Liver Cancer Information
Liver Cancer News
New Antibody May Lead to New Liver Cancer Treatments
11 July 2007
Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine report a significant new advance in the search for an effective treatment for human liver cancer in the July issue of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. Using a newly available monoclonal antibody, they demonstrated significant reductions in tumor cell proliferation and survival in human and mouse hepatocellular cancer (HCC) cell lines. According to the researchers, this finding has significant implications not only for the treatment of liver cancer but for a number of different types of cancer.
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Genetically Altered Cold Sore Virus Fights Cancer
9 July 2007
A modified version of the virus that causes cold sores is showing early promise in targeting colorectal and liver cancer cells, scientists report. The herpes simplex virus is specially designed so that it grows in specific cancer cells, killing them in the process. The researchers report that the genetically altered virus is safe for healthy tissue.
"It doesn't replicate in normal, healthy cells, so our hope is that it will help fight cancers without causing side effects in the rest of the body," Dr. Axel Mescheder, vice president of clinical research and development for MediGene, said in a prepared statement. Mescheder reported safety and efficacy results and described the case of a patient whose liver tumors appeared to be reduced six months after treatment with the virus.
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Why Liver Cancer Is More Prevalent In Males than In Females
6 July 2007
Production of a protein that promotes inflammation appears to be linked to the higher incidence of liver cancer in men than in women, researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine have determined in mouse studies. Their discovery that female mice produce far less of the protein called interleukin-6 (IL-6) in response to liver injury than males do, and that production of this protein is suppressed by estrogen, may point the way to therapies to reduce the incidence of liver cancer in males. IL-6 contributes to the chronic liver inflammation that leads to cancer.
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The Medical Tricorder Takes Steps Away From Sci Fi
2 July 2007
Recent scientific discoveries mark the latest steps toward the ultimate medical-diagnosis technology: the tricorder. "When we were conceptualizing (our experiment), we saw the ultimate device should be noninvasive, giving you the molecular details of the disease going on inside the body," said Howard Chang of Stanford University's Comprehensive Cancer Center. "I think a tricorder is a useful idea .... it shows the gap between what we have now and what we hope technology will achieve in the end."
"{We're} trying to put a patient in a CAT scan and image the human genome in their tumor," said Michael Kuo, an assistant professor of interventional radiology at the University of California at San Diego. For example, the scientists could determine whether the gene that spurs the growth of blood vessels, called VEGF, was turned on or off, by statistically analyzing a CT image. Experimental treatments such as vaccines and gene therapies attack tumors by shutting down this gene's ability to feed cancer tumors with new blood vessels.
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