More than 90% of deaths due to cancer are due to metastasis, the spread of cancer cells to other parts of the body. One major unmet need of cancer specialists is to know if a cancer patient already has circulating cancer cells in the blood.
“Circulating tumor cells” or CTCs are cells that detach from a primary tumor and circulate in the blood stream. They potentially seed single or multiple body sites with cancer cells that develop metastatic tumors. Counting CTCs can help doctors see the progress of a patient’s cancer condition especially during treatment.
The CellSearch™ System is the only standardized and validated test approved the United States’ Food and Drug Administration (USFDA). It is a blood test that captures and assesses CTCs to determine prognosis of individuals having breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers. The developer of this system, Veridex, LLC, claims it is an adjunct to current standard testing methods providing a more complete picture of patient of prognosis.
Its limitation: it can only count CTCs. It cannot determine the number of different cell population and the gene expression of cells.
The Cleveland Clinic voted the CellSearch System as the top innovative medical product for 2009.
Based from the article “Revisiting the Need to Detect Circulating Tumor Cells” by ScienceDaily.
Categories: Materia medica
Remember the first Spiderman movie when the character played by actor Willem Dafoe was experimenting a gaseous chemical that can enhance endurance and strength? Well, that storyline may be partially true if the study by researchers from the University of South Carolina would have us to believe. The study is published in the August 2009 issue of the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism.
Categories: Materia medica
A Filipino Infectious Disease specialist from San Lazaro Hospital, Dr. Alexis Dimapilis, was interviewed by Ms. Pinky Webb in ABS-CBN’s Umagang Kay Ganda, a daily morning TV show for Filipinos.
Note: This is an interview spoken in mixed Tagalog and English.
Categories: Materia medica
Last May, the Public Library of Science (PLoS) Pathogens published a report headed by a team of researchers from Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center which found that a very common pathogen, cytomegalovirus (CMV), and which infects more than half of the world’s population, can be a cause of high blood pressure.
Categories: Miscellaneous
Based on a report from the Naked Scientists Podcast
A team of US researchers from the Center for Molecular Imaging Research, Harvard Medical School, discovered a much improved imaging technique to identify and assess cancer and normal tissues without the harmful effects as has been observed in x-ray imaging.
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