Development of breast cancer can be prevented with antibiotics?

In a newly published study, Cleveland Clinic researchers have uncovered differences in the bacterial composition of breast tissue of healthy women vs. women with breast cancer. The research team has discovered for the first time that healthy breast tissue contains more of the bacterial species Methylobacterium, a finding which could offer a new perspective in the battle against breast cancer.

Bacteria that live in the body, known as the microbiome, influence many diseases.
Most research has been done on the “gut” microbiome, or bacteria in the digestive tract. Researchers have long suspected that a “microbiome” exists within breast tissue and plays a role in breast cancer but it has not yet been characterized. The research team has taken the first step toward understanding the composition of the bacteria in breast cancer by uncovering distinct microbial differences in healthy and cancerous breast tissue.
“To my knowledge, this is the first study to examine both breast tissue and distant sites of the body for bacterial differences in breast cancer,” said co-senior author Charis Eng, M.D., Ph.D., chair of Cleveland Clinic’s Genomic Medicine Institute and director of the Center for Personalized Genetic Healthcare. “Our hope is to find a biomarker that would help us diagnose breast cancer quickly and easily.  In our wildest dreams, we hope we can use microbiomics right before breast cancer forms and then prevent cancer with probiotics or antibiotics.”
Link: https://www.biosciencetechnology.com/news/2017/10/researchers-find-link-between-bacterial-imbalances-and-breast-cancer

FDA Approves a New Treatment for Acute Myeloid Leukemia

The new treatment, Vyxeos, comprises a combination of two commonly used cytotoxic chemotherapeutics inside a nanosized particle.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved a new treatment called Vyxeos for treating certain patients with  acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
Vyxeos is intended for the treatment of adults with two types of AML that have particularly poor prognoses: newly diagnosed therapy-related AML and AML with myelodysplasia-related changes.
AML is the form of leukemia that carries the worst prognosis; according to the National Cancer Institute, the five-year relative survival rate is just 26.9 percent.
Vyxeos provides an alternative approach to delivering two of the cytotoxic chemotherapeutics commonly used to treat many patients with AML, daunorubicin and cytarabine. Until the approval of Vyxeos, these two agents were always given separately. In Vyxeos, a fixed combination of daunorubicin and cytarabine are enclosed together in a nanosized particle.
Nanotechnology refers to the manufacturing of objects with dimensions one million times smaller than a millimeter (the smallest width of a human hair is just 50 times smaller than a millimeter). Nanomedicine is the application of nanotechnology to the research and practice of medicine. Nanodrugs comprise an anticancer agent (or agents) and a nanosized carrier that selectively delivers the anticancer agent to the cancer and protects the anticancer agent from being destroyed by the body. Thus, nanodrugs allow the delivery of higher levels of anticancer agents to cancer cells than traditional systemic delivery methods, increasing effectiveness while reducing toxic side effects.
In the case of Vyxeos, the nanosized carriers are liposmes and the anticancer agents are daunorubicin and cytarabine. According to the FDA statement, Vyxeos was approved based on results from a randomized phase III clinical trial that showed that median overall survival for patients who received the new treatment was significantly improved compared with who received daunorubicin and cytarabine separately (9.56 months compared with 5.95 months).
The FDA approval was rendered on August 3, 2017.
https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm569883.htm?source=govdelivery&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery

Brentuximab Vedotin Receives Breakthrough Therapy Designation for Frontline Hodgkin Lymphoma

The FDA has awarded brentuximab vedotin (Adcetris) on 02 October 2017 a breakthrough therapy designation for the first-line treatment of patients with classical Hodgkin lymphoma.

Brentuximab vedotin is an antibody-drug conjugate directed to CD30, a defining marker of the disease. The designation is based on phase III results from the ECHELON-1 clinical trial, which were released in June.
The 2-year rate of modified progression-free survival (PFS) for brentuximab vedotin plus AVD (adriamycin, vinblastine, dacarbazine) was 82.1% compared with 77.2% for patients receiving ABVD (adriamycin, bleomycin, vinblastine, dacarbazine). The experimental combination reduced the risk of disease progression or death by 23% (HR, 0.770; P = .035). An interim analysis of 2-year overall survival (OS) also showed a trend favoring the brentuximab arm.

Anti-cancer effects found in natural compound derived from onions

Research has found that a natural compound isolated from onions, onionin A (ONA), has several anti-ovarian cancer properties. This discovery is a result of research on the effects of ONA on a preclinical model of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) both in vivo and in vitro. 

www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161020101051.htm

Seishu Hanaoka and his success in breast cancer surgery under general anesthesia two hundred years ago

Kan Aiya, a 60-year-old woman, had lost many loved ones to breast cancer. She had seen her sisters die of the cruel disease, so when a tumour formed in her left breast she was well aware of the likely outcome. For her, however, there was a chance of survival – an operation. It was 1804 and she was in the best possible place for surgery – feudal Japan.
Seishu Hanaoka (1760–1835) studied medicine in Kyoto and set up a practice in his hometown of Hirayama. He became interested in the idea of anaesthesia owing to stories that a third-century Chinese surgeon Houa T'o had developed a compound drug enabling patients to sleep through the pain. Hanaoka experimented with similar formulae and produced Tsusensan, a potent hot drink. Among other botanical ingredients it contained the plants Datura metel (aka Datura alba or ‘devil's trumpet’), monkshood and Angelica decursiva, all of which contain some potent physiologically active substances.
Tsusensan had quite a kick and if you glugged it down willy-nilly you would probably die, but in the correct dosage it rendered patients unconscious for between six and 24 hours, allowing ample time for surgery.
On 13 October 1804, Hanaoka excised Kan Aiya's tumour, the first successful surgical treatment of breast cancer under general anesthesia in the world. Sadly, Kan Aiya is thought to have died of her disease the following year.  Hanaoka performed operations for breast cancer in a total of 156 cases, and also for many other kinds of surgical procedures. He also eagerly contrived and modified many surgical instruments.

A new medication, lenvantinib, for patients with advanced hepatocarcinoma.

A supplemental new drug application for lenvatinib (Lenvima) as a frontline systemic treatment for patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has been accepted by the FDA, acccording to a statement from Eisai, the company developing the therapy.

Findings from the phase III REFLECT trial, on which the application for lenvatinib was based, showed overall survival (OS) was noninferior for lenvatinib versus sorafenib. Median OS with lenvatinib was 13.6 versus 12.3 months for sorafenib (HR, 0.92; 95% CI, 0.79-1.06). Lenvatinib was also associated with improvements in progression-free survival (PFS), time to progression (TTP) and objective response rate (ORR) compared with sorafenib.

More: http://www.targetedonc.com/news/lenvatinib-application-for-advanced-hcc-accepted-by-fda

Awesome! Propranolol, an anti-hypertensive drug, prevents the recurrence and death of the malignant melanoma

In a propective study, it was found that after 3 years of treatment with propranolol a big difference in the disease progression. It was observed a recurrence of 41.2% of the patients in the untreated cohort compared with only 15.8% in the propranolol cohort.

Find more information in the link

http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaoncology/fullarticle/2655005

.