International Journal of Cancer Management
Volume:6 Issue: 4, Autumn 2013

Colon cancer is cancer of the large intestine (colon), the lower part of digestive system and the third most common cancer in men and the second most common cancer in women worldwide. Genetic background is thought to play a role in modulating individual risk to this cancer. Many studies support an association for insulin pathway gene polymorphisms and the regulation of tumor cell biology in colorectal cancer. In this review we discuss about polymorphisms in cancer -relationship genes which involve in insulin and obesity pathway and their association with colorectal cancer.

Cancer is uncontrolled and unrestricted growth of malignant cells in the body. It is a multifactorial disease which either heredity or environmental factors (such as nutrition, physical inactivity, alcohol, obesity, exposure to sun, environmental pollutants, infections) contribute to the incidence of cancer. In recent years, several lines of research have focused on obesity as a potent risk factor of cancer. Scientific evidence suggests obesity is associated with increased risk for a number of different types of cancer. The evidence is most consistent for endometrial cancer, breast cancer in postmenopausal women, and renal cell cancer. More contradictory results have been reported for colorectal, prostate, and pancreatic cancer. In despite of numerous studies in regard to the link between obesity and cancer, The molecular mechanisms in which obesity increase the risk of cancer have been poorly understood. In this article, the association between obesity and cancer risk and its underlying mechanisms are reviewed.

Concurrent chemoradiotherapy (EBRT + cisplatin) plus intracavitary brachytherapy is the standard of care in patients with advanced cervical cancer. However, some patients are unable to undergo brachytherapy due to massive residual tumor or anatomical distortion. In this study, we evaluated the treatment outcome in patients with locally advanced cervical cancer undergoing conventional EBRT plus cisplatin based chemotherapy. in this prospective phase 2 trial, we selected patients with locally advanced cervical carcinoma (stage: IIB to IIIB) undergoing external beam radiotherapy and chemotherapy without brachytherapy at our institute between Oct. 2007 and Oct. 2009. The patients received 50 Gy in 5 weeks to whole pelvic followed by a localized boost dose on tumor to 70 Gy concurrently with cisplatin 35 mg/m2 weekly. The treatment related toxicities and survival (overall and disease free) were evaluated. 30 cases with a median age of 55 (range; 40 to 73) were studied. According to FIGO classification, the Clinical stages were as follows: stage: IIB 23, IIIA 4, and IIIB 3 cases. Three months after treatment, 19 patients (63.3%) achieved complete response. With a median follow up time of 18 months (range; 10-33 months), 8/23 cases (34.7%) with stage IIB and 2/7 (28.5%) among stage IIIA-IIIB remained disease free at the end of follow up. Data showed a 2-year overall survival rate of 58.7% ± 9% and 2- year disease free survival of 37.7% ± 9%. Most toxicities were grade I and II. 2 (6.6%) grade III diarrhea and 4 (13.3%) grade III neutropenia were recorded. Although a considerable number of patients achieved complete response using concurrent chemoradiotherapy without brachytherapy, the overall treatment outcomes especially for stage IIIA-IIIB were unsatisfactory. Using modern radiation therapy techniques with increased delivered boost dose might improve treatment results.

There are several types of cancer, which cause millions of deaths worldwide every year. Many studies have confirmed that plants are adequate natural sources to be examined as anti-cancer drugs with fewer side effects than chemotherapy and radiotherapy. In this study the anti-cancer properties of Lavender aqueous extract on lymphocytes derived from patients with Hodgkin''s lymphoma has been studied. In order to determine the cytotoxic effects of the extract on lymphocytes of patients in stages III and IV of Hodgkin''s lymphoma and two different cell lines in the presence of different concentrations of aqueous extract of Lavender, MTT colorimetric assay and flow cytometry analysis were used. Findings indicated that Lavender inhibited cell proliferation in both lymphocytes and cell lines with different effects. The effective concentration of Lavender that decreased viability of Hodgkin''s lymphoma cells below Lethal Concentration 50 (LC50) value was 100 µg/ml and this was half of the therapeutic dose. In addition, apoptosis was the main mechanism the Hodgkin''s lymphoma cell encountered when exposed to the aqueous extract of Lavender. This experiment proposes that aqueous Lavender extract can be regarded as a potential anti-cancer agent in future studies.

Endometrial cancer is the most common gynecologic malignancy that has often proceeded by a premalignant phase. Modern molecular and immune staining methods for precancerous lesions diagnosis have been expanded. One of the genetic alternations in the endometrial cancer carcinogenesis is the mutational activation of the K-ras oncogene. K-ras mutation has recognized to occur at an early stage of neoplastic progression in the endometrium. The purpose of this study is to investigate the expression pattern of K-ras gene in atypical and nonatypic hyperplastic endometrium. In a prospective study in the referral gynecologic hospital in Tehran, immune histochemical evaluation of K-ras has performed on 72 consecutive specimens in two following groups: endometrial hyperplasia without atypical hyperplastic endometrium (n: 36), and endometrial hyperplasia with atypical hyperplastic endometrium (n: 36). Staining of cells has evaluated in arbitrary quantitative methods in regards to both slides area staining and intensity of color reaction. K-ras immunoreactivity has seen in 3/36 (8.3%) cases of nonatypical hyperplasia and in 2/36 (5.6%) cases of atypical hyperplasia (P: 0.64). We have not establish any significant differences in K-ras expression between the atypical and nonatypical hyperplastic endometrium, and our data has supported this view that K-ras mutation is a very rare event in human endometrial carcinogenesis.

Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) has a great co relationship with human malignancies such as gastric carcinoma. Synonymous codon investigations in viruses could help designing vaccine, to generate immunity.Codon Adaptation Index (CAI) has measured translation elongation rate, among the highly expressed genes. The aim of this study was: usage of “CAI” to measure translation efficiency to know how fast EBV-GD1 could produce its proteins. The complete genomic sequences of human herpes virus 4 strain GD1 have retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/gquery (GenBank accession no. AY961628) to extract all protein-coding genes. The sequences have analyzed with DAMBE software. The results have shown that CAI values for the EBV-GD1 genes were 0.76356 ± 0.02957. The highest and lowest CAI values were 0.82233 and 0.68321 respectively. The results have shown that highly expressed genes mostly had more codon usage bias than low expressed genes. The results provide and introduce not only a system, but also the principles in order to understand the pathogenesis and evolution of EBV-GD1, to open a window, in order to make a better product or vaccine to challenge with the virus.

Cancer detection always has a lot of stress and nervousness which, apart from physical injuries, will affect quality of life. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between resiliency and quality of life by moderating the role of duration of awareness of cancer. Population of the study included all patients with cancer who were under treatment in Yazd Forat hospital. Using convenience sampling method, 105 patients were selected to participate in this study. All subjects completed the Quality of Life Questionnaire specialized for cancer and resiliency Questionnaire. Data were analyzed by regression analysis model and Johnsen-Neyman technique. The findings of this study revealed that the time duration of awareness of cancer plays a moderating role in the relation between the general dimension of quality of life and resiliency. In patients who were aware of their disease for over 12 months, the relationship between resiliency and the general dimension of quality of life was significant. In addition, high levels of resiliency showed a positive and significant relationship with physical dimension of life quality. While in patients who were aware of their illness for less than 12 months, resiliency scores showed a significant relation with emotional dimension of quality of life. Awareness of disease has different mental effects on cancer patients, and resiliency and maintaining this feature for long-term is associated with the increase of quality of life in these patients. Theoretical implications of finding are discussed in detail.

Paraneoplastic syndromes result from secretion of hormones, peptides or cytokines by tumor or immune cross-reactivity between malignant and normal tissues. These conditions are rare in children, but when the clinical presentation of patients with a tumor is unusual, these syndromes should be emphasized.Extrarenal tumors with renin-secretion are rare in children. They may be related to paraneoplastic syndromes. We report a 22-month-old infant with hepatoblastoma presented with severe hypertension and related neurologic symptoms due to high plasma renin activity. To the best of our knowledge, this is the second report of renin producing hepatoblastoma in the literature. However, due to lack of laboratory facilities such as immunohistochemical study or polyclonal antibody for human renin activity, we could not prove the secretion of renin just by tumor tissue cells, but this potentiality is very likely. Other intensive investigations did not show any other origin for rennin secretion or hypertension in this patient.

Between 33%-46% of admissions in the Emergency Department(ED) are advanced or end-stage cancer patients. They usually stay in emergency for days for management of their symptoms (commonly pain and respiratory distress) or for terminal care.Barriers for delivering palliative care services in the ED:- Traditional attitude among the ED staff that practice life saving approaches for every patient regardless of their disease. - Ambiguous medical rules to protect the ED staff from legal action against them if they refuse to provide futile treatments to satisfy the patients'' family with unrealistic expectations. - Lack of knowledge about palliative care philosophy regarding the better symptom management and terminal care. - To see mortality rate as a failure of the healthcare system even for advanced, incurable cancer patients.There are some suggestions for improving care of this group of patients in the ED.