New Study Reveals Important Mechanism For Tumorigenesis

Main Category: Cancer / Oncology
Article Date: 08 May 2013 - 1:00 PDT Current ratings for:
New Study Reveals Important Mechanism For Tumorigenesis

Cancer is a complex disease, in which cells undergo a series of alterations, including changes in their architecture; an increase in their ability to divide, to survive and to invade new tissues or metastasis. A category of genes, called oncogenes, is critical during cancer progression, as they codify proteins whose activity favours the development of cancer. One of these molecules, Src, is implicated in a large number of human cancers. However, it is still not clear how healthy cells constrain its activity not to become tumorous. In the latest issue of the journal Oncogene*, Florence Janody and her team at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia (IGC, Portugal), identified a novel mechanism by which the activity of Src is limited by the cell's skeleton (named cytoskeleton) limiting the development of tumours.

Using the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, as a model, Florence Janody and her team were able to stop the tumour development induced by the high activity of Src through the genetic manipulation of the cytoskeleton in fly tissues. A major component of the cytoskeleton, the actin protein, form cables that crisscross the cell, creating a network, where molecules can move, inside the cell. These cables are constantly being elongated and shortened at their ends in a process tuned by molecules called actin-Capping Proteins. Florence Janody’s team showed that the development of tumours is stopped in the presence of high levels of the actin Capping Protein. This "tuner" restrains the activity of proteins that are usually activated by high levels of Src. Although the precise molecular mechanism is still unknown, the hypothesis raised by these scientists is that the "tuner" creates a tension in the cables of the cytoskeleton that impedes the action of these proteins. Conversely, the activity of Src is higher when the levels of the actin Capping Protein are lower, as the proteins activated by Src are able to escape the blocking effect of the network and act in the cell, resulting in the development of tumours. Thus, when the cytoskeleton network is not tightly regulated, the activity of oncogenes such as Src is not trapped and tumour development is observed.

Florence Janody says: "The cytoskeleton works as a "barbwire" network. The winner of the competition between molecules of the "barbwire" network and the Src oncogene, which fights against it, will determine whether the cell will stay healthy or become a cancer cell.

Beatriz Garcia Fernandez and Barbara Jezowska, first authors of this work added: "Our work suggests that the appearance of mutations in molecules that regulate the skeleton may play a significant role in inducing cancer development during the early stages of the disease by releasing the activity of oncogenes."

Src was the first oncogene described in the 1950s as capable to induce cancer. This discovery was awarded with the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1989.

Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. Click 'references' tab above for source.
Visit our cancer / oncology section for the latest news on this subject. This study was carried out at the IGC and was funded by Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (Portugal).

*Garcia Fernandez, B., Jezowska, B., and Janody, F. (2013) Drosophila actin-Capping Protein limits JNK activation by the Src proto-oncogene, Oncogene, May 6, doi:10.1038/onc.2013.155

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Kid's Hairdo Reveals Mom's Hang-ups

Jackie Morgan MacDougall struggled with her daughter's desire to cut her hair. (Image credit: psjackie.com)

Jackie Morgan MacDougall hoped the faux-hawk phase would be fleeting. Her 6-year-old daughter, Lucy, desperately wanted to chop her long black hair into the short, spiky style – a move the mother of two boys and a girl could hardly bear.

“She’s just so darn cute with this beautiful hair,” said Morgan MacDougall, who as a child lamented her own mousy brown mane, which she starting perming in the third grade. “But she’s very secure in herself and who she is, and she?didn’t?want the hair.”

Morgan MacDougall quickly realized that her own “appearance issues” were clouding her parental judgment.

“I thought, ‘Why am I doing this?’ It’s not for her,” she said. “How do I teach my only daughter not to look the way that other people tell her when that’s what she’s doing for me?”

That’s when Morgan MacDougall took Lucy to the nearest hair salon and asked a bewildered stylist to bring on the faux-hawk.

“She was very confused by the request,” said Morgan MacDougall, who documented the chop in a series of photos. “Then the woman next to us said, ‘Oh, you’re such a cool mom,’ – loosely translated to, ‘I would never do that to my kid.’”

Lucy during the haircut. (Image credit: psjackie.com)

But one look at Lucy’s face and Morgan MacDougall knew she had made the right decision.

“I can’t express how I felt seeing her with that smile,” she said. “I can say with words, ‘Whoever you are, whatever your choices, I love you,’ but that can never touch her the way driving her to the hair salon did.”

Alan Kazdin, a professor of psychology and director of the Yale Parenting Center, said parents should “let as many of these things go as they can in the spirit of compromise,” stressing that hairdos and clothing choices are temporary.

“Now, tattoos and weird orifices might be different,” he added. “But cutting one’s hair, maybe let that go.”

Morgan MacDougall said she’ll cross the tattoo bridge when she comes to it.

“I have two tattoos, not that one would ever know,” she said. “I would hope to teach her the permanence of it, but at same time, if that’s how she wants to express herself in creative ways, I think there are lot worse behaviors to have.”

Kazdin agreed, stressing that while compromise and flexibility are important, parents also need limits.

“You compromise because it makes you more powerful when you do make a claim that can’t be compromised,” he said. “So that you can say, ‘No, you can’t go to a home where there are no adults. No, you can’t have sex and birth control right now.’”

“The cliche is, ‘Pick your battles,’” he added. “But these?aren’t?battles. We’re all trying to raise our children into great adults. There are no sides.”

Kazdin said Morgan MacDougall should be praised for putting her daughter first despite her personal hang-ups.

“Child-rearing is about the child, not the parent,” he said.

Morgan MacDougall blogged?about her inner battle to see what other moms had to say: Some said they’d do the same, while others said there was just no way.

Tell us what you think in the comments section!

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Study reveals widespread support for rationing of certain Types of cancer care

Main Category: Cancer / Oncology
Article Date: 18 May 2013-0:00 PDT Current ratings for:
Study Finds Broad Support For Rationing Of Some Types Of Cancer Care

The majority of cancer doctors, patients, and members of the general public support cutting health care costs by refusing to pay for drugs that don't improve survival or quality of life, according to results of a new study that will be presented by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania during the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago in early June (Abstract #6518).

The Penn Medicine team surveyed 326 adult cancer patients receiving treatment at Penn's Abramson Cancer Center, a random sample of 891 adults in the general public, and 250 oncologists across the United States during 2012 to probe their opinions about tactics for controlling costs associated with cancer care.

"We found that the majority of respondents considered Medicare spending a big or moderate problem, and many suggested that Medicare could spend less without causing harm," said the study's lead author, John Gogineni, MD, MSHP, an instructor in the division of Hematology-Oncology in Penn's Abramson Cancer Center. "We know that cancer patients and their doctors face decisions every day that stand to raise health care costs without conferring much benefit to patients, and our survey has identified some common themes in how these groups of stakeholders might propose to lower costs of care while still protecting patients."

More than 90 percent of all three groups surveyed attributed rising costs to drug companies charging too much, and more than 80 percent of each group cited insurance company profits as a driver of rising costs. Many also thought hospitals and doctors conducted unnecessary tests and provided unnecessary treatments (69 percent of patients, 81 percent of the general public, and 70 percent of doctors).

The research team, which includes senior author Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, chairman of the department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, presented a variety of potential cost-lowering options to each group and asked whether they supported the idea. Cancer patients, members of the general public, and oncologists tended to be about as likely to say patients who can afford to pay more for care should be asked to pay more (56, 58, and 52 percent, respectively). And large numbers signed not paying for more expensive drugs when cheaper alternatives are equally as effective (78 percent of patients, 86 percent of the general public, and 90 percent of physicians). The majority also supported refusing to cover drugs that do not improve survival or quality of life, though physicians were more apt to refuse payment under those circumstances (79 percent compared to 52 percent of patients and 57 percent of the general public).

Even drugs that confer only incremental gains in survival, however, were found to be worth covering in the eyes of all groups surveyed: Just 12 percent of physicians were willing to refuse payment for a drug that extends life by four months, compared to 20 percent of patients and 28 percent of the general public.

Greater differences of opinion were observed around coverage for drugs offering benefits other than survival gains. When queried about a drug that doesn't extend life but reduces pain, for instance, only 5 percent of patients and 10 percent of the general public voiced support for refusing to cover the medication, compared to 32 percent of physicians. On coverage for a drug that doesn't extend life but adds convenience, 27 and 32 percent of patients and the general public, respectively, said those costs should not be covered, compared to 59 percent of physicians.

"These results suggest that patients and the lay public prioritize quality of life, while oncologists appear focused on controlling disease and increasing length of life," Gogineni says. "Patients have a much broader set of concerns, from the cost of their doctor's visits to the side effects of treatment and the emotional toll of their illness."

Sixty four percent of physicians said they supported the idea of an independent expert panel that would decide which therapies to cover, but that plan was met with resistance from patients (33 percent approved) and the general public (46 percent approved). The authors suggest this may be because physicians are more familiar with such models, which are already used for decision-making around scarce medical resources such as ICU beds and organs for transplantation. And, Gogineni notes, "distancing the locus of responsibility for access to high cost, low benefit cancer treatment may create less strain on the physician-patient relationship."

Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. Click 'references' tab above for source.
Visit our cancer / oncology section for the latest news on this subject. ASCO Annual Meeting: May 31-June 4, 2013 | McCormick Place | Chicago, Illinois
Gogineni will present the team's findings at ASCO on Sunday, June 2, 2013 in the Health Services Research poster session from 8 a.m. to noon in McCormick Place S405.
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