anyone who enrols for Aadhaar will be directed to the website of Jeevasarthakathe where they can pledge organs,” he says.
However, many states face unique problems. Consider Kerala which has recorded only 11 donations after 73 in 2016. “A doctor filed a PIL in the high court alleging hospitals are falsely declaring brain deaths to procure organs. It led to negative propaganda in the social media.Even government authorities didn’t stand by the transplant doctors,” says Dr Jose Chacko Periappuram of Lisie Hospital in Kochi. Kerala, however, has to its credit some of the unique organ transplants that include larynx, pancreas, small intestine and hand transplants.
Eastern India is the worst, with most states not having conducted cadaver donations at all.Only seven cadaver donations, including five in 2016, took place in West Bengal since 2012. According to Aditi Kishore Sarkar, state’s nodal officer for cadaver donation, “The drive to popularize organ donation through donor card distribution has failed.In 2017, there has not been a single cadaver organ transplant so far.” The state plans to introduce new laws to improve brain death screening. Even states like Karnataka show a unhealthy skew . As Dr H Sudarshan Ballal, senior nephrologist and chairman at Manipal Hospitals, Bengaluru, says, “Of more than 300 transplants conducted by private hospitals, only 20% are cadaver organ transplants.” He says India needs more retrieval centres. “India’s largest centre of neuroscience, NIMHANS, is still not recognized as a retrieval centre.”
00seshunarayanahttps://imedworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/MedWorks-Logo-02-300x300.pngseshunarayana2020-08-10 21:16:142020-08-10 21:16:14Organ donation up 4-fold in India, but still a long way to go
Scientists have found a way of “dictating” cell fate to ensure controlled production of helper and regulatory T cells.
A new study has found a way of manipulating the differentiation of T cells in the immune system so as to strike a balance between pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cells. This discovery may have implications for treating autoimmune diseases and some types of cancer.
Autoimmune diseases are triggered when our immune system misidentifies healthy cells as foreign bodies and decides to attack them. In this process, certain cells called “T cells,” which are found in the immune system, are involved.
T cells are of different types and have distinct functions, but their main role is to mediate immune reactions in the body. Some T cells are pro-inflammatory, promoting an immune response, while others are immunosuppressive, regulating the “aggressiveness” of this response.
Autoimmune diseases, as well as some types of cancer such as colorectal cancer and lung cancer, are mediated by certain T cell imbalances in the immune system. These imbalances lead either to anomalous inflammations, or to a lack of reaction, wherein the body is unable to identify pathogens.
Recently, much research has been conducted into a particular type of T cells called “T helper 17” (Th17) cells. Studies have found that Th17 cells can be unstable, thus sustaining autoimmune diseases and mediating some cancers.
A new study led by Dr. Sheng Ding, from the Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, CA, discovered a way of changing cell fate to determine differentiation either into Th17 cells, which are pro-inflammatory, or into regulatory T cells, which are immunosuppressive.
The researchers published their findings in the journal Nature.
“Our findings could have a significant impact on the treatment of autoimmune diseases, as well as on stem cell and immuno-oncology therapies,” says Dr. Ding.
Chemical compound key to cell manipulation In this study, experiments were conducted both in vitro (using cell cultures) and in vivo (using mice) to test the effect of a chemical compound called “(aminooxy)acetic acid” (AOA).
The researchers found that AOA is key in “telling” a progenitor cell to specialize into either Th17 or regulatory T cells. This allows for the formation of strategies to help promote cellular balance within the immune system.
Dr. Ding and his colleagues explain that this discovery can have wider implications for cancer and autoimmune disease treatments.
Determining differentiation into regulatory T cells rather than Th17 in the case of autoimmune diseases, for instance, could inhibit the exacerbated inflammatory effect caused by the helper cells.
The researchers are also eager to investigate any potential benefits this strategy might bring to stem cell-driven therapy; regulatory T cells can sometimes be used to prevent the system from rejecting organ transplants.
Dr. Ding and his colleagues now suggest that production of regulatory T cells might also be used to promote immune tolerance of cell transplants. They have also expressed their hope that the same strategy might prove effective – albeit indirectly – in cancer therapy.
“Our work could also contribute to ongoing efforts in immuno-oncology and the treatment of cancer. This type of therapy doesn’t target the cancer directly, but rather works on activating the immune system so it can recognize cancer cells and attack them.” – First author Dr. Tao Xu, Gladstone Institutes
While there is still some way to go in understanding how AOA might best be utilized to make treatments more effective, the researchers suggest that this is the first step in regaining control of faulty immune system mechanisms.
00seshunarayanahttps://imedworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/MedWorks-Logo-02-300x300.pngseshunarayana2020-08-10 21:13:492020-08-10 21:13:49New discovery may ‘impact treatment of autoimmune diseases’
The US has approved the first treatment to redesign a patient’s own immune system so it attacks cancer. The regulator – the US Food and Drug Administration – said its decision was a “historic” moment and medicine was now “entering a new frontier”.
The company Novartis is charging $475,000 (£367,000) for the “living drug” therapy, which leaves 83% of people free of a type of blood cancer. Doctors in the UK said the announcement was an exciting step forward. The living drug is tailor-made to each patient, unlike conventional therapies such as surgery or chemotherapy.It is called CAR-T and is made by extracting white blood cells from the patient’s blood.
The cells are then genetically reprogrammed to seek out and kill cancer. The cancer-killers are then put back inside the patient and once they find their target they multiply. ‘Enormously exciting’ Dr Scott Gottlieb, from the FDA, said: “We’re entering a new frontier in medical innovation with the ability to reprogram a patient’s own cells to attack a deadly cancer. “New technologies such as gene and cell therapies hold out the potential to transform medicine and create an inflection point in our ability to treat and even cure many intractable illnesses.” The therapy, which will be marketed as Kymriah, works against acute lymphoblastic leukaemia. Most patients respond to normal therapy and Kymriah has been approved for when those treatments fail.
Dr Stephan Grupp, who treated the first child with CAR-T at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said the new approach was “enormously exciting”. “We’ve never seen anything like this before,” he added. That first patient had been near to death, but has now been cancer-free for more than five years. Out of 63 patients treated with CAR-T therapy, 83% were in complete remission within three months and long-term data is still being collected.
However, the therapy is not without risks. It can cause potentially life-threatening cytokine release syndrome from the rapid proliferation of the CAR-T cells in the body. This can be controlled with drugs. New era But the potential of CAR-T technology goes beyond one type of cancer. Dr David Maloney, medical director of cellular immunotherapy at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, said the FDA’s decision was a “milestone”. He added: “We believe this is just the first of what will soon be many new immunotherapy-based treatments for a variety of cancers.
CAR-T technology has shown most promise against different blood-based cancers. However, it has struggled against “solid tumours” such as lung cancer or melanoma. Dr Prakash Satwani, a paediatric oncologist at Columbia University Medical, said: “The results haven’t been that great when you compare it with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, but I’m sure the technology will get better in the near future.” Boosting the immune system is already a cornerstone of modern cancer treatment. A range of drugs that “take the brakes off” the immune system to allow it to attack cancer more freely have already been adopted around the world.
CAR-T technology, which goes a step further and redesigns the immune system, is at a much earlier stage. Prof Peter Johnson, the chief clinician at the charity Cancer Research UK, said: “The first genetically modified cell therapy to be approved by the FDA is an exciting step forward. “We still have a lot to learn about how to use it safely and who might benefit from it, so it is important to recognise this is just a first step.”
00seshunarayanahttps://imedworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/MedWorks-Logo-02-300x300.pngseshunarayana2020-08-10 21:08:482020-08-10 21:08:48At last, first cancer ‘living drug’ gets go-ahead
Researchers from St. Michael’s Hospital have made what are believed to be two world first discoveries: an MRI can measure kidney damage and can predict future kidney function within one year while avoiding needle biopsies.
The researchers used a specific magnetic resonance imaging test called an elastogram to measure kidney scarring in 17 people who had kidney transplants, according to the study published online in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
An elastogram maps the stiffness of tissue using MRI to determine the presence of scarring, according to Dr. Anish Kirpalani, the study’s lead author, a radiologist and a scientist in the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s.
Scarring is a major cause of kidney transplant failure.
“Healthy kidney is soft, whereas scar tissue is stiffer,” said Dr. Darren Yuen, a transplant nephrologist and scientist in the Keenan Research Centre for Biomedical Science of St. Michael’s.
“We needed a way to measure how soft or stiff your kidney is without actually going inside the body. Using the MRI elastogram, we were able to measure kidney stiffness, which gave us an indication of how much scarring there was.”
Scarring is irreversible and can cause progressive kidney injury that can eventually lead to kidney failure. Diabetes, high blood pressure and kidney transplant rejection all cause scarring.
Needle biopsy is the current “gold standard” way to assess kidney scarring. A long needle is inserted into the kidney and a sample about the size of a mechanical pencil tip is removed. The procedure requires pain medications, can be associated with bleeding and requires a day off of work, according to the authors.
The study found that the MRI results were not only comparable to the results of a kidney biopsy, but the test was able to detect a high variability in the amount and location of scarring throughout the entire organ.
“The MRI allowed us to get a full picture of the kidney, whereas with a biopsy we would only see a tiny piece,” said Dr. Kirpalani.
“We were able to tell that in some parts of the kidney it’s very stiff, and in others, it’s not stiff at all, which is information we couldn’t get from a biopsy.”
The researchers also found that kidney stiffness predicted how well the kidney would be working one year after the MRI. They found that those with higher levels of stiffness in their kidneys had a greater loss of kidney function, while those with softer kidneys did not.
This shows that MRI can accurately predict future kidney function, according to the authors, which may be particularly helpful for kidney transplant patients.
“When we’re looking at a transplanted kidney, we’re dealing with a precious resource–these patients have waited a long time for a transplant, and have been on dialysis, which is a difficult and painful process,” said Dr. Kirpalani.
“Scarring is a big problem for transplant patients, and with MRI we may be able to better guide how kidney transplant patients are treated early on to improve their long-term outcomes.”
MRIs would not replace biopsies, said Dr. Yuen, but rather act as an additional test to give a more comprehensive understanding of kidney health.
“Clinicians are hesitant to send patients for a test that has risks such as internal bleeding unless a diagnosis can’t be made without it,” he said. “With this new MRI test, doctors can gather valuable information in the many patients for whom the risks of a biopsy are too high.”
He also emphasized that this new MRI test may help facilitate the testing of new anti-scarring treatments.
“There are currently no anti-scarring drugs on the market, in part because it is hard to rationalize doing multiple kidney biopsies as part of a pharmaceutical trial,” said Dr. Yuen.
“By providing a needle-free way to measure kidney scarring, we may create more opportunities for this crucial research into finding an effective anti-scarring treatment.”
The study was conducted in the hospital’s MRI research centre, which houses MRI equipment dedicated specifically to clinical research.
“The unique MRI research centre that we have created, including elastography equipment, is focused on research that will directly impact patient care, allowing us to do this important study in people with transplant kidneys,” said Dr. Kirpalani.
00seshunarayanahttps://imedworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/MedWorks-Logo-02-300x300.pngseshunarayana2020-08-10 21:04:062020-08-10 21:04:06Researchers discover MRI can measure kidney scarring and predict future kidney function
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.
00seshunarayanahttps://imedworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/MedWorks-Logo-02-300x300.pngseshunarayana2020-08-10 21:01:392020-08-10 21:01:39Prostate Cancer – Most common among males in India
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.
