Uncategorized

What COVID-19 means for cancer patients: Roundup

April 3, 2020 by Hayley Anthony

National Cancer Institute: What People with Cancer Should Know

The National Cancer Institute, the federal government’s leading cancer division, has released a set of guidelines and frequently asked questions. They cover topics like whether cancer patients are at elevated risk, ways cancer patients can protect themselves, and what questions you should ask your medical providers and clinical trial research teams.

https://www.cancer.gov/contact/emergency-preparedness/coronavirus

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Coronavirus (COVID-19)

The scientists and officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are the top authority for the American public about matters related to infectious disease. The NCI and other cancer-focused have told their patients, who may have compromised immune systems due to chemotherapy or other factors, to be especially mindful of the CDC’s instructions.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

Vox: Coronavirus and Cancer Treatment: How doctors and patients are managing the pandemic

Vox reporters found that the best research conducted so far shows that cancer patients may be at considerably higher risk than others of needing hospitalization, intensive-care treatment, and ventilator breathing support, should they get the coronavirus, compared to the general public. Nevertheless, oncologists across the country are doing everything in their power to safely continue their patients struggles. The report covers the brave and difficult choices patients and their doctors are making together to simultaneously battle cancer and coronavirus.

https://www.vox.com/2020/3/20/21186681/coronavirus-cancer-treatment

New York Times: Her Cancer Surgery Was Canceled at a Hospital Bracing for Coronavirus

We’ve all read the reports of hospitals cancelling all elective surgeries because they’re facing a surge of coronavirus patients. It’s important to note, elective may be more expansive than you think. If you expect that elective surgeries only mean cosmetic procedures or the like, this article makes it clear that elective not only encompasses surgeries that are not life-saving, it may even include surgery for just about any condition that is not immediately life-threatening.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/us/coronavirus-covid-surgeries-canceled.html

Coronavirus.gov

This site provides the latest guidelines and orders from the federal government. It is a collaborative effort by the White House, the CDC, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Your home state likely has a similar site where the orders and guidelines put out by your governor will be collected. It’s a good idea to search for these on Google (search “coronavirus [your state]” and look for a link that ends in .gov.

https://www.coronavirus.gov/

Why so many people believe cutting sugar can fight cancer

February 6, 2020 by Hayley Anthony

Tumor cells eat sugar. A lot of sugar. And many people believe this simple fact can provide a solution to fighting brain tumors.

Let’s start with a quick background cells and energy. All cells require energy, and that energy comes from a sugar called glucose. All the food a person eats, whether carbs or proteins or fats, gets broken down into glucose. Glucose circulates in the bloodstream and cells turn glucose into a molecule called ATP, which is then used for every cellular process that requires energy.

Healthy cells make 36 molecules of ATP, give or take, for every one molecule of glucose. But tumor cells are extremely wasteful by comparison, producing not 32, but just two units of ATP. As a result, tumors consume much more sugar than healthy cells.

Some people look at all the sugar that a tumor consumes and say, OK, if a tumor needs so much sugar to grow, then it follows that to fight a tumor, you want to starve it of sugar.

This is the core argument of Dr. David Servan-Schreiber’s popular book Anticancer: A New Way of Life. Dr. Servan-Schreiber advocates for cutting out sugar, avoiding food contaminants, supporting the immune system, and applying stress-reduction techniques, and claims that there is scientific backing that these lifestyle techniques can lead to survival.

Unfortunately, no malignant brain tumor can ever be cured with lifestyle changes alone. Brain tumors always need medical attention. You will want a medical team that includes a neurosurgeon and a neuro-oncologist, and it is a great idea to ask your doctor about diet changes you’re thinking of making. Most will be supportive of common sense changes like cutting sugar intake. And if you are thinking of more drastic changes like a vegan diet or a keto (a.k.a. very low carb) diet, they can walk you through some of the potential pros and cons.

Keto diets, for instance, have seen at least some potential, as this research team in Michigan found. Yet at the same time, such diets can lead to problems like unhealthy weight drop and wanted side effects.

That said, there is plenty of interest from the mainstream medical community in how tumors might be starved. For instance, a team at UCLA found in lab studies that a drug that disrupts tumor sugar intake can stop the growth of a glioblastoma. Such drugs could become part of the cancer-fighting toolkits if they prove effective in clinical trials.

Brain Tumor vs. Brain Cancer: What’s the Difference?

November 14, 2019 by Tom Leger

Broadly speaking, a brain tumor is a growth of abnormal cells in your brain, but did you know that not all brain tumors are brain cancer? Brain tumors come in two varieties: Malignant (cancerous) and benign (non-cancerous). Both types can exhibit many of the same symptoms such as seizures, headaches, paralysis, memory loss, or speech difficulties. Benign tumors can grow, but do not spread, whereas malignant tumors can spread cancerous cells to other parts of the brain.

Brain Tumor vs. Brain Cancer: Diagnosis

Because the manifestation of each type of brain tumor can share so many symptoms, doctors are not able to determine the type of brain tumor based on the patient’s symptoms alone. An MRI scan will allow doctors to positively identify the type of a brain tumor most of the time, but frequently a biopsy will be required before your doctors can know for sure whether your brain tumor is a cancerous malignant brain tumor (i.e. brain cancer) or not. A biopsy can be done during the surgery to remove the tumor, or by drilling a small hole in the skull and inserting a needle to remove a sample of tissue that can be sent to a lab for testing. The complexity and variety of brain tumors means that your diagnosis may require a number of different doctors working in separate specialities to determine.

“MRI of my brain after surgery for Oligodendroglioma tumor” by L_Family is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Brain Tumor vs. Brain Cancer: Treatment

There are over 120 types of brain and spinal cord tumors, and each tumor is unique, so treatment will be different for each individual patient. Some benign tumors may not need to be surgically treated at all, or for many years. Malignant cancerous brain tumors are more dangerous because they grow quickly and threaten surrounding brain tissue. Treatment is likely to include surgical intervention, as well as radiation, chemotherapy as well as innovative techniques.

Brain Tumor vs. Brain Cancer: Recurrence

Both benign brain tumors and malignant brain cancers are able to regrow, though patients with benign brain tumors are less likely to experience a recurrence. The speed at which a brain tumor grows, or regrows, can vary greatly, and it’s important to work with your treatment team to monitor any changes and catch a recurrence quickly.

Further reading:

https://www.roswellpark.org/cancertalk/201805/if-brain-tumor-not-cancerous-why-do-anything-about-it

https://www.webmd.com/cancer/brain-cancer/brain-tumors-in-adults#2-4

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/brain-tumor/symptoms-causes/syc-20350084

5 People Fighting Brain Tumors in the Public Eye

March 22, 2019 by Hayley Anthony

People in this community can probably name a few big names from the world of politics who fought brain tumors. But this week, we feature 5 people who are fighting brain tumors in public in their own ways. This includes a young woman with 1.5 million youtube followers, an E! Entertainment journalist, a NASCAR rookie, and a schoolteacher with a loyal audience of preschoolers.

Simone Giertz started with a punchline on YouTube. Now, she’s figuring out what to build next.

Robot builder Simone Giertz found out earlier this year that she’ll be undergoing 8 weeks of radiation following the removal of a brain tumor, but that hasn’t stopped her meteoric rise in popularity on YouTube. What’s next for Giertz might even include the first television show in space!

New mom finds her way back from brain tumor surgery with a little help from her millennial moms of color community

This is a heartwarming story about young D.C. public school teacher, Kassandra Johnson, who had just given birth to her second child when she started showing signs of a brain tumor. She was afraid she’d become a statistic. Instead, her community, organized around a group for millennial moms of color called District Motherhued, rallied to help. Moms who didn’t even know her donated baby supplies and supported her GoFundMe. Thanks to the support of her community and the success of her surgery, she hopes to return to her students this spring.

Entrepreneur builds on her experience recovering from tumor to launch VR-assisted medical device company

Rebecca Mandel was diagnosed with a brain tumor in her right frontal lobe when she was just 15 years old. Through the years that followed, she managed to graduate from high school and then college, even as she found it difficult to organize and communicate her thoughts. Her senior thesis required six months of writing eight hours each day. Rebecca found that meditation and, surprisingly, Virtual Reality headsets both helped her re-train her brain, and has since founded a company called Lucid Care to help other patients with cognitive impairment.

NASCAR rookie Matt Tifft overcame brain tumor to fulfill his dream

Matt Tiff is a NASCAR rookie that, just three years ago, began experiencing symptoms such as acute pain from artificial light, feelings of claustrophobia, and even heading strange voices in his head. This season he debuts as part of the Front Row Motorsports team driving car No. 36.

Maria Menounos making documentary about life post-brain tumor

Just one year after Emmy-winning journalist Maria Menounos found out that her mother had been diagnosed with glioblastoma, she was diagnosed with her own meningioma brain tumor. At this year’s SXSW she announced that she had begun work on a documentary about her journey through brain tumor treatment in her continuing efforts to dispel misconceptions and inspire others.

News Roundup – Mar 1, 2019

March 1, 2019 by Hayley Anthony

In the news this week: some promising pre-clinical treatments, hope for Medicare patients who want to try Optune, a recommendation research strategies, and a doctor’s story about how one brain tumor patient changed his how he saw patients.

Medicare CMS to hold hearings about paying for Optune on March 6

The federal agency that administers Medicare in the United States, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will consider whether they will pay for their patients to receive Optune treatment in the future. Optune is a medical device worn on the head that the FDA has approved as part of treatment plans for newly diagnosed and recurrent GBMs.

Supporters who think Medicare should cover Optune treatment can visit CMS’s Facebook livestream on March 6 and leave a comment.

Doctor shares his story of how an astrocytoma patient changed how he practices medicine

Writing in the Washington Post, oncologist Jalal Baig shares how he entered medicine with the common belief that doctors should keep themselves at an emotional distance from their patients. His view evolved as he treated an astrocytoma (and later GBM) patient he called “Mr. C.”

Of learning to cry over a patient, he writes in the Post, “Instead of diminishing me as a physician, I am left with a more nuanced perspective on life, a greater appreciation for medicine’s fallibilities and boundaries, and a renewed commitment to my patients.”

International panel names seven factors standing in the way of curing brain cancer

An international panel of clincians and laboratory scientists convened by Cancer Research UK published a joint statement in Nature about the factors that make brain tumors so difficult to treat, with seven key factors that need more research and funding to achieve a cure. These include topics from changing how trials are designed, to better leveraging neuroscience research on healthy brains, to gaining a better understanding of the so-called “tumor microenvironment,” or how tumors steal body resources to feed and support themselves.

Researchers discover a way to improve effectiveness of radiation

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, have found that by blocking the activity of a particular protein found in glioblastomas, a tumor will respond better to radiation therapy. The tumor, known as PTEN, often acts in GBMs to repair tumor DNA that has been damaged by radiation, reversing the effectiveness of this treatment. In a recent study mouse, the scientists found that if they deactivated PTEN, then radiation killed more tumor cells and the mice survived longer. “

“These findings are novel and provide a foundation to move forward with a clinical trial,” one of the researchers was quoted as saying to the UCSD News Center.