Molecular Genetics of Parathyroid Disease.
World J Surg. 2009 Apr 17;
Authors: Westin G, Bjrklund P, Akerstrm G
BACKGROUND: Primary hyperparathyroidism (HPT) is often caused by a benign parathyroid tumor, adenoma; less commonly by multiglandular parathyroid disease/hyperplasia; and rarely by parathyroid carcinoma. Patients with multiple tumors require wider exploration to avoid recurrence and have increased risk for hereditary disease. Secondary HPT is a common complication of renal failure. Improved knowledge of the molecular background of parathyroid tumor development may help select patients for appropriate surgical treatment and can eventually provide new means of treatment. The present contribution summarizes more recent knowledge of parathyroid molecular genetics. METHODS: A literature search and review was made to evaluate the level of evidence concerning molecular biology and genetics of primary, secondary, and familial HPT according to criteria proposed by Sackett, with recommendation grading by Heinrich et al. RESULTS: Most parathyroid adenomas and hyperplastic glands are monoclonal lesions. Cyclin D1 gene (CCND1) translocation and oncogene action occur in 8% of adenomas; cyclin D1 overexpression is seen in 20% to 40% of parathyroid adenomas and in 31% of secondary hyperplastic glands. Somatic loss of one MEN1 allele is seen in 25% to 40% of sporadic parathyroid adenomas, half of which have inactivating mutation of the remaining allele. Inactivating somatic HRPT2 mutations are common in parathyroid carcinoma, often causing decreased expression of the protein parafibromin involved in cyclin D1 regulation. Aberrant regulation of Wnt/beta-catenin signaling may be important for parathyroid tumor development. CONCLUSIONS: Molecular genetic studies of parathyroid tumors are well designed basic experimental studies providing strong level III evidence, with data frequently confirmed by subsequent studies.

Similar posts: recurrent thyroid cancer

Relationship between emergency presentation, systemic inflammatory response, and cancer-specific survival in patients undergoing potentially curative surgery for colon cancer.
Am J Surg. 2009 Apr;197(4):544-9
Authors: Crozier JE, Leitch EF, McKee RF, Anderson JH, Horgan PG, McMillan DC
BACKGROUND: Emergency presentation is recognized to be associated with poorer cancer-specific survival following curative resection for colorectal cancer. The present study examined the hypothesis that an enhanced systemic inflammatory response, prior to surgery, might explain the impact of emergency presentation on survival. METHODS: In all, 188 patients undergoing potentially curative resection for colorectal cancer were studied. Of these, 55 (29%) presented as emergencies. The systemic inflammatory response was assessed using the Glasgow Prognostic Score (mGPS), which is the combination of an elevated C-reactive protein (10 mg/L) and hypoalbuminemia (35 g/L). RESULTS: In the emergency group, tumor stage was greater (P 0.01), more patients received adjuvant therapy (P 0.01) more patients had an elevated mGPS (P 0.01), and more patients died of their disease (P 0.05). The minimum follow-up was 12 months; the median follow-up of the survivors was 48 months. Emergency presentation was associated with poorer 3-year cancer-specific survival in those patients aged 65 to 74 years (P 0.01), in both males and females (P 0.05), in the deprived (P 0.01), in patients with tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage II disease (P 0.01), in those who received no adjuvant therapy (P 0.01), and in the mGPS 0 and 1 groups (P 0.05) groups. On multivariate survival analysis of patients undergoing potentially curative surgery for TNM stage II colon cancer, emergency presentation (P 0.05) and mGPS (P 0.05) were independently associated with cancer-specific survival. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that emergency presentation and the presence of systemic inflammatory response prior to surgery are linked and account for poorer cancer-specific survival in patients undergoing potentially curative surgery for colon cancer. Both emergency presentation and an elevated mGPS should be taken into account when assessing the likely outcome of these patients.

Similar posts: recurrent thyroid cancer

Painful anthology provides therapy for the soul
By Fred Sherwin
Orleans Online
Arlene Ben-Zur has been to hell and back and has lived to write about it. Her journey is contained in a new book entitled Cancer of my Soul: A Personal Battle For Survival Against the Odds in which she retells the abuse she suffered at the hands of her late father and two ex-husbands, her battle with Cushing's disease and her painful separation from her granddaughter.
Ben-Zur began writing about her experiences in a journal three years ago. The process became a form of therapy for her. Over the course of three years she had enough material to put into a book. Her hope is that other women might see themselves in her story and avoid the pitfalls that she has suffered.
If I can just touch one person's life with this so they won't go through what I went through, or maybe someone might read it and it will give them the impetus they need to change their situation, that would be amazing, says Ben-Zur.
Ben-Zur's heart-wrenching journey began when she had the misfortunate of being born after the death of her sister Shelley, who passed away from cancer at the age of three. Her own mother died of cancer when Ben-Zur was 15. Through it all she suffered a litany of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her father, which eventually led her to try and commit suicide at 16.
My father hurt me more than anyone else in my lifes, Ben-Zur writes in her book. From my earliest memory, he expressed his dislike for me, despite the fact that I was at the top of my class, and well loved by my peers and teachers ... He told me over and over again that I was ugly, fat, stupid, and a slut, and that no one would ever love me.
Her two marriages, the first to a wealthy young man in New York, and the second to a Yemenite Jew in Israel, followed the same pattern as her relationship with her father. They were both incredibly abusive and destructive.
Even when she finally found true happiness with a man after her divorce from her second husband, it was destructive in that he was already married. When her lover's wife found out about their seven year affair, Ben-Zur made a clean break.
Around the same time she met her current partner Jamie and the pair have been together ever since. A year an half ago they moved to Orleans to escape the turmoil in Israel and live a more peaceful existence. Ben-Zur also had a chance to move next door to her childhood friend Marilyn Dow. The pair had promised each other years ago that if they ever had a chance to live next door to each other they would.
While Ben-Zur has lived through many traumas in her life, it hasn't all been bad. Her marriage to her first husband produced two daughters, Lee Anna and Rhonda and her second marriage resulted in the birth of her son Avi.
In an effort to get as far away from her first husband as possible, she moved to Israel where she opened a successful English school in Ber Sheba. Professionally, it was the most fulfilling and rewarding time of her life. But personally, she had to suffer through a second abusive marriage and the heartbreak of a doomed love affair before finally meeting her soul mate and eventually moving to Orleans.
Through it all, she has managed to keep a wonderful sense of humour and an incredibly positive outlook on life. Writing the book was both physically and emotionally draining, but now that it's finished she can now look forward to the future with hope.
The most difficult part was reliving everything that had happened. I cried through every single page and every word, says Ben-Zur. But once I finished it was like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders and now it's gone.
When she finished her manuscript she showed it to Raymond Coderre at Baico Publishing who instantly fell in love with it and agreed to publish it.
Ben-Zur now wants to try her hand at writing children's books and possibly get back into teaching, but first she has a date with someone very special. Her granddaughter's foster parents have allowed for the two to see each other for the first time in three years. Allie and her younger brother Matthew were put into foster care in Israel after Ben-Zur's daughter Rhonda had to be treated for mental illness following the birth of her second daughter.
The book is actually written as a type of letter to Allie, who Ben-Zur has only seen once since December 2004. The young girl is now eight.
While Cancer of my Soul will no doubt strike a chord with female readers, especially those who have been in an abusive relationship or have struggled with a life threatening illness, its message will resonate with anyone, male or female, who has the ability to feel compassion and empathy for their fellow man. It is exceptionally inspiring and reminds us all that the human spirit can conquer all.
Cancer of my Soul: A Personal Battle for Survival Against the Odds is available at the Baico Bookstore at 294 Albert Street (near Kent St.). It can also be ordered online by visiting www.baicopublishing.com.
http://www.orleansonline.ca/pages/N2008122202.

Similar posts: recurrent thyroid cancer

Painful anthology provides therapy for the soul
By Fred Sherwin
Orleans Online
Arlene Ben-Zur has been to hell and back and has lived to write about it. Her journey is contained in a new book entitled Cancer of my Soul: A Personal Battle For Survival Against the Odds in which she retells the abuse she suffered at the hands of her late father and two ex-husbands, her battle with Cushing's disease and her painful separation from her granddaughter.
Ben-Zur began writing about her experiences in a journal three years ago. The process became a form of therapy for her. Over the course of three years she had enough material to put into a book. Her hope is that other women might see themselves in her story and avoid the pitfalls that she has suffered.
If I can just touch one person's life with this so they won't go through what I went through, or maybe someone might read it and it will give them the impetus they need to change their situation, that would be amazing, says Ben-Zur.
Ben-Zur's heart-wrenching journey began when she had the misfortunate of being born after the death of her sister Shelley, who passed away from cancer at the age of three. Her own mother died of cancer when Ben-Zur was 15. Through it all she suffered a litany of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her father, which eventually led her to try and commit suicide at 16.
My father hurt me more than anyone else in my lifes, Ben-Zur writes in her book. From my earliest memory, he expressed his dislike for me, despite the fact that I was at the top of my class, and well loved by my peers and teachers ... He told me over and over again that I was ugly, fat, stupid, and a slut, and that no one would ever love me.
Her two marriages, the first to a wealthy young man in New York, and the second to a Yemenite Jew in Israel, followed the same pattern as her relationship with her father. They were both incredibly abusive and destructive.
Even when she finally found true happiness with a man after her divorce from her second husband, it was destructive in that he was already married. When her lover's wife found out about their seven year affair, Ben-Zur made a clean break.
Around the same time she met her current partner Jamie and the pair have been together ever since. A year an half ago they moved to Orleans to escape the turmoil in Israel and live a more peaceful existence. Ben-Zur also had a chance to move next door to her childhood friend Marilyn Dow. The pair had promised each other years ago that if they ever had a chance to live next door to each other they would.
While Ben-Zur has lived through many traumas in her life, it hasn't all been bad. Her marriage to her first husband produced two daughters, Lee Anna and Rhonda and her second marriage resulted in the birth of her son Avi.
In an effort to get as far away from her first husband as possible, she moved to Israel where she opened a successful English school in Ber Sheba. Professionally, it was the most fulfilling and rewarding time of her life. But personally, she had to suffer through a second abusive marriage and the heartbreak of a doomed love affair before finally meeting her soul mate and eventually moving to Orleans.
Through it all, she has managed to keep a wonderful sense of humour and an incredibly positive outlook on life. Writing the book was both physically and emotionally draining, but now that it's finished she can now look forward to the future with hope.
The most difficult part was reliving everything that had happened. I cried through every single page and every word, says Ben-Zur. But once I finished it was like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders and now it's gone.
When she finished her manuscript she showed it to Raymond Coderre at Baico Publishing who instantly fell in love with it and agreed to publish it.
Ben-Zur now wants to try her hand at writing children's books and possibly get back into teaching, but first she has a date with someone very special. Her granddaughter's foster parents have allowed for the two to see each other for the first time in three years. Allie and her younger brother Matthew were put into foster care in Israel after Ben-Zur's daughter Rhonda had to be treated for mental illness following the birth of her second daughter.
The book is actually written as a type of letter to Allie, who Ben-Zur has only seen once since December 2004. The young girl is now eight.
While Cancer of my Soul will no doubt strike a chord with female readers, especially those who have been in an abusive relationship or have struggled with a life threatening illness, its message will resonate with anyone, male or female, who has the ability to feel compassion and empathy for their fellow man. It is exceptionally inspiring and reminds us all that the human spirit can conquer all.
Cancer of my Soul: A Personal Battle for Survival Against the Odds is available at the Baico Bookstore at 294 Albert Street (near Kent St.). It can also be ordered online by visiting www.baicopublishing.com.
http://www.orleansonline.ca/pages/N2008122202.

Similar posts: recurrent thyroid cancer

Spectrum of gustatory sweating, with especial
reference to its presence in diabetics with
autonomic neuropathy
Michael M. Bronshvag,4



Certain otherwise normal individ-
uals may have an idiosyncratic response to
one or several foods, and the mechanism of
this sensitivity is not known . It may also be
seen after parotid surgery (auriculotemporal
syndrome) (4), cervical sympathectomy
(usually bilateral) (1) and in diabetic neu-
ropathy (2). The common denominator in
these conditions seems to be damage to the
autonomic nervous system.


Less easy to understand is the syndrome
after cervical sympathectomy (usually bilat-
eral) (1). As with the auniculotemporal syn-
drome, the onset occurs weeks to months
after the surgery and apparently does not
correlate with relapse of the surgical condi-
tion. Although anesthetic block or excision
of the stellate ganglion abolishes the gusta-
tory sweating response in pa-
tients, it does not have a similar effect in
postsympathectomy gustatory sweating.
Sweating is more profuse if there is no
ipsilateral Homers syndrome . The distni-
bution of sweating is the face and almost
always the arm, corresponding to the distni-
bution of innervation from the cervical sym-
pathetic ganglia. Although sensitivity to cm-
culating acetylcholine has been postulated
as the mechanism of production of sweating,
injection of cholinergic substances or acetyl-
choline does not reproduce the syndrome,
and ganglionic blocking agents can interrupt
the syndrome, suggesting that the response
is neural rather than humoral. It is now felt
that sprouting of cholinergic fibers into the
area of the surgical lesion is the cause.
Whether the sprouting axons arise from the
thoracic sympathetic ganglia and meander
past the surgical site, or whether they arise
from the vagus nerve is not established.
Diabetic patients with autonomic neurop-
athy may present with a similar syndrome
(2). The similarity of the syndrome in dia-
betes to that occurring in postsurgical pa-
tients makes it most reasonable to assume
that a lesion has occurred in the autonomic
nervous system with subsequent sprouting
between healthy cholinergic axons and dis-
eased ones. A careful study of diabetic
patients manifesting this phenomenon re-
vealed widespread deficits in the sympa-
thetic and parasympathetic nervous systems .


This suggests that
abnormal sprouting and unusual relation-
ships of unmyelinated fibers to Schwann
cells may be the anatomic bases for painful
diabetic neuropathy . In view of this histo-
logical evidence, it seems reasonable to sug-
gest that the mechanism for gustatory sweat-
ing in diabetic patients with autonomic neu-
ropathy is also axonal degeneration with
abnormal sprouting from continguous ax-
ons. Since in gustatory sweating it is pre-
sumed that the stimulus to the sweat glands
originates in the dorsal motor nucleus of
the medulla, and is diverted to sympathetic
cholinergic axons destined for the face and
perhaps the arm, it is likewise plausible that
adrenergic vasomotor impulses from the
cervical sympathetic chain cause the other
less constant parts of these syndromes such
as goose flesh, vasoconstniction, paraesthes-
ias and flushing.



TheAmericanJournalClinicalNutrition31:FE
UARY 1978, pp. 307-309. Printed in U.S.A.

Similar posts: recurrent thyroid cancer

Motesanib Diphosphate Provides Anticancer Activity Among Patients with Progressive Thyroid Cancer


The investigative agent motesanib diphosphate (AMG 706) produces a regression of cancer among patients with thyroid cancer that is progressing despite standard therapies. These results were recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The thyroid is a gland in the throat that produces hormones mostly related to metabolic processes in the body. According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 37,340 new cases of thyroid cancer will be diagnosed in 2008 in the United States. Nearly two-thirds of all thyroid cancers occur in people between the ages of 20 and 55. Overall, thyroid cancer is considered to be a highly curable cancer, with 97% of individuals alive at least five years following diagnosis. Nearly 95% of all thyroid cancers are classified as differentiated thyroid cancers, which refers to the type and characteristics of the cancer cells.
Standard therapy for thyroid cancer includes the removal of the thyroid, which is followed by drugs to suppress certain hormone levels related to the thyroid and radiation plus iodine (radioiodine) therapy, which is targeted to eliminate any remaining thyroid cancer cells. Patients whose thyroid cancer progresses or fails following standard therapy have a 10-year survival rate of less than 15%. Thus, novel agents targeting progressive thyroid cancers are needed.
The vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a protein that is an important component to cellular growth and replication. Often, cancer cells will have an overexpression or mutation of VEGF. Targeted therapies, including those targeted against VEGF, have recently demonstrated anticancer activity in certain types of cancers. Research into blocking VEGF continues in clinical trials.
Researchers from the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center recently conducted a clinical trial to evaluate motesanib diphosphate, a VEGF inhibitor, for the treatment of differentiated thyroid cancers that progress following standard therapies. This trial included 93 patients whose cancer had progressed following standard radioiodine therapy.
Anticancer responses were achieved in 14% of patients.
Disease stabilization was achieved in 67% of patients.
35% of patients achieved disease stabilization for at least six months.
The median duration of anticancer responses was 32 weeks.
Median progression-free survival was 40 weeks.
The most common side effects of therapy were diarrhea, increased blood pressure, fatigue, and weight loss.
The researchers concluded that motesanib diphosphate appears to provide significant anticancer activity, as well as long-lasting disease stabilization, in advanced thyroid cancer that progresses following standard therapies. Patients with progressive thyroid cancers may wish to speak with their physician regarding their individual risks and benefits of participating in a clinical trial further evaluating therapies such as motesanib diphosphate or other novel therapeutic approaches. Two sources of information regarding ongoing clinical trials include the National Cancer Institute (www.cancer.gov) and www.eCancerTrials.com.
Reference: Sherman S, Wirth L, Droz J-P, et al. Motesanib diphosphate in progressive differentiated thyroid cancer. New England Journal of Medicine.

Similar posts: recurrent thyroid cancer

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The sector scan is based on 15-30 minutes delayed data. The Pattern scan is based on EOD data.

Similar posts: recurrent thyroid cancer

Quotemedia
All information provided "as is" for informational purposes only, not intended for trading purposes or advice. iStockAnalyst.com is not an investment adviser and does not provide, endorse or review any information or data contained herein.
The blog articles are opinions by respective blogger. By using this site you are agreeing to terms and conditions posted on respective bloggers' website.
The postings/comments on the site may or may not be from reliable sources. Neither iStockAnalyst nor any of its independent providers is liable for any informational errors, incompleteness, or delays, or for any actions taken in reliance on information contained herein. You are solely responsible for the investment decisions made by you and the consequences resulting therefrom. By accessing the iStockAnalyst.com site, you agree not to redistribute the information found therein.
We prefer not to publish articles related to OTCBB or Pink Sheet Securities. We do not accept articles containing offesive language, racial remarks, sex / pornography beyond the requirement of the story.
The sector scan is based on 15-30 minutes delayed data. The Pattern scan is based on EOD data.

Similar posts: recurrent thyroid cancer