Cancer - One Family's Journey From Diagnosis to Treatment to Life After Cancer

This is just one family's experience with cancer but it provides an idea of what to expect when cancer ambushes your life leaving you shell-shocked; and can possibly dispel some fears of the unknown. Knowledge is power. When cancer entered our lives we were woefully ignorant about it. Nobody talked about their experience with treatment -- only the types of treatment available. So I am sending this message out to cyber space in hopes it reaches the ones that need to hear it. 

WHAT WILL BE COVERED HERE:

Diagnosis - A Kick in the Gut

Treatment Begins - Chemo and Radiation

The Mistake We Made

Neck Surgery and Results Two Months After Surgery

The After Effects of Radiation and Chemo

Research Notes

Cancer research has made some incredible discoveries since my loved one was diagnosed so your treatment may be different than what we experienced....hang in there. I will continue to update this post as our journey and experience with cancer continues. Today is January 2, 2016 and I can report that my loved one is working, and making the most of life. 

[Update:  It's now November 5, 2018 and my loved one is enjoying life and working.  No cancer has shown on any scans.  But we must be vigilant in an attempt to catch cancer early should it return.]   

All of us value our time together in a way we never did before. In a couple of weeks a full body scan will be performed that will tell us if any visible cancer remains or has returned after several surgeries, radiation and chemo. If the scan comes back clean, my loved one will definitely be more confident going forward. Meanwhile, I try to stay on top of current cancer research in case it rears its ugly head again. At the bottom of this post, I will make notes on cancer research I have encountered.  Hang in there! You are stronger than you think. Never give up.

DIAGNOSIS - A KICK IN THE GUT

Our story began in February 2014 when my loved one bit the inside of the mouth during a dream like many of us do sometime. It did not heal over the course of two months and became more painful. A visit to the dentist and one week of antibiotics did nothing. A visit to the emergency room three months after the initial bite revealed the sore had become a squamous cell cancer tumor, Stage IV, creeping up a nerve toward the brain. Lesson learned….if a sore or injury anywhere on the body does not heal in ten days, seek immediate treatment no matter how trivial. It takes just one cell to mutate incorrectly during healing to turn into cancer. Do not stop seeking treatment until the initial injury heals. Being stoic and enduring pain can kill you.

TREATMENT BEGINS – CHEMO AND RADIATION:

The painful oral tumor prevented my loved one from opening the mouth very far making it difficult to examine. No treatment could begin until a dental check up to see if bad teeth needed to be removed prior to radiation and any dental infections had been treated.  [Radiation can kill jawbone and teeth fall out.]

Then radiation teeth guards and oral hygiene trays had to be made. The mouth had to be opened to make the molds. It was a very painful and emotional event to watch. Then came the insertion of the chemo port in the neck and surgery to insert a feeding tube. It took approximately a week and a half to complete these preliminary steps before the first chemo treatment.

Chemo and radiation each work differently to destroy cancer. We asked why we can't do one or the other? Why do we need both? The doctor explained doing both is a one-two punch against the cancer -- together they are more effective than done alone.

Our next question was if the tumor should be removed before radiation and chemo. The doctor advised against it because he said radiation and chemo could shrink it or perhaps kill it all together. If it shrunk, less tissue would be destroyed removing it. Since it was surrounding a nerve, it was inoperable unless it shrunk off the nerve.

My loved one is claustrophobic so panic set in when viewing the radiation chamber. A net-like mask made specifically for the patient is used to bolt the patient down on the radiation platform keeping them immobile. You can see through the mask but you are aware you are trapped in it with no one present in the room for the length of the treatment. The radiation is mapped out and programmed so there can be no patient movement. My loved one was bolted down for ten minutes every weekday for seven weeks. A pill was taken to reduce the anxiety but it was still difficult. For the first two weeks, there was no difference in the appearance of the face, but eventually a severe sunburn appearance took hold. It is important that a cream is used anywhere the skin has been radiated to keep it from creating open fissures and peeling off. The radiated skin also tends to wrinkle up like it has been dehydrated unless it is moisturized. Hair around the nape of the neck was lost but has regrown. Wherever the most radiation is received, the hair follicles are destroyed. My loved one lost 90 percent hearing in one ear, one saliva gland, and taste has been altered. Chicken and many other things no longer taste good. Dry mouth will always be a problem and water must be available at all times to keep the mouth and throat wet.

The chemo therapy made my loved one very very sick. A lot of gagging and coughing up phlegm was experienced and sleep could only come one to two hours at a time before the gagging or nausea set in. Lying flat was impossible.

Twice during treatment my loved one experienced a hard ball forming on the face in a place other than the original cancer tumor. Was cancer growing in another nearby spot? Trips to the emergency room revealed an irritated salivary gland and an irritated lymph node -- not a new cancer.

My loved one hated the feeding tube and the liquid given to be used with it caused gas, nausea, and diarrhea. Liquid Ensure via the mouth was the meal of choice. A lot of weight was lost. A comfortable chair and bed near a bathroom is a necessity because there is a lot of fatigue, gagging and throwing up. Too much noise and activity around them causes irritation. However, they should not be left alone to dwell on their condition. They may be irritable, and unpleasant to be around, but still need to vent that irritation. It is best to just listen and let them vent. They need to have some control over their lives since cancer has taken away so much of it. The types of worries expressed can be concern over not being the person they were, that they are no longer useful or are a burden to their loved ones, and fear that they will be abandoned. At the same time that they are irritable, they may also be affectionate realizing that life is short and wanting to express their love while there is time. There may come a time when they do not want to talk about cancer because it is always present and they are weary from the battle. They just want to escape it for a while. If possible and they are up to it, arrange some excursion that distracts them from cancer and don’t mention cancer to them during that time.

My loved one has cancer but the whole family has it too…we are just experiencing it in a different way then the patient. For the first time you entertain life with the possibility that they won’t be in it. It seems impossible and unbearable. Little decisions seem so important because if the wrong treatment is given it could be disastrous, or your loved one could misunderstand what you are saying and be upset. Cancer is always the silent elephant in the room.

Tolerance for the way other family members cope with a loved one’s cancer is also needed. We don’t all react the same way. Just because someone acts strong does not mean they aren’t crying inside.

It’s difficult to sleep because of the flight/fight response you are experiencing in your desire to save your loved one. You may not want to talk about it with others because you have no answers to their questions and retelling the story is the same as reliving it.

After chemo and radiation, scans showed that the oral tumor shrank off the nerve leading to the brain but that cancer remained in the lymph nodes and thyroid in the neck. Extensive oral biopsy showed no cancer cells survived in the oral tumor area after treatment. No surgery was performed to remove anything in the mouth after chemo and radiation. There is a hard spot where the tumor was that may be scar tissue. Jaw mobility without pain was restored although the mouth cannot be opened as wide as before cancer. Some taste on one side of the tongue and some hearing returned. Fatigue remains.

THE MISTAKE WE MADE:

Why, after chemo and radiation, did cancer survive in the neck? It was a mystery until doctors realized my loved one had two different types of cancers at the same time, and they don't both respond to the same treatment. Make sure you are not the rare cancer patient that has more than one type of cancer that goes undetected while being treated for the one type of cancer that is known. Please do not make the mistake we did. We thought my loved one had cancer without realizing that there are many different types of cancers that respond to treatment differently. ==> Treatment for one type of cancer can render another type of cancer 'untreatable'! Because it is rare for a patient to have two types of cancer at once, the doctors treating my loved one did not realize there were two different cancers in play so they recommended a course of treatment for the cancer type they were aware of: Squamous Cell Cancer. The treatment as you know was radiation and chemotherapy followed by surgery.

Later, after radiation and chemotherapy, we found out that Thyroid cancer was also present. A scan revealed that because my loved one was radiated for the squamous cell cancer, the thyroid cancer cells have mutated into untreatable cancer cells. They can spread at will without being detected. A pet scan in some cases can find them but it is not reliable. This is not good news for us because we were relying on removing any cancer that spread and showed up during my loved one's lifetime. My loved one will continue with thyroid cancer treatment including lymph node and thyroid removal, which has been done, and swallowing a radioactive pill and remaining alone for five days. But there is no way to know if the pill will destroy all the thyroid cancer cells still present after surgery since they have mutated and are now resistant to treatment and undetectable.

When you have dental xrays, make sure your thyroid is shielded by the lead vest.

NECK SURGERY AND RESULTS TWO MONTHS AFTER SURGERY:

My loved one’s frontal neck surgery removed the thyroid and 40 lymph nodes of which 12 were cancerous with thyroid cancer -- not squamous cell like the tumor in the mouth. Lymph nodes in the rear of the neck were not touched and because of the prior radiation it cannot be determined if they are cancerous. Even though a daily thyroid medication is taken, my loved one has lost 60 pounds and is very thin. It is hard to tell if that is from the effects of the treatments or if a painful jaw is preventing proper levels of food consumption. For those concerned about scarring from this type of surgery, the scar extends from behind one ear down into the natural neck folds and up to behind the opposite ear in a smile formation.

The neck surgery took nine hours and was closed with staples which were removed painlessly after a week. Three draining tubes were inserted around the neck to drain the fluid buildup at the surgery site. They were removed two days after surgery (after two months, shoulder pain remains which is attributed to those tubes).

Massive doses of calcium are given during the hospital stay to see if the body is absorbing it post surgery. If the body absorbs correctly, the patient can go home to recover. My loved one spent four days in the hospital.

There was swelling in the neck area for a while but then it subsided and the neck looks normal. The neck is stiff and it became painful to hold up without support after surgery. No neck brace can be worn because of the surgical scar in that area. Eventually the neck muscles rebuild and it becomes easier to hold the neck and head up. Physical therapy is recommended because scar tissue can form that prevents neck mobility.

The scar is healing nicely but is still a very thin red smile line which is not that noticeable when looking straight frontal but is noticeable from the side view. The scar is expected to fade over time and does blend in nicely with the natural neck folds. The neck is slightly thinner but not deformed. It is important that a vitamin E cream is used on the scar after it closes and anywhere the skin has been radiated. The radiated skin tends to wrinkle up like it has been dehydrated unless it is moisturized. My loved one needs physical therapy to restore more function and movement to the neck but so far has refused. Without physical therapy and forced movement (even with some pain) scar tissue forms and muscle atrophy will eventually prevent mobility.

THE AFTER EFFECTS OF RADIATION AND CHEMO:

The radiation has caused jaw bone death which was expected around four months after radiation to the neck. My loved one underwent 20 rounds (1.5 hours each) in a hyperbolic chamber to force blood into the dying jaw area to stop the deterioration. During this process, an infection set in in the jaw and antibiotics had to be taken.

It has been weeks since we found out about the jaw bone death, and surgery was performed April 24, 2015 after 20 dives in the hyperbolic chamber. Because radiation to the face and neck tightens and changes the internal structures of the face and neck and makes resuscitation difficult, an air tube prior to surgery sometimes has to be inserted down the nose while the patient is awake prior to complete anesthesia. Luckily, my loved one had enough of an opening and jaw and neck movement that it was not necessary. A roughly 2.5 inch by 5 mm section of jaw bone and three teeth in the left lower rear jaw were removed during outpatient surgery. Blood was taken from my loved one, spun, and the growth factors removed from the blood. The growth factors were injected in the surgery site to induce the growth of blood vessels in the area since much tissue was damaged by the radiation to the side of the face and neck. The surgery took 3 hours from entering the operating room to recovery, and then my loved one went home to recover. Because morphine causes my loved one nightmares, Percocet was prescribed for pain. Even though an extra amount of numbing medication was administered at the end of surgery, pain at a level of 4 (from 1 to 10 with 10 being the worst) was experienced during recovery. Two Percocet, one at a time with a twenty minute wait time, was administered and helped tremendously. There will be a liquid diet the first two days and then a soft diet (scrambled eggs, macaroni and cheese, soups) for the next two weeks.

Ten more hyperbolic chamber dives of 1.5 hours each will be given now that the jaw surgery is complete in an effort to restore blood flow to the jaw.

It has been nearly three weeks since the jaw bone surgery and the ten hyperbolic chamber dives have been completed. The gums are not reattaching to the jaw bone as hoped and another section of dead bone has been found further back from the surgery site. Five more hyperbolic chamber dives are required before a course of treatment will be determined.

May 20, 2015 and the jawbone continues to die. The gums will not heal over the surgery site. No decisions on what to do yet. Wait, wait, wait another week for an answer. It could take a year or more before all the jaw bone that is going to die dies. In the meantime, infection is the immediate enemy. When the exposed dead jaw bone turns yellow, infection can set in and surgery must be performed. Always in the back of our minds is the question of how much jaw bone will be left and will it be disfiguring.

There is hope that the jawbone surgery will be the last surgery needed unless the cancer reappears and is detectable. But if the jaw bone surgery closes incorrectly, infection sets in, or the tissues do not regenerate, additional bone death can occur and more surgery will be required. If more jaw bone needs to be removed, bone will be taken from my loved one’s hip area to replace it. It is all a waiting game from now on.

It’s been a year now since that first cell mutated into cancer and all our lives are forever changed. Cancer is a bitch and it tests your metal in every conceivable way. Bless the oncologists, surgeons, nurses, and peripheral staff that fight this everyday on the front lines.

January 27, 2016. My loved one has had a full body scan that compared this scan with those of the past. It shows NO NEW incidences of cancer, or growth of cancer in previous cancerous areas. Hallelujah! There is a spot on the lung but that may just be a lesion from a previous infection. The next scan will be in six months. The jaw bone continues to deteriorate at the point it was radiated. The dry, brittle area is scraped off from time to time, but the gums stubbornly won't cover it. We are told we will have to wait to see how much jaw bone death will occur. My loved one, while looking well enough, still has lingering effects from chemo and radiation experiencing a tiredness and feeling old nearly a year after treatment. This is normal and may subside with time. There are intermittent sharp pains where the neck incision was made (from ear to ear) and the neck becomes sore and tires easily. My loved one mistakenly continues to refuse physical therapy for the neck and shoulder areas. The incision is no longer pink after a year and has receded nicely into the neck folds, although the cheek is dry and wrinkly from radiation. One doctor has recommended a filler under the skin for that area...not botox. Initially told incorrectly in May 2014 that this was Stage IV cancer, we are so grateful for this outcome to date, and look forward to increasingly better, less invasive, treatment for cancer.

May 9, 2016: Bad news…my loved one’s ultrasound found a 1cm lump on the left side of the neck. The doctors think it's a left over lymph node. My loved ones labs also came back with .2 on thyroid detection... which is low, but according to the doctors indicates thyroid cancer cells are still in the body. My loved one may still have thyroid cancer. The next scan in five months will tell us more.

December 22, 2016: My loved one's two recent biopsies just came back negative for cancer! After radiation, chemo, multiple...too many to count... hyperbolic chamber dives, dying jawbone, and three surgeries over two years...I'm so incredibly thankful! If you or a loved one has cancer, don't give up. Technology is on your side and winning more and more each day.

RESEARCH NOTES:

11/6/18:  “Lab on a chip” technology can be used to create individualized treatments for cancer. New immunotherapy technique can specifically target tumor cells, UCI study reports.

Irvine, Calif., Nov. 6, 2018 — A new immunotherapy screening prototype developed by University of California, Irvine researchers can quickly create individualized cancer treatments that will allow physicians to effectively target tumors without the side effects of standard cancer drugs.

UCI’s Weian Zhao and Nobel laureate David Baltimore with Caltech led the research team that developed a tracking and screening system that identifies T cell receptors with 100-percent specificity for individual tumors within just a few days. Research findings appear in Lab on a Chip. (Link to study: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2018/lc/c8lc00818c?page=search)

In the human immune system, T cells have molecules on their surfaces that bind to antigens on the surface of foreign or cancer cells. To treat a tumor with T cell therapy, researchers must identify exactly which receptor molecules work against a specific tumor’s antigens. UCI researchers have sped up that identification process.

“This technology is particularly exciting because it dismantles major challenges in cancer treatments,” said Zhao, an associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences who is affiliated with the Chao Family Comprehensive Center and the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center. “This use of droplet microfluidics screening significantly reduces the cost of making new cancer immunotherapies that are associated with less systemic side effects than standard chemotherapy drugs, and vastly speeds up the timeframe for treatment.”

Zhao added that traditional cancer treatments have offered a one-size-fits-all disease response, such as chemotherapy drugs which can involve systemic and serious side effects.

T cell receptor (TCR)-engineered T cell therapy, a newer technology, harnesses the patient’s own immune system to attack tumors. On the surface of cancer cells are antigens, protruding molecules that are recognized by the body’s immune system T cells. This new therapy places engineered molecules on the patient’s T cells which will bind to their cancer cell antigens, allowing the T cell to destroy the cancer cell. TCR therapy can be individualized, so each patient can have T cells designed specifically for their tumor cells.

This antigen-TCR recognition system is very specific – there can be hundreds of millions of different types of TCR molecules. A big challenge for TCR-T cell therapy development remains in identifying particular TCR molecules out of a pool of millions of possibilities. Finding a match can take up to a year (time many cancer patients don’t have) and can cost half a million dollars or more per treatment.

By using miniscule oil-water droplets, Zhao’s team designed a device that allows for individual T cells to join with cancer cells in microscopic fluid containers. The TCRs that bind with the cancer cells’ antigens can be sorted and identified within days, considerably faster than the months or year that previous technologies required. The technology also significantly reduces the cost of making individualized TCRs and accelerates the pipeline of TCR-T cell therapy to clinic.

Through a partnership with Amberstone Biosciences, a UCI start-up, this entire platform and screening process will be available to pharmaceutical companies for drug development within just a few months. Not only can this technology help revolutionize TCR-T cell therapies for cancer, but it will also be a powerful tool for discovering other immunological agents, including antibodies and CAR-T cells, and for elucidating new immunology and cancer biology at a depth not possible before.

Aude I. Segaliny, Lingshun Kong, Ci Ren, and Xiaoming Chen of UCI contributed to this work, in addition to Guideng Li, Jessica K. Wang and Guikai Wu. This work was supported by UCI Applied Innovation, the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center and the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. The work was funded by National Institutes of Health (grants 1DP2CA195763 and R21CA219225) and Amberstone Biosciences LLC: No. AB-208317.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is the youngest member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. The campus has produced three Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 30,000 students and offers 192 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $5 billion annually to the local economy. For more on UCI, visit www.uci.edu.

Media access: Radio programs/stations may, for a fee, use an on-campus ISDN line to interview UCI faculty and experts, subject to availability and university approval. For more UCI news, visit news.uci.edu. Additional resources for journalists may be found at communications.uci.edu/for-journalists.

#Cancer #immunotherapy #Minds #Research #Technology

https://news.uci.edu/2018/11/06/new-immunotherapy-technique-can-specifically-target-tumor-cells-uci-study-reports/

5/5/2015: My loved one was diagnosed with squamous cell oral cancer in 2014. Subsequently, after radiation and chemo for the oral cancer, thyroid cancer was found. We knew that there was cancer present in the neck before it was discovered to be thyroid cancer. We thought it was the squamous cell cancer that had spread from the oral tumor.

Why did my loved one have two cancers at the same time? Yes, it could be a coincidence, but one has to wonder if there is something more to it. My loved one had extensive fluoroscopy conducted after removal of uvula for sleep apnea, and swallowed barium during fluoroscopy xray to image the throat several years prior to developing cancer. Online research shows that the FDA was concerned as far back as 2008 about excessive radiation exposure in CT Scans. I am not recommending that anyone refuse a CT Scan or a fluoroscopy necessary for medical treatment, but there does seem to be evidence that cells subject to radiation can become damaged while remaining viable. With their mutated DNA, do they spawn cancer? After reading the articles below, it seems that many people develop leukemia (a blood cancer) years after receiving radiation. Unless I misunderstood the article, it seems a study done in 2008 in San Francisco indicated that not all medical x-rays had consistent levels of radiation, and many times the level of radiation was excessive. It was of enough concern, that the FDA posted a cancer risk notification on it's website.

These are the links I am referring to:

http://www.fda.gov/Radiation-EmittingProducts/RadiationEmittingProductsandPro

cedures/MedicalImaging/MedicalX-Rays/ucm115354.htm

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/caac.21132/pdf

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/causes/radiation/InterventionalFluor.pdf

4/15/2015: HOW IT WORKS: CANCER-FIGHTING IMMUNOTHERAPY

In the war against cancer, doctors have discovered a powerful new tool: the immune system. The FDA recently fast-tracked approval of three new immunotherapy drugs, called PD-1 inhibitors, designed to help white blood cells hunt down and eradicate hard-to-fight tumors--indefinitely. “Chemotherapy almost always stops working,” says Jonathan Cheng, executive director of oncology clinical development at Merck. “The promise of immune therapy is that you’re training the immune system to attack something foreign, so you’re able to maintain that activity for a very long time--hopefully for the rest of a patient’s life.”

Link: http://www.sciencehook.com/hook.php?entryID=360

4/15/2015: Cancer Research on the Evolution of Cancer Cells

Why does cancer go into remission after treatment, and then come roaring back? Cancer starts with one cell mutating in an abnormal way. Scientists mapping the evolution of cancer cells think there is evidence that cancer continues to mutate in stages and those stages do not respond to the same therapy. There may be cancer cells in a tumor in various stages of mutation so therapy will be effective for some parts of the tumor but not others. The tumor is like a family with many children (cells) at various ages that respond differently, e.g. you wouldn’t treat an infant the same as a five year old. Even though the tumor shrinks after treatment, some cancer cells within the tumor will be in a stage that makes them immune to that treatment. It is important that a tumor be analyzed to determine the stage that the majority of its cells are in to determine the most effective treatment. Through the 'evolutionary/family tree' line of research, scientists are hoping to change our ‘Cancer’ game from one of defense to offense. Read about it at: http://www.alwaysresearching.com/2015/04/15/from-snapshot-to-family-tree-writing-the-evolutionary-rule-book-of-cancer/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=gplus

4/21/15 Pancreatic Cancer Research: A new research study has shown that pancreatic cancer cells can be coaxed to revert back toward normal cells by introducing a protein called E47. E47 binds to specific DNA sequences and controls genes involved in growth and differentiation. The research provides hope for a new treatment approach for the more than 40,000 people who die from the disease each year in the United States.

“For the first time, we have shown that overexpression of a single gene can reduce the tumor-promoting potential of pancreatic adenocarcinoma cells and reprogram them toward their original cell type. Thus, pancreatic cancer cells retain a genetic memory which we hope to exploit,” said Pamela Itkin-Ansari, Ph.D., adjunct professor in the Development, Aging, and Regeneration Program at Sanford-Burnham and lead author of the study published today in the journal Pancreas. E47 turns the clock back The study, a collaborative effort between Sanford-Burnham, UC San Diego, where Itkin-Ansari holds a joint appointment, and Purdue University, generated human pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cell lines to make higher-than-normal levels of E47. The increased amount of E47 caused cells to stall in the G0/G1 growth phase, and differentiate back toward an acinar cell phenotype. - See more at: http://beaker.sanfordburnham.org/2015/04/pancreatic-cancer-breakthrough-scientists-turn-cancer-cells-into-normal-cells/#sthash.oPYWrOHW.dpuf

April 27, 2015 Colon Rectal Cancer:

Author: Chris Jones-Cardiff

Cardiff University Original Study

Posted by Chris Jones-Cardiff on April 27, 2015

You are free to share this article under the Attribution 4.0 International license.

A new study is the first to show that common inherited genetic variants influence life expectancy in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC).

A team from Cardiff University’s School of Medicine analyzed over 7,600 patients with CRC from 14 different centers across the UK and the US. They found that a genetic variant in the gene CDH1 (encoding E-cadherin) was strongly linked to survival.

Having combined data of both inherited genetic variations and variations found within the cancers, the scientists believe that the resulting information will play a crucial role in managing patient survival.

“Our findings show that patients carrying a specific genetic variant, which is found in about 8 percent of patients, have worse survival, with a decrease in life expectancy of around four months in the advanced disease setting,” says study leader Professor Jeremy Cheadle.

“This work shows the potential use of genetic variants to help provide clinically useful information to patients suffering from colon cancer,” says Lee Campbell, science projects and research communications manager from Cancer Research Wales, which part-funded the study.

“Not only does this important piece of research allow clinicians to make more informed treatment decisions for individuals in future, but also has the capability to enhance existing screening or post-operative surveillance programs for this disease.”

“This represents a critical first step to improving colorectal cancer patient outcomes through a greater understanding of the influencing genetic factors,” adds Ian Lewis, director of research and policy at Tenovus Cancer Care.

The Bobby Moore Fund from Cancer Research UK, Tenovus Cancer Care, the Kidani Trust, Cancer Research Wales, and the National Institute for Social Care and Health Research Cancer Genetics Biomedical Research Unit (2011-2015) supported the work.

The findings are available in Clinical Cancer Research.

Source: Cardiff University

http://www.alwaysresearching.com/2015/04/27/gene-variant-linked-to-colon-cancer-survival/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=gplus

Original article source: http://www.futurity.org/gene-bowel-colorectal-cancer-907542/

Clinical findings: http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/early/2015/04/14/1078-0432.CCR-14-3136.abstract

#Cancer #CancerTreatment #Minds #squamousCellCarcinoma #ThryroidCancer